Army Bowl: St. Brown continues to wow with impressive skills
SAN ANTONIO - Amon-Ra St. Brown has dominated two days of practice here at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl.
Big surprise. That’s what he does everywhere.
Everybody is talking about his performances and how he just takes over the workouts, gets open against even the highest-level cornerbacks and makes it look so easy.
He’s the top-rated receiver in the 2018 class, so doing well is not a shock. But he’s been so unstoppable inside the Alamodome that one wonders whether anybody here can even slow him down.
Five-star cornerback Brendan Radley-Hiles, who’s originally from California but played this season at Bradenton (Fla.) IMG Academy, is a shutdown machine. He’s done decently against St. Brown, but has an explanation on why the Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei standout has been so good.
“He’s not an idiot,” said Radley-Hiles, the fourth-best corner in the class. “He knows what he’s doing. He looks at your leverage and he looks at your feet and then he sees where you’re going first. If you bite on that first one, he’s coming back with that 1-2. If you don’t take the first one he’s coming right back at you.
“It’s not easy to defend, period. But if you know what he’s looking at then you can disguise what you’re looking at. I feel like nobody is doing that but me. All-around, that’s a bomb matchup. I look forward to it every day.”
These are hardly bums being torched by St. Brown, who has USC, Notre Dame and Stanford as his top three, and plans to commit at the Army Bowl on Saturday.
The five-star receiver has also had his way with five-stars Anthony Cook and Isaac Taylor-Stuart at times during practice.
He hasn’t matched up with top-rated cornerback Patrick Surtain much yet, but that could be the matchup to watch during the game.
Four-star safety Leon O’Neal has been on the wrong end of some St. Brown moves this week, but he takes it all in stride. The Cypress (Texas) Cypress Springs prospect is excellent, and he knows St. Brown is one of a kind.
“He’s a beast,” O’Neal said.“What he does really well is he’s aggressive and he’s really fluid on his routes and he has hands. He has very good hands, so he attacks the ball. A lot of receivers don’t attack the ball, they’re just using their physical ability, but he has fundamentals with his game.”
Radley-Hiles said: “It’s a chess game. I know what he’s looking at, he knows what I’m looking at. It’s a sharp knife on a sharp knife.”
The Santa Ana Mater Dei receiver has been cutting up everybody though. He’s done that at every event for more than a year, including at the Rivals100 Five-Star Challenge presented by adidas this past summer in Indianapolis, where he not only caught the game-winning touchdown but ruled the entire event. He was unstoppable.
In his senior season, during which he helped lead Mater Dei to an undefeated year and the state title, St. Brown finished with 72 catches for 1,320 yards and 20 touchdowns in 12 games.
The third of three star brothers (Equanimeous plays at Notre Dame and Osiris is at Stanford), St. Brown is at his final high school event and has taken over.
That’s just what the five-star has always done.
“You want to not guess when you go against him,” O’Neal said. “That’s the best thing. You have to keep your eyes right and just stick with the rulebook of DBs - a good DB is always going to beat a good receiver.”
Oh yeah?