PANAMA CITY — National Signing Day for high school football players is a journey into the unknown for most athletes fortunate enough to gain the opportunity.
Ethan Brown and Keith McNeil of Bay High School took that mantra to another level during a ceremony at the school on Wednesday morning. There is new, and then there is off-the-shelf, new-fangled original.
McNeil cemented his intention to attend the University of South Alabama in Mobile, a football program that was initiated in 2009 and didn’t achieve full Division I status until the 2013 season when the Jaguars finished 6-6.
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Brown went even one step further by signing with Southeastern University in Lakeland, an institution that began football last year, although not playing a schedule. The Fire will open their inaugural season in the fall.
“It’s a brand new football program and an opportunity to make records every day,” said Brown, who at 6-foot-3, 215 pounds is projected as a linebacker at the next level. Should he gain some weight he could wind up at the defensive end slot he manned in high school.
Brown will join former Bay teammates Dance Estes and Darreyan Sims, who attended Southeastern last season when the program was in its embryo stage.
“They said it was a great atmosphere,” said Brown, whose ultimate goal is to obtain an MBA.
McNeil, 6-3, 230, also was a defensive end for the Tornadoes the past two seasons and is hoping to continue in that role, or possibly a hybrid linebacker for the Jaguars. The News Herald Defensive Player of the Year said that entering his senior year he really wasn’t expecting Wednesday to culminate his prep football career.
“No, I just didn’t feel it,” McNeil admitted. “After we played Gulf Breeze and I had like five sacks a lot of coaches started calling.”
McNeil said he also was looking into USF, Southern Mississippi and Florida A&M, and that he made recruiting trips to Kentucky, USF and Alabama State.
Originally from Alabama, he said that South Alabama offered the chance to play closer to home as he joined a USA recruiting class that is top-heavy with defensive talent.
“I feel like we stand pretty well,” South Alabama coordinator and defensive line coach Brian Turner was quoted on Tuesday. ”We've hit on some guys that we really like and that can benefit and help the program. And we’ve missed out on a couple, too. But overall, provided everybody signs, we'll have a really good signing class.”