HOUSTON, Texas -- On a cool, rainy day at the Kinkaid School on Sunday, some of the top prospects from Texas and Louisiana competed at the Houston Nike Football Training Camp, with three attendees earning their invites to The Opening, the prestigious summer event hosted by Nike that features 150 of the top prospects in the country.
3 recruits earn The Opening invites at the Houston Nike Football Training Camp
A little bit of rain didn’t stop more than 240 attendees from showing out.
Student Sports
Here are the recruits who punched their tickets:
- Houston (Texas) Clear Lake tight end Jordan Davis (Texas A&M commit)
- Shreveport (La.) Evangel offensive tackle Jerry Tillery (Notre Dame commit)
- Orange (Texas) West-Orange Stark safety Deionte Thompson (Alabama commit)
And in a change from the Dallas Nike Football Training Camp on Saturday, the positional MVPs came from players not selected to make the trip to Portland in late June/early July:
- Quarterback: Skyler Bonneau of Coppell (Texas)
- Running back: Remus Bulmer of Sugar Land (Texas) Ridge Point
- Wide receiver/tight end: Gary Haynes of Alvin (Texas) Manvel
- Offensive line: Erik McCoy of Lufkin (Texas)
- Defensive line: Nikolas Daniels of League City (Texas) Clear Creek
- Linebacker: Spencer Choka of Bryan (Texas) Rudder
- Defensive back: Deontay Anderson of Alvin (Texas) Manvel
Davis was expectedly impressive working against the defensive backs on Sunday -- the 6’5, 255-pounder works as a wide receiver for his high school offense.
On this particular rep against rising Nacogdoches (Texas) cornerback Jaylon Lane, Davis isn’t able to come up with the catch under heavy pressure from Lane, but it does provide a look at the shake at the line of scrimmage that the Texas A&M commit possesses:
For Tillery, who has been pledged to the Fighting Irish since last summer, his invite was partly about his measurables. The Evangel Christian product was 6’7 and 312 pounds at the event and ran a 5.05 40 and a 4.69 shuttle, and turned in a vertical leap measured at 28 inches.
Of course, he wouldn’t have earned the invite if his quick feet hadn’t translated to one-on-one drills:
The one-on-one drills for the defensive backs tend to favor cornerbacks who work often in man coverage, but Thompson was able to hold his own with his combination of length and physicality. Oh yeah, and leaping ability as well.
He dropped several interceptions on a wet day, but he’s proven during the fall that he can finish plays with interceptions and hones his hands on the offensive side of the ball, where he often looks like a player capable of starting at the position in college, though he told SB Nation Recruiting that he’s locked in to playing defensive back for the Tide, as he believes that his professional future is on that side of the football.
Here’s a look at one of his near interceptions:
