Jamal Meriweather, a three-star offensive tackle from Brunswick, Ga., announced his commitment to UCF on Easter Sunday. He had an impressive level of offers that included Utah, Iowa State, Mississippi State, Virginia Tech, USC, Houston, Cincinnati, Missouri, South Carolina, Kentucky, Minnesota, Tennessee and West Virginia.
UCFSports.com caught up with Brunswick head coach
Garrett Grady to talk about the Knights' newest addition.
This will be Grady's first season as head coach, but he's been with the program five years as offensive coordinator and offensive line coach so he's seen Meriweather's development firsthand.
"Coming out of middle school, he was a legit 6-6 and probably weighed about 280 pounds as an eighth grader," Grady said. "He came to us as a freshman and played defensive line for us. His body changed. He dropped a bunch of weight and then put on a lot of muscle. He killed it. He's got great work ethic in the weight room. His freshman and sophomore year he played defensive line, then last year, his junior year, I begged and bargained for him to play offensive line out of necessity for us. He was our right tackle and became a starter.
"I think he found his home. He's a legit offensive tackle with his length. He's got an 83-inch wingspan which is NFL numbers. He's got great footwork. He's always learning on the field with different techniques. His reach is really good. One thing I'd like to see, and hopefully this offseason we'll see it, is him rooting somebody out of the hole. He's long, but he doesn't have the initial power. He's not 300 pounds where he's gonna roll you off the line of scrimmage, but he does have the work ethic to get there. Once he gets on campus and gets a real regimen with nutrition, he could easily put on 15-20 more pounds of muscle and be a legit 6-7, 300-pound guy."
It was Meriweather's move to the offensive line that opened the floodgates in terms of offers.
"For the past five years, we've always had Division I caliber offensive linemen," Grady said. "When I got here, we had
Warren McClendon who is a starting right tackle at Georgia.
Caleb Cook is at Georgia Southern and is probably going to start as a sophomore. His recruiting was cut short by COVID. I think he could be playing anywhere. Georgia Southern got a real steal. Then we had
Kanaya Charlton, who is an early enrollee at Florida State. Now we have Jamal. He's had the blueprint for offensive linemen here at Brunswick High. We refer to those guys as the 'Big Blue Wall.'
"You put on the tape and you can see it in Jamal. He can move and bend well for a 6-7 guy. He has good ankle, knee and hip flexion. Very flexible. That's when the offers started coming in. They can see the potential he has."