Mack Brown brings attention to Myers, other MLK players

Recruiting is not always about the high school football player that has 30 offers from major teams in BCS conferences. More often it’s about the averaged-sized, better-than-average player who just hopes to continue his athletic career beyond high school with some kind of grant-in-aid somewhere.

M.L. King’s Cameron Myers is such a player.

Myers hasn’t commanded a quarter of the attention of his better-known teammate, Mack Brown, a Florida commit generally considered the No. 1 tailback in the state. But it was the senior quarterback’s scrambling ability and two touchdown passes that was difference in the Lions’ 13-9 upset over No. 1-ranked rival Southwest DeKalb in the season opener this past Friday.

“We had to lean on him,” MLK coach Corey Jarvis said of Myers. “They were keying on Mack big time. That’s the way it’s going to be this year. We’ve got to get other folks the football. We’re going to have to do some things with our quarterback and our receivers.”

Myers’ numbers against Southwest DeKalb won’t blow anybody away. He was 6-of-15 passing for 110 yards with two TDs and an interception. He added six rushes for 27 yards. But the stats are more impressive placed in the context of the game. SWD, which had already snuffed out MLK’s running game, was putting incredible pressure on Myers every time he went back to pass. Georgia commitment T.J. Stripling (6-foot-6, 215 pounds) was particularly troublesome. He spent the better part of night in the MLK backfield, never, it seems, very far from Myers.

Yet Myers was able to get loose long enough to throw two strikes for touchdowns and had another long scramble for a crucial, chain-moving first down late in the game.

“We were getting a lot of pressure,” Myers said. “The offensive line did a good job of giving me enough time to look downfield. I was just had to do what I had to do to help the team out.”

That performance is starting to earn Myers some recruiting notice, albeit modest in comparison to that of Brown and some other MLK players. He said he is starting to get a few calls and was pulled out of class Monday because William & Mary had asked for his transcripts.

“Coach told me Air Force is going to offer me,” Myers said. “North Carolina A&T has offered me. I get letters from Indiana.  And Georgia Tech is looking at me a little bit, Ole Miss is a little bit. That’s about it.”

While he’s confident in his own abilities, Myers (6-foot, 180 pounds) credits Brown for much of the recruiting attention that he and most of his teammates are getting.

“It’s fun because, him being the No. 1 running back in the state, it brings a lot of [teams] to the school,” Meyers said of Brown, who committed to the Gators in late July. “That’s why I’m being looked at. Everybody here is kind of depending on him to get us scholarships because all of the schools that are recruiting him.

“I was thinking that he should’ve waited until the end of the season to commit,” Myers said with a laugh.

In the meantime, Myers is trying to concentrate on getting MLK to where it wants to do.

“I just want to come out every game and play well. I want to win games,” he said. “Martin Luther King has never won a state championship. We’ve got to win state this year. We want an undefeated season and we want to win region championship. Hopefully we can bring the state championship to MLK.”