The Lions' Pride

Never realized how fast this kid was. Good luck to him in his young career!

Well, if the 5-10 is accurate and he doesn't suffer from freshman shrinkage, we can work with that.

He and Neiko need to put on serious weight, like Kiley. That's what made the host choice a nice one. Kiley has started to go thru the process. He was a skinny rat too.

A 5-10, 180 CB is impressive if he has the quicks to cover. A 5-10, 190+ safety works too. Stess the +. Development kid.

But size is a pretty big problem. No way he or Neiko could play safety effectively without adding AT LEAST 20+ pounds.

As said above, might as well put them at corner get experinece in coverage while they gain weight....

No way he is 5'10", the pictures of him from his visit with the other recruits, and he was dramatically shorter... to the point where it definitely caught my attention specifically how short he was compared to the others... Sean can probably speak to it better, but my guess is the 5'8" would be pretty generous.

I think the kid is a player, and the recruiting analysts that work the southeast, whether for 247 or Rivals, all seemed to like him as a player, and thought he would be a legit contributor at the BCS level, from what I have read... However, you have to think... playing for Grayson, and all the publicity around that team with the nations #1 player and 7-8 other D1 recruits... there has got to be something that was holding Gaines back from getting more offers. Maybe not SEC offers, but offers like Duke, or NC St, Ga Tech, South Florida... speed seems to be legit, football instincts seem to be legit, ball skills are legit, the only thing that can reasonably have held him back was his height and unfortunately, just like you can't teach speed, you can't teach height either. I like the player, like the offer and glad he is a part of the class... but he will be limited due to his size

Shawn Lee says hi!

Who's Shawn Lee?

Thanks Shawn Fitz for the story!

This makes more sense... although Shawn Mayer was listed at 6-0. Pretty average size for a safety.

Lol...man, you got some talent if you are judging his height from a picture. I suppose you're talking about the picure with him around Hack and Brenneman - two 6'5 guys? Well, brother, 5'10 is also "dramatically" shorter than those guys! He hung around Jordan Smith and Stephon Morris all weekend during his official visit, and that's a little easier to judge. If Gaines is 5'8, so is Jordan Smith - and Morris is 5'6....and we know the truth on those two. Sorry, but you need to re-evaluate your picture scaling/measuring skills. At 160 lbs, however, there's work to do, so hopefully he'll use this offseason to put on a few pounds before reporting in June, and Fitz can work his magic from there.

I remembered him because that is when I went to school and went to all of the games.

His brother Fred Lee was a few years younger than him and was considered a stud recruit while Shawn was not at all rated highly out of school. If memory serves me, Fred went on to play for V-Tech or Pitt and ended up being a bust.

He might be able to play CB, but he definitely can play safety. At least that's the way he looks on his highlights. We'll see.

I'm guessing Gaines measures out at 5-9 or shorter.

He needs about 15 pounds of Fitz-muscle