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Quoted from Friday Night Fanstand on both Facebook and also reported on Twitter

"BREAKING: Huge S/O Leander DL Michael Epley ('14), verbally committing to attend Southern Methodist University after his Lion playing days."

"Epley notched over 80 tackles, 4 sacks despite facing double teams on most plays. The all district lineman will join Westlake QB Jordan Severt ('14) at SMU in 2014. But first, #7 has some unfinished business with his fellow Lions. Congrats to the entire Epley Family!"

Class of 2014

http://insider.espn.go.com/college-spor ... hael-epley

keep the DL recruits coming!!

Scout has him at 6'4" 240 4.7
Rivals 2 stars
Offer from Rice
247 sports 2 stars
247 sports #163 athlete in country
247 sports #304 player in Texas
32.4" vertical

I find it interesting that 247 rates him as the #163 ATHLETE in the country, not defensive end. Or am I misreading that?

Congratulations, Michael!

6'4" 240- I'm assuming he's slated to be a 3-4 end? Pretty good size already, should be able to get up to 270-280.

I believe Rivals and Scout have him at DE. He has a lot of accolades. Nice add to the class.

At the Dallas SPARQ Combine (not sure what SPARQ stands for ... info was posted April 17), he measured in at 6-2.5, 242. He ran the 40 in 4.85, a 4.18 shuttle, 40.0' PB (anyone know what PB stands for?), 32.4" vertical jump, and posted a 112.08 SPARQ (???)

Breakdown: Ran the fastest shuttle for a defensive lineman on the day, leading to the top DL SPARQ Rating in Dallas.

Apparently he went to Junior Day at Frog High.

First-team All-District 25-4A as a junior.

Quote from Leander coach Lee Bridges in Statesman story: “Epley is so strong, I’m not sure there are going to be many people who can block him,” Bridges said.

I talked this afternoon with a sports writer who covers Leander and is very familiar with Epley. Here's what he told me:

"I watched Leander play anywhere from 5-7 times last year and watched them during spring. Epley is an athletic guy with good size (6-3 or 6-4, 250 is probably pretty accurate from my estimation), really stood out to me during spring practice. Dave Campbell's picked him as pre-season defensive MVP in District 25-4A, which is actually quite an honor in one of the state's best 4A defensive districts.

"Last year he was pretty dominant on a great defense (80 tackles, 12 TFL, 10 sacks) and I expect he'll be even better next year. During spring practice he was very quick off the edge and was Leander's best defensive player, in my opinion."

So both sports writers that PonyPride spoke with have the same opinion of the kid.

mrydel wrote:So both sports writers that PonyPride spoke with have the same opinion of the kid.

Or maybe he spoke to the same sportswriter twice and he said the exact same thing both times. Either way that is very impressive!

Ha! Sorry about the double post — fixed... Thanks.

Here's another article on Epley:

http://www.smu.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1519095

Good size, good athleticism, good smarts. I'm pretty excited about this guy.