“I was a midget my freshman and sophomore year. I stopped playing football my eighth grade year because I had a knee injury and I felt like I didn’t want to play my freshman and sophomore years because I wasn’t big enough. At the beginning of last season, I just decided to come out.” -Xavier Lyas, March 1st
We wrote an article detailing the not-so-normal occurrence of growing six inches in less than eighteen months. Lyas had limited stats last season–to no fault of his own in a sense–because the young man was simply trying to figure this whole thing out at a completely different size than he was literally months before the season began in 2015. Lyas only had 13 tackles, a sack, two hurries and three passes defensed coming off the edge, but this season appears to be something as drastically different as the change in his frame has been.
Lyas is also accomplished at throwing shot put and in the high jump in track, so his speed and his 6-4.5/200+ frame along with that kind of athleticism are what coaches are flocking to all corners of the state and country to find. We now take a closer look at the young man who is shooting up the ladder in size–and skill set, Durant’s Xavier Lyas.
WHAT WAS SAID:
“DL – Xavier Lyas (Durant) – Class of 2017
The second member of Durant on this list was 5-feet-10 a little over a year ago and is now 6-feet-4 and still growing. The southpaw was simply unstoppable from his strong side of the line and was still dominating his positional match-ups from his weak side. It really didn’t matter who was opposite of him, Lyas was going to use either his length–or his speed to get around the edge and towards the QB. “Today was good, no today was actually great! I worked really hard in every rep and overall think I did great.” said a grinning Lyas following the end of the camp.”
WHAT THE ‘EYE IN THE SKY’ SAID:
Lyas wasn’t the strongest player along the defensive line–something that even he acknowledges he has to keep busting his butt in doing so, but his quickness out of his stance and his length were an absolute nightmare for the offensive line group when they had to move their feet and attempt to stay step-for-step. If they couldn’t get their hands on him immediately, they were beaten in less than two seconds.
THE IMPACT:
Considering that Durant returns a ton of their talent from last season, the Cougars will be ecstatic to have an increased output from Lyas. His potential impact goes beyond just total tackles, though. His quickness from the edge could also increase the Cougars ability to block kicks on special teams plus increase their sack totals–which were less than two per contest with just 19.5 on the season. Any time you can take away one side of the field starting up front, that’s a good thing and if he can create havoc for opposing QB’s in the sense that their thought-processes are sped up, that’s an impact right there given the fact they’ve got some ball hawks in the secondary ready to capitalize on an uncomfortable situation or misplaced throw.