Richardson has big shoes to fill
SOUTHLAKE, Texas - The Under Armour combine made a stop in Dallas on Sunday and several of the area's top prospects were in action at the event. DeSoto High School was well-represented on the field with Texas commits Bryson Echols and Curtis Riser and Texas A&M pledge Michael Richardson.
Echols earned an invitation to play in the 2012 Under Armour All-American game with his performance but Richardson was no slouch in his own right. The 6-foot-2, 228-pound junior played defensive end and was the top defensive lineman on the day.
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"It was good competition out here," Richardson said. "The o-line, they gave it to the d-line for the most part. The d-line, we came back though. We did well.
"The Big Man challenge caught me off guard. I didn't know we were going to do that. We were flipping tires and pulling the sled and everything. I'm always willing to work though."
Even though Richardson plays defensive end for his high school, he is likely going to make the move to linebacker in A&M's 3-4 front.
"I'm most likely going to play the Joker position," he said. "We're running a 4-3-4 this year at DeSoto and I'll be at the four, but I'm also going to be on the outside. I'm going to get to play linebacker a little bit and get a taste of it and work on it."
The Joker position for the Aggies has been manned the last two seasons by Butkus Award winner Von Miller. Richardson and Miller hail from the same high school and the comparisons between the two are inevitable.
"There's a little bit of pride trying to keep it in the DeSoto family," Richardson said of the Joker position. "Really, though, it just shows the DeSoto work ethic. Von went out and did the things he did at A&M. Before I even thought anything about A&M, I was always hearing I was a resemblance of Von."
Several other former DeSoto standouts such as Cyrus Gray, Tony Jerod-Eddie and Garrick Williams currently play for A&M and Richardson says he keeps in touch with them.
"I keep real close with Cyrus and Big Tony," he said. "I text them all the time. They talk to me about what to expect down there. They told me there's nothing easy about it but, at the same time, it's going to be fun. I'm going to like it down there."