Hurricanes offer shakes up recruitment for Miami Central tackle. ‘It’s very exciting’
Daughtry Richardson’s scholarship offer from the Miami Hurricanes was a long time coming.
Soon after he moved from Tallahassee to Miami last year, Richardson started hearing from Garin Justice. Even though he couldn’t meet Richardson in person, Justice wanted to make sure the tackle knew his new hometown team was keeping an eye on him.
“He’s been talking to me for a minute,” Richardson said Monday in Miami. “He just wanted to build a relationship, and figure out who I was and stuff.”
On April 15, the offensive line coach finally extended an offer to Richardson, shaking up the three-star tackle’s recruitment.
He’s now set to be in Coral Gables the day the 14-month dead period ends in June, and he pushed his commitment date from May to July after the Hurricanes entered the mix.
“It’s very exciting because Miami is right in my backyard, so it’s very exciting to know that Miami looked at me,” Richardson said. “I’ve never seen that campus at all. I’ve never seen the facility, the weight room — I’ve never seen none of that.”
Richardson, who transferred from Miami Edison to Miami Central in January, is set to announce a top six next week, and the Hurricanes are in good position to be part of it. The 6-foot-4 offensive lineman is shaping up to be one of Miami’s top local targets at an always-important position.
Although he grew up a fan of the Florida State Seminoles, Richardson has fondness for Miami, in large part because of his relationship with Justice.
“I like how coach Justice kept his word. He told me he was going to take care of me. He said the offer was coming real soon,” Richardson said. “That’s what I like: He’s a man of word, he kept his word and he stood on the table and kept his word. And what he liked about me is he liked how we never fell out of communication. For a long time just waiting for him to offer me, he liked how we didn’t fall out of communication. I believed in him, I trusted him, so he liked that about me.”
The visit with the Hurricanes will kick off a busy spring and summer for Richardson, who has reshaped his body and is now a top-500 prospect in the 247Sports.com composite rankings.
The junior is up to about 290 pounds, Richardson said, after he played last season around 265. Scholarship offers have poured in since the start of the year after his strong season at left tackle for Edison and he has two official visits set for June.
First, he will head back to Florida State — a school he knows well, but wants to see from a “football standpoint.”
“When we were able to go on the campus,” Richardson said, “we weren’t able to go look at the facilities, talk to the coaches, see the locker room and stuff.”
He will follow with his second official visit with the Kentucky Wildcats. He also plans to visit the Arizona State Sun Devils sometime this summer.
As of now, there’s no leader in his recruitment, he said. His top priority will be finding a school to keep working on his physical transformation.
“I’m definitely looking at how are you going to be able to take care of my body when I finish college. Is my body going to be 50 percent or 99 percent?” Richardson said. “If I pull something, are you going to be able to help me get back to 100 percent? I’m definitely looking for a good nutrition staff. I’m definitely looking at that to see how you’re going to be able to take care of my body, add weight on me and make it look good.
“Every school is on the same thing. I’m just building relationships with the schools and everything, building a relationship with all the offensive line coaches that offered me and stuff, so every school is on the same page for me right now.”
This story was originally published April 28, 2021 at 4:40 PM.
