Alabama is recruiting a different kind of running back in Anthony McFarland

Very few football prospects have gotten the same recruiting pitch as Anthony McFarland.

The four-star all-purpose back from DeMatha Catholic in Hyattsville, Md., is one of the highest-rated skill players in the 2017 class. He can’t sign with a college program until February, but he’s already swimming in high-profile scholarship offers from Alabama, Clemson, Florida, Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan and nearly every other top school.

Alabama’s pitch to McFarland would seem especially appealing. While he might eventually wind up playing receiver, McFarland is mostly a running back these days. Nobody churns out elite running backs more regularly than the Crimson Tide, who have pushed especially hard for McFarland. But while McFarland likes Alabama a lot, he wants to be his own man, even as Alabama pitches him on being one of the next men up in a long line of dominant Tuscaloosa runners.

“They say that, but I feel like I’m different, though. You’re not gonna really find too many people that can run the ball and catch the ball out of the backfield and can go out there and play wideout,” McFarland told SB Nation at a Washington, D.C., regional camp on Sunday for Nike’s The Opening. “You’re not gonna really find too many people like that.”

McFarland’s playing style emphasizes speed above all else. He’s not a bruiser in the same mold as Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson, T.J. Yeldon or Derrick Henry, but he might just find a way to be similarly effective.

His recruitment remains open, with McFarland aiming to cut his list to 15 schools by the end of the summer. Asked if any schools have distinguished themselves, he named Alabama, Oklahoma, Miami, South Carolina and Maryland, his hometown school.

“Just the schools I can think of off the top of my head, those are schools that have really been standing out to me, showing me a lot of love,” he said. But nothing is final.

McFarland is 5’9 and 190 pounds, but he runs with a lot of oomph. His short stature screams “slot receiver,” but he’s got the route-running chops to play on the outside. He’s got the speed and agility, perhaps, to just stay at running back. Or, likeliest of all, he’ll move around the formation for whichever school signs him.

He was one of three players at Sunday’s regional camp to earn an invitation to Nike’s national Opening camp, held for the country’s best high school players in Oregon in July.

Where exactly McFarland will ultimately line up – and for which team – remains up in the air. But he’s not preoccupied about his smallish stature getting in his way, no matter where he lands.

“You’ve just gotta be fearless, you know? I know, for myself, I’m a speed guy, but I don’t really like going down. I like to show my power and stuff like that, but it’s just all about being fearless, man. If you love the game, man, you’re not going to back down from no linebackers or things like that,” McFarland said. “You’re gonna do what you have to do to get in the end zone at the end of the day. That’s my job, to get in the end zone, so I’m gonna do what I have to do to get in the end zone. I don’t care how tall I am, how big I am. It doesn’t matter to me.”