Workers get one of the main fields ready Sunday for Monday's start of The Opening at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Ore.
Photo by Todd Shurtleff
If Bo Jackson is coming, then you know it's big. Bo knows big.
So does Ndamukong Suh and Aaron Rodgers. They all are scheduled to make appearances, as are 2013 NFL first-round picks Tavon Austin, Eli Manuel, Dee Milner and Desmond Trufant.
And none of the above are the headliners.
Nike's emblem for The Opening
Photo by Todd Shurtleff
Those would be 161 of the nation's top high school football prospects who are gathered at Nike's World Headquarters for another round of The Opening, arguably the nation's premier high school football showcase.
More than 17,000 athletes over 26 stops in 19 cities have been evaluated over the past six months and Monday through Wednesday the top 161 will showcase their skills in 7-on-7, lineman and SPARQ Rating championships.
In addition, for the first time, the Elite 11 quarterback competition featuring 18 of the nation's top signal-callers will finish off The Opening. Each of the six 7-on-7 teams will feature three Elite 11 quarterbacks.
More reasons to pay attention to The Opening:
* The top five recruits from the Class of 2014, according to 247sports.com, and 48 of the top 100 will be participating.
Interesting that of the top five, four are defensive players, two are from Louisiana and two from Virginia.
The top five are:
Da'Shawn Hand
Courtesy photo
1. DE
Da'Shawn Hand of
Woodbridge (Woodbridge, Va.)2. RB
Leonard Fournette of
St. Augustine (New Orleans)3. DE
Lorenzo Carter of
Norcross (Ga.)4. DT
Andrew Brown of
Oscar Smith (Chesapeake, Va.)5. OL
Cameron Robinson of
West Monroe (West Monroe, La.)* As expected, a whopping 69 of the 161 – more than 40 percent — attend high schools in either California (25), Florida (25) or Texas (19).
* Though the number of commitments rise every day, a majority of the players (88) have yet to announce their college choices. Expect a number of them to do so over the next three days.
