How Isaiah Horton’s bond with a former NFL wide receiver led him to Rob Likens and Miami
The first time Isaiah Horton showed up on a college campus to work out in front of college coaches, he left with a scholarship offer from the Louisville Cardinals.
The same thing happened each of the next two times the wide receiver went to college camps. He got offers from the Tennessee Volunteers and Alabama Crimson Tide, and he had not even started high school.
“My eighth-grade year won the city,” said Horton, who orally committed to the Miami Hurricanes last Wednesday. “I was just big and skinny.”
The steady stream of offers never really slowed down, even though it took him time to figure out just who he was. The South Carolina Gamecocks offered him later in 2018, the Georgia Bulldogs offered him soon after the calendar flipped to 2019 and Miami eventually offered him last year, when he was still a few months away from his breakout junior season at Oakland in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
At the time, Horton just went through the usual niceties with the Hurricanes. He thanked wide receivers coach Rob Likens for the offer, and answered the coaches’ calls and text messages, but he was more concerned some of the schools that were on him earliest — until, one day, he brought up Miami to Quinton Patton.
Horton has learned to trust Patton. The former San Francisco 49ers wide receiver has trained Horton for more than two years and helped the 6-foot-3, 190-pound wideout put together a 700-yard season as a junior. He also happened to play for Likens with the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs and the assistant coach helped Patton go from a junior college afterthought to a fourth-round pick in the 2013 NFL Draft.
“I was just telling him that there’s a dude down there named Rob Likens that coached me at Louisiana Tech,” Patton said. “I told him, ‘Coach Likens — he’s going to praise you when you do good, he’s going to get on your [expletive] when you do bad, but I guarantee you he’s going to care about the person Isaiah Horton before the player Isaiah Horton.’”
Said Horton: “That’s what got him to the next level. That’s what developed him in college.”
Horton, Patton and Coach Likens
Even though colleges salivated over him from the time he was 14, Horton was not an immediate star in high school. He played his first two years at Ensworth in Nashville and was mostly just a tantalizing role player, who was still growing into his massive frame and trying to be more than just a big, athletic target.
After his freshman season, he started working with Jeremy Holt, who also trains 49ers All-Pro tight end George Kittle, and Holt connected him with Patton. The former NFL receiver was still figuring out whether he wanted to keep playing, but he also saw a fountain of untapped potential and wanted to try to help Horton the same way Likens once helped him.
When Patton first got to Louisiana Tech, he wasn’t too dissimilar from Horton, even though Horton’s a four-star wide receiver in the 247Sports.com composite rankings and Patton was just a two-star prospect. Both had raw athletic gifts, yet some obvious holes in their games, especially their route-running.
“I couldn’t run no three-step slant route for nothing in the world,” Patton said, “so Coach Likens came out, ‘I’m going to teach you how to run a three-step slant.’”
Every day after class, Patton met up with Likens at Joe Aillet Stadium in Ruston, Louisiana, and they would spend an hour before practice just walking Patton through the steps.
They talked about anything. What really mattered was just the act of repetition.
“I was just like, ‘Man, if you can take the time out here to do this for my little dumb [expletive] every day,’” Patton said, “I’ll do anything that you say.”
Patton took this same mind-set to coaching and polishing Horton’s skill set.
Horton always sort of thought as himself as Julio Jones — with the frame and a knack of making spectacular, one-handed catches. Now he mostly likes to watch Calvin Ridley to pick up on the Atlanta Falcons wide receiver’s footwoork and route-running.
“Isaiah really hadn’t had anybody to teach him about fundamentals,” Patton said.
‘It was on the house’
Horton had a good feeling about the Hurricanes even before his official visit began last month. He felt even better by the time he left the airport for Coral Gables.
After he landed at Miami International Airport, Horton stopped by a store in the airport to grab a drink for his ride down to campus. He was decked out in Hurricanes gear it was easy to tell he’s a football player. Someone stopped him to ask if he played for Miami. He said he was on his official visit.
“They were like, Oh, well, good luck,” Horton said. “Hope you become a Cane.”
He laughed while he recalled the interaction.
“Anything I bought,” he said, “it was on the house.”
It was the start of a commitment-sealing weekend for the Hurricanes. Horton spent time with quarterback Jacurri Brown, who was already committed to Miami, and learned Patton’s hype around Likens was warranted. He also connected with recruiting director David Cooney and graduate assistant Benedick Hyppolite.
A few weeks after his trip, Horton narrowed his choices to four — the Hurricanes, Florida Gators, Volunteers and Alabama — and he officially locked in with Miami last week.
“All those schools are good schools, I’m just comfortable,” Horton said. “I feel like the best fit for me to be comfortable and enjoy myself, and get better at my game is to be in Miami with Coach Likens.”
