Wise (Md.) cornerback AJ Lytton is one of the most sought-after recruits at one of football’s most sought-after positions. Lytton is the No. 3 cornerback in the class of 2018, according to the industry-driven 247Sports Composite.
Why 5-star FSU commit AJ Lytton is one of 2018’s top cornerback recruits
He models his game after Deion Sanders’.
Alex Kirshner/SB Nation
He committed on Thursday to play in college at Florida State. He picked the Seminoles out of a top five that included Maryland, Alabama, Penn State, and Clemson.
Last weekend, Lytton was a standout at Nike’s regional combine for The Opening, and he earned an invitation to the event’s finals later this summer in Portland. (That’s college football’s most prestigious recruiting showcase.) He’ll have his pick of any school in the country, more or less, because his skills are not teachable. The basics:
- Lytton has breakneck speed. He ran a 4.49-second 40-yard dash.
- Lytton can sky. His vertical leap on Sunday measured at 37.8 inches.
- Lytton has what football coaches call “short-area quickness.” He can move in and out of his cuts with fluidity that seems impossible for a high school player.
Lytton’s not huge, having measured in Sunday at 5’10 and 173 pounds. But he’s plenty big for an inside cornerback, and he’s definitely big enough, fast enough, and vertical enough to play on the outside, too. Or he could play safety, because these skills work anywhere on the field. That’s part of why his recruitment’s taken off in the last year.
“I got better because I transferred from free safety to cornerback,” Lytton said.” So I can play anything at the DB position, so that makes me better as a person and as a football player, to know that my coach can move me around all over the field and I can play any spot at the DB position.”
Lytton tries to model his game after a cornerback whose prime years occurred while Lytton was both not born and a toddler. He went to FSU, too.
“Deion Sanders,” he said. “The way he played, just like the swag he played with. The confidence he had. You’ve gotta have confidence to play cornerback.”
