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- Thread starter MD Buckeye
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MD Buckeye
BP Soft Verbal
Staff member
BP Recruiting Team
Bookie
Former BPCFFB II Champ
Former FF League III Champ
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MD Buckeye
BP Soft Verbal
Staff member
BP Recruiting Team
Bookie
Former BPCFFB II Champ
Former FF League III Champ
Site Supporter: VIP
Last edited:
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0
ScriptOhio
Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
In His Coach’s Words — Linebacker K’Vaughan Pope
Incoming freshman linebacker K’Vaughan Pope committed to Ohio State last August, but if he would have had it his way, he would have committed four months earlier when he took his first visit to the OSU campus.
All good things come to those who wait, of course, and when Pope enrolls at Ohio State this summer, it will be the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.
The previous chapter, however, is pretty interesting.
Playing for Dinwiddie County High School in Dinwiddie, Virginia, K’Vaughan Pope began his high school career as a wide receiver.
In fact, as a junior in 2016, he was a First-Team All-State selection on both offense and defense.
However, the story begins before that, as well.
It goes back to before he was even allowed to play high school football.
Dinwiddie head coach Billy Mills has known Pope’s family for over a decade, having coached three of his uncles. Pope’s grandfather has also done the chains for Dinwiddie football over the years.
So there was no way K’Vaughan Pope was going to go unnoticed.
“He was coming up through the little league ranks,” Mills said of his future All-State linebacker. “It’s not hard to pick him out.”
By the time Pope was in the eighth grade, he was ready for varsity football.
“JV is mainly ninth and tenth graders,” Mills explained. “Every now and then if we get a different kind of eighth grader we bring him up, and he was definitely a different kind of eighth grader. He came up and dominated. We don’t allow here in Virginia to play eighth graders on the varsity, but he would have started as an eighth grader on the varsity. That was the year we went 15-0 and won a state championship by 60 points. It was the best team we’ve ever had.”
When Dinwiddie was getting ready to face a player that they couldn’t necessarily mirror in practice, they would call Pope up from the junior varsity to give them some good looks.
“We would bring him up if we were facing a team with a big, physical receiver because we didn’t have one,” Mills said. “So if we needed a good look at that, we’d bring him down and he loved it. He loved to compete. I think three out of our four starting DBs ended up playing Division I and were physical kids and he didn’t shy away from that one bit. We knew we had something special because he didn’t see any difference between him and them, and that was when he was five years younger.”
Pope got the full-time call up as a freshman. He was starting on the varsity at wide receiver. Mills wanted to be careful with him, however, because it can be overwhelming for a freshman to have so much put onto his plate.
“I knew I wanted to play him both ways, but I also didn’t want to overwhelm him,” Mills said. “As great a player as he was – he’s very humble and it’s hard to get anything out of him, but he kind of didn’t understand his freshman year why everybody was so on him all the time. He was our top offensive producer as a freshman, and I told him that if they stop you, they stop us. He had a hard time understanding that and got mad a few times because he didn’t really get that part of it yet.
“But I’ll tell you when I knew I had something special. We had a two-time All-State free safety that was just a nasty, physical kid. During two-a-days and sometimes during the offseason, we do the Circle of Life – I got it from Coach Meyer, out of his book. There’s a line in the middle and they’re in a circle and it’s two guys going against each other. Whoever ends up in the dominant position wins. And of course my free safety stepped out there to go and nobody wanted to go against him. K’Vaughan stepped out there and beat him. Just went out and got under his pads, drove him, and put him on his back. Nobody had ever done that to that kid, and that was when K’Vaughan was a freshman.”
Pope stayed on offense as a freshman, leading Dinwiddie County with 27 receptions for 449 yards.
The plan was to keep him on offense for his sophomore season and wait until he was a junior to finally start him both ways, but plans sometimes have a way of working themselves out.
“That’s kind of a funny story,” Mills said. “I was going to wait until he was a junior. You know us coaches, we think we’ve got all of the answers. I was going to wait until his junior year and I felt that would be a good transition time for him because he was so important offensively for us.
“His sophomore year, I had him as a backup linebacker, so he practiced with us. He knew the drills and he knew his reads, but I didn’t start him there. When we would get up on people, I of course wasn’t going to put him in there in a mop-up game and risk him getting hurt. He didn’t play a lot of defense, but then we were playing a team and the starting linebacker I had in there was kind of messing up, and I got a little frustrated with him, so I pulled him.
“I sent K’Vaughan in there. They had a really quick kid, a really fast kid. They were on the left hash. They ran a toss to the right, to the field. He was on the opposite side on the boundary, but he chases the kid down and tackles him on the numbers for a one-yard loss. So they’re on the other hash and they turn around and toss it to him going the other way, and K’Vaughan does the same thing the other way. And then I looked at the kid that I pulled, and I asked him if he ever heard the story of Wally Pipp. He hasn’t been out since.”
.
.
continued
.
.
The first visit to Ohio State then changed everything.
“We went up there and he was just blown away by his visit,” Mills said. “He loved the way they competed in practice. He loves competition. I think sometimes he can get a little frustrated because we have some really good players, but he doesn’t really get a lot of competition. If K’Vaughan turned loose on some of these kids on our team on a tackle, he’s probably going to hurt them because he’s just so explosive out of his hips.”
Mills didn’t know it at the time, but Pope had seen enough. It was so early in the process, however, that everyone around him told him to slow things down a bit and make sure he wasn’t rushing into something prematurely.
“We had a long talk on the way back and I wasn’t really sure that he liked it,” Mills said. “But he called me, and I was on vacation during spring break and he tried to commit then. His mom wouldn’t let him. Not because she didn’t like Ohio State, but because he hadn’t really visited anybody hardly. Even Coach Meyer told him, ‘Look, go somewhere else and gauge it.’ And he ended up taking the Georgia visit in the summer, but shoot I had to make him do that. I said just go down there. They want you to come down and check it out so that you’ve got something to gauge it by.
“But that’s him though. He had made up his mind in April and there wasn’t anything that was going to change it. He loves the big football atmosphere and he loves the fact that Coach Meyer takes care of you after you finish playing. Not just the internships, the whole thing. They have guys there that help them transition into life after football. It’s impressive.”
It was that promise of life after football that stuck with Pope, and it was something that Mills didn’t want him taking for granted.
“The whole atmosphere and the life after football was what was really big for him,” he said. “I told him, ‘K’Vaughan, use this stuff. Go somewhere where you would go if you weren’t playing football. Go where you would love being.’”
In the end, that’s exactly what K’Vaughan Pope did, and when he arrives at Ohio State this summer he will officially become a Buckeye. And if the next chapter is anything like the last chapter, it should be a pretty interesting read.
ENtire article: https://theozone.net/2018/02/ohio-state-football-ihcw-kvaughan-pope/
Incoming freshman linebacker K’Vaughan Pope committed to Ohio State last August, but if he would have had it his way, he would have committed four months earlier when he took his first visit to the OSU campus.
All good things come to those who wait, of course, and when Pope enrolls at Ohio State this summer, it will be the end of one chapter and the beginning of another.
The previous chapter, however, is pretty interesting.
Playing for Dinwiddie County High School in Dinwiddie, Virginia, K’Vaughan Pope began his high school career as a wide receiver.
In fact, as a junior in 2016, he was a First-Team All-State selection on both offense and defense.
However, the story begins before that, as well.
It goes back to before he was even allowed to play high school football.
Dinwiddie head coach Billy Mills has known Pope’s family for over a decade, having coached three of his uncles. Pope’s grandfather has also done the chains for Dinwiddie football over the years.
So there was no way K’Vaughan Pope was going to go unnoticed.
“He was coming up through the little league ranks,” Mills said of his future All-State linebacker. “It’s not hard to pick him out.”
By the time Pope was in the eighth grade, he was ready for varsity football.
“JV is mainly ninth and tenth graders,” Mills explained. “Every now and then if we get a different kind of eighth grader we bring him up, and he was definitely a different kind of eighth grader. He came up and dominated. We don’t allow here in Virginia to play eighth graders on the varsity, but he would have started as an eighth grader on the varsity. That was the year we went 15-0 and won a state championship by 60 points. It was the best team we’ve ever had.”
When Dinwiddie was getting ready to face a player that they couldn’t necessarily mirror in practice, they would call Pope up from the junior varsity to give them some good looks.
“We would bring him up if we were facing a team with a big, physical receiver because we didn’t have one,” Mills said. “So if we needed a good look at that, we’d bring him down and he loved it. He loved to compete. I think three out of our four starting DBs ended up playing Division I and were physical kids and he didn’t shy away from that one bit. We knew we had something special because he didn’t see any difference between him and them, and that was when he was five years younger.”
Pope got the full-time call up as a freshman. He was starting on the varsity at wide receiver. Mills wanted to be careful with him, however, because it can be overwhelming for a freshman to have so much put onto his plate.
“I knew I wanted to play him both ways, but I also didn’t want to overwhelm him,” Mills said. “As great a player as he was – he’s very humble and it’s hard to get anything out of him, but he kind of didn’t understand his freshman year why everybody was so on him all the time. He was our top offensive producer as a freshman, and I told him that if they stop you, they stop us. He had a hard time understanding that and got mad a few times because he didn’t really get that part of it yet.
“But I’ll tell you when I knew I had something special. We had a two-time All-State free safety that was just a nasty, physical kid. During two-a-days and sometimes during the offseason, we do the Circle of Life – I got it from Coach Meyer, out of his book. There’s a line in the middle and they’re in a circle and it’s two guys going against each other. Whoever ends up in the dominant position wins. And of course my free safety stepped out there to go and nobody wanted to go against him. K’Vaughan stepped out there and beat him. Just went out and got under his pads, drove him, and put him on his back. Nobody had ever done that to that kid, and that was when K’Vaughan was a freshman.”
Pope stayed on offense as a freshman, leading Dinwiddie County with 27 receptions for 449 yards.
The plan was to keep him on offense for his sophomore season and wait until he was a junior to finally start him both ways, but plans sometimes have a way of working themselves out.
“That’s kind of a funny story,” Mills said. “I was going to wait until he was a junior. You know us coaches, we think we’ve got all of the answers. I was going to wait until his junior year and I felt that would be a good transition time for him because he was so important offensively for us.
“His sophomore year, I had him as a backup linebacker, so he practiced with us. He knew the drills and he knew his reads, but I didn’t start him there. When we would get up on people, I of course wasn’t going to put him in there in a mop-up game and risk him getting hurt. He didn’t play a lot of defense, but then we were playing a team and the starting linebacker I had in there was kind of messing up, and I got a little frustrated with him, so I pulled him.
“I sent K’Vaughan in there. They had a really quick kid, a really fast kid. They were on the left hash. They ran a toss to the right, to the field. He was on the opposite side on the boundary, but he chases the kid down and tackles him on the numbers for a one-yard loss. So they’re on the other hash and they turn around and toss it to him going the other way, and K’Vaughan does the same thing the other way. And then I looked at the kid that I pulled, and I asked him if he ever heard the story of Wally Pipp. He hasn’t been out since.”
.
.
continued
.
.
The first visit to Ohio State then changed everything.
“We went up there and he was just blown away by his visit,” Mills said. “He loved the way they competed in practice. He loves competition. I think sometimes he can get a little frustrated because we have some really good players, but he doesn’t really get a lot of competition. If K’Vaughan turned loose on some of these kids on our team on a tackle, he’s probably going to hurt them because he’s just so explosive out of his hips.”
Mills didn’t know it at the time, but Pope had seen enough. It was so early in the process, however, that everyone around him told him to slow things down a bit and make sure he wasn’t rushing into something prematurely.
“We had a long talk on the way back and I wasn’t really sure that he liked it,” Mills said. “But he called me, and I was on vacation during spring break and he tried to commit then. His mom wouldn’t let him. Not because she didn’t like Ohio State, but because he hadn’t really visited anybody hardly. Even Coach Meyer told him, ‘Look, go somewhere else and gauge it.’ And he ended up taking the Georgia visit in the summer, but shoot I had to make him do that. I said just go down there. They want you to come down and check it out so that you’ve got something to gauge it by.
“But that’s him though. He had made up his mind in April and there wasn’t anything that was going to change it. He loves the big football atmosphere and he loves the fact that Coach Meyer takes care of you after you finish playing. Not just the internships, the whole thing. They have guys there that help them transition into life after football. It’s impressive.”
It was that promise of life after football that stuck with Pope, and it was something that Mills didn’t want him taking for granted.
“The whole atmosphere and the life after football was what was really big for him,” he said. “I told him, ‘K’Vaughan, use this stuff. Go somewhere where you would go if you weren’t playing football. Go where you would love being.’”
In the end, that’s exactly what K’Vaughan Pope did, and when he arrives at Ohio State this summer he will officially become a Buckeye. And if the next chapter is anything like the last chapter, it should be a pretty interesting read.
ENtire article: https://theozone.net/2018/02/ohio-state-football-ihcw-kvaughan-pope/
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Bill Lucas
Assistant Coach
Can't wait to see Pope in Scarlet and Grey and man does it appear that he had a fantastic high school coach.
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ScriptOhio
Everybody is somebody else's weirdo.
SUPREME '18 SUMMER ENROLLEES START MATRICULATING AT OHIO STATE
K'VAUGHAN POPE
Eight members of Ohio State's vaunted 2018 class, the Supreme 18, early enrolled back in January.
The rest of the reinforcements started arriving in Columbus Saturday with four-star defensive end Tyreke Smith, four-star safety Josh Proctor, and four-star linebacker K'Vaughan Pope marking the first wave of summer enrollees.
Entire article: https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio...r-enrollees-start-matriculating-at-ohio-state
K'VAUGHAN POPE
Eight members of Ohio State's vaunted 2018 class, the Supreme 18, early enrolled back in January.
The rest of the reinforcements started arriving in Columbus Saturday with four-star defensive end Tyreke Smith, four-star safety Josh Proctor, and four-star linebacker K'Vaughan Pope marking the first wave of summer enrollees.
Entire article: https://www.elevenwarriors.com/ohio...r-enrollees-start-matriculating-at-ohio-state
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matt_thatsme
Ain’t nobody got time for that
Read where Pope lined up with the first team D at SAM for the scrimmage. Was this an anomaly or is he really pushing Werner for the starting position?
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Honor&Glory
Paper,Rock, Scissors, Lizard, Spock!
not sure but saw a tweet that said the kid had himself a day.
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sparcboxbuck
What happened to my ¤cash?
Anomaly or not, it's good to see the pups biting. With the amount of talent that has come through in the last couple of years, it would not surprise me in the least to have the young ones making their case on the field. All good news, especially on that side of the ball.
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thackattack
Poison in a Pretty Glass
I believe Day said Pope had a pick-6 in the scrimmage.
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I'll take every single young LB breakout we can get, we have to drastically improve at that position and it would be criminal if we didn't considering the talent we've recruited there.
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