Top football recruit Kahlil McKenzie leaves De La Salle

By Mitch Stephens Jun 9, 2014, 12:00am

Nation's No. 35 recruit leaves nation's No. 5 team before his senior year.

Kahlil McKenzie (left) had 12 sacks and earned All-American second-team honors as a junior at De La Salle.
Kahlil McKenzie (left) had 12 sacks and earned All-American second-team honors as a junior at De La Salle.
Photo by Dennis Lee
One of the nation's top 2015 football recruits is leaving perhaps the nation's most recognizable football program.

Kahlil McKenzie, a dominating 6-foot-4, 330-pound defensive tackle ranked the No. 35 recruit overall by 247Sports, withdrew from De La Salle (Concord, Calif.) today after only one year.

McKenzie announced the withdrawl on his Twitter account and De La Salle coach Justin Alumbaugh confirmed by phone a short time ago. McKenzie said he will be transferring to Clayton Valley Charter (Concord, Calif.), a public school about three miles from the De La Salle campus, and that he wouldn't take any questions on the matter.

"Kahlil is a great kid - a great player - and we wish him nothing but the best," Alumbaugh said. "That's all I can really say."



Calls and texts to McKenzie and a text to his father, Oakland Raiders General Manager Reggie McKenzie, were not immediately returned. Apparently a debate whether Kahlil should attend Nike's "The Opening" summer camp was at the heart of a small rift. Alumbaugh would not confirm or comment.

Kahlil transferred to De La Salle from Southwest (Green Bay, Wis.) a year after his father was hired by the Raiders. A hard worker with a gregarious personality, Kahlil was very popular among players and the coaching staff.

"He showed up last year and just went right to work," Alumbaugh said on May 17. "He lost a lot of body fat and got a lot stronger in the weight room. The kids really like him. There's a lot of attention placed upon him, he doesn't draw it himself. He treats the other guys very well."

Asked about his talent on May 17, Alumbaugh said: "He can be really special. He's one of the more talented guys we've ever had."

He showed it with a team-high 12 sacks last year and 74 tackles, earning him second-team All-American honors. In the spring, he hit the weights even harder and also won the North Coast Section Meet of Champions shot put title.

Last weekend at the state finals in Clovis, he earned a spot in the finals and placed 11th overall.



Clayton Valley coach Tim Murphy said that to his knowledge, McKenzie has not applied to the charter school, but he's heard the rumors.

"But every week I hear four or five guys are transferring to our school," he said. "About one of 10 actually do it. I've never met the kid. I wouldn't know if Kahlil McKenzie walked right by me, though I've heard he's pretty big."

Transferring to any school in the NCS might not guarantee McKenzie can play football his senior season.

Gil Lemmon, the NCS commissioner, said Monday that students transferring from a private school to any public school — charter or otherwise — still have to meet exhaustive and strict rules. The most important is that the transfer cannot be "athletically motivated." If deemed so, then no matter if there's a change of residency or not, Lemmon can rule a student athletically ineligible for up to a school year.

He said he receives sometimes 10 to 15 calls a week from parents, for 30-40 minutes each, wanting to know eligibility issues laid out in form 207/208/510 of the NCS bylaws.

"I will always listen and will explain to them all the rules," he said.



All calls in advance are confidential, Lemmon said, and "I never make rulings before the actual transfer. My decisions are based on the applications I begin seeing Aug. 1. … I look at all the circumstances as they apply to the rule, then grant the least-restrictive measure possible."

Transfers from De La Salle are rare. Another high-profile athlete and son of a famous father, Nate Montana, transferred from De La Salle to Oaks Christian (Westlake Village, Calif.) in 2008. Montana, the son of Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana, transferred from Cardinal Newman (Santa Rosa, Calif.) his sophomore season and started on the De La Salle JV team.

With stiff competition at quarterback, his private quarterback coach located in Southern California and a more pass-friendly offense at Oaks Christian, Nate Montana's family moved to Westlake Village. He had two successful seasons at Oaks Christian, passing for more than 5,000 yards and 67 touchdowns in two seasons and the Lions went 27-1.

McKenzie recently narrowed his college choices to Arizona or Tennessee. He plans to announce his decision at "The Opening," on July 10.

De La Salle, which has won upwards of eight mythical national titles, is No. 5 in the MaxPreps preseason rankings. With six starters returning on offense and now five on defense, the Spartans will still be a national and state threat. But without McKenzie dominating the middle, others will definitely have to step up.