Taequan Washington of Calvary Day is set to embark on dominant Senior Season
Can you think back to your Junior year of High School? What were you thinking, doing or even wearing that possibly made you stand out amongst your horde of peers? How many times did you sit in the bedroom thinking of a way to ask your parents for keys to the car to go hang out with your friends on the weekend? For Taequan Washington, his thought process is a little bigger.
Washington will enter the 2017 calendar year as a Senior at Calvary Day School in Savannah, Georgia in hopes to separate himself from his peers. Not the ones walking the hallways with him but the peers featured in Max Preps as High School Football’s most dominant players. In his Jr season, Washington made a name for himself by accumulating 81 tackles, 10 sacks, 22 QB Hurries and 25 Tackles For Losses for a team that went 10-1 and lost in the 3rd Round of the Georgia State Championship .
As Washington gets ready to play in the biggest season of his career, he’s often left answering questions concerning his size. For a position that supposedly requires he be at least 3 inches taller, instead of firing back in the media, he does his talking on the field. Washington stands at 6′ and while some of the higher ranking players are 3 inches taller, Taequan offsets that with power. Washington reminds me of the late Jerome Brown. Brown himself only stood 6’2 but he had a bull rush that would disrupt any blocker in front of him. Washington has that same brute force. What scouts have come to learn in watching him play is how fast he is off the snap.
Washington registered 81 tackles in 2016 as a DT. Take Taron Vincent of IMG Academy as he’s seen as the top DL in the class of 2018. His totals for last season (66 tackles/ 5 sacks) were modest compared to Washington’s but he’s from a bigger school and that adds another stamp of approval to his resume. However, the name of the game is still “producing”. Washington has done enough to warrant interest from top schools as he’s been offered a scholarship from Navy with more heading his way.
As you can see in his highlight video he’s in the backfield soon as the QB hits his 3rd step or the RB takes the handoff. What’s more impressive is his ability to never quit on a play. While most players his size would just contain one side, Washington is often seen chasing down a runner on the opposite end. That’s what scouts love the most– a player with running motor.
In sports, it doesn’t matter how big your school is, the strength of schedule or who has the largest Booster Club. All that matters is what happens between the hash marks. Taequan Washington is living proof that the ‘fight in the dog’ is way more dangerous than the ‘size of the dog in the fight’.
Mark has been covering Sports and Entertainment for the past six years. His work has been featured on Bleacher Report, ESPN, Fox Sports, Teen Vogue, and many other websites.
