Friday Night Recaps: Blowouts of out-of-state high school powerhouses dominate Week 1

Welcome back to Friday Night Recaps, your weekly roundup of Michigan recruits’ performances in their high school games. While last week only had one player in action, five games were played last weekend with eight players involved.

It’s still not a full slate yet, but the kickoff to high school football event on ESPN showcased two teams with Michigan commits on them, St. Frances Academy, which I recapped elsewhere earlier today, and Southern Columbia, featuring Gaige Garcia. Let’s see how the guys performed to start their seasons.

Three-star QB JD Johnson

After backing up 5-star Spencer Rattler last season at Pinnacle High School in Arizona, Johnson got his first chance to enter the season as the starter. He started off with a bang, beating Perry 39-14 and outdueling their 4-star quarterback Chubba Purdy.

Johnson’s full numbers haven’t been published, but the game is available on YouTube, and my stat tracking had him finishing with 15 completions on 24 attempts for 178 yards and two touchdowns. Pinnacle used a lot of screens in their offense, so many of those yards were on short passes to the sidelines, but Johnson did show some good touch on the ball when throwing downfield.

He also ran the ball quite often, finishing with nine rushes for 62 yards and two more touchdowns. His final official yardage is probably lower than that because he had three botched snap exchanges with his center, which need to be ironed out for the rest of the seasons. Johnson even caught a pass on a transcontinental play that should look familiar to Michigan fans:

Three-star RB Gaige Garcia

Garcia’s Southern Columbia squad has been extremely successful in recent years, with a record of 122-6 since 2011. However, they play in a so-so Pennsylvania conference, so questions remained about how good they actually are. Those questions were put to rest on Sunday afternoon, as Southern Columbia waxed defending South Carolina state champs Hammond, snapping their 25-game win streak.

Southern Columbia is riding a 33-game win streak of their own right now, and Garcia has played a large part in maintaining it. He ran for 75 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries against a defensive line that featured 5-star Jordan Burch and 4-star Alex Huntley in his team’s triple option offense. Watch out for his younger brother as well, Gavin Garcia, who may turn out to be an even better wrestler and football player in the future. Michigan would do well to have both members of the family in their athletic program.

Four-star WR Roman Wilson

For the second straight week, Wilson had a modest night, catching two balls for 31 yards. Saint Louis jumped out to an early lead, scoring on their first five possessions to go up 34-6 in the second quarter. I’m guessing that Wilson was pulled after the first half so he didn’t have much of an opportunity to rack up more numbers.

They’ll need Wilson for the full game next week, when they face ten-time Nevada state champions Bishop Gorman. The Gaels are always loaded with talent, so it will be the perfect chance for Wilson to prove himself early in the season.

Three-star OL Jeffrey Persi

JSerra Catholic traveled to Salt Lake City to open up their season against Utah powerhouse East. Persi helped beat the touted squad by a score of 24-14. Since he’s an offensive lineman, there isn’t much to talk about Persi’s performance without evaluating the full game film, so this seems like a good chance to point out that his quarterback’s name is General Booty. Let me repeat that: GENERAL BOOTY. He is the nephew of former USC quarterback John David Booty and I may use updates on JSerra’s season now to exclusively talk about General’s command of the offense.

Along with the St. Frances squad, that covers everyone who played over the weekend. While there were many more commits in action this time, next weekend is really when the season gets into full swing. Only the players from the Northeast will have to wait just a bit longer to get going. Check out the chart to see the statistics for everyone so far.

The St. Frances Academy Boys

Four-star running back Blake Corum was perhaps the story of the weekend, but he had three other teammates in on display in the nationally televised opener on ESPN. I took a deeper look at those guys in a piece posted earlier this morning on Maize n Brew.

Here’s the chart for each player’s performances so far this season and their Week 1 results (click to enlarge).