Fast-rising CB recruit Chris Graves talks Miami ahead of a pair of visits next week
The first thing Chris Graves wants people to know about what he’s like as a player is he’s cocky.
“On the field,” the three-star athlete said Tuesday in Fort Myers. “Not so much out of the field, but on the field I’m cocky.”
The last few months have given him some reason to be. After a breakout season for Fort Myers Bishop Verot with 500 receiving yards and one interception, Graves started to pile up scholarship offers in the winter.
The Miami Hurricanes offered one in January and the floodgates opened. Now he has nearly 30 and he’s confident enough to set a very specific time for his ideal commitment.
“I want to do it during an All-American game,” he said. “I’m trying to get an All-American invite.”
First, his recruitment needs to truly begin.
When the NCAA first instituted its ongoing dead period at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, Graves wasn’t on anyone’s radar. He had played just one season of cornerback as a still-growing sophomore for a bad Cape Coral Island Coast team. His first scholarship offer from the USF Bulls was still nine months away.
The Miami offer, though, was the real turning point. By the end of January, he had eight offers. By the end of February, he had 18.
Fittingly, his recruitment will truly begin Tuesday when the nearly 15-month dead period ends and Graves head to Coral Gables for the Hurricanes’ cookout. It’ll be his first college visit and he’ll be right back in South Florida a few days later to take his first official visit at Miami.
While Graves ideally wants to wait more than six months to make a commitment, the Hurricanes will get the first two swings at the fast-rising prospect.
“I’m looking for how they take care of players on and off the field, what the staff’s like, how they approach me, see how much they really want me,” Graves said. “It’s a good program. There’s a lot of talent coming out of there. ... I really like the defensive coaching staff with [cornerbacks coach DeMarcus Van Dyke and defensive backs coach Travaris Robinson].”
Graves is still only the No. 46 player in Florida in the 247Sports.com composite rankings, but 247Sports’ own rankings peg him as a four-star athlete after he jumped from off-the-radar to highly coveted in the span of a few months.
The 6-1, 175-pound junior is still new to his positions and insists he’s still growing. For almost all his life, Graves was a running back until he had a growth spurt during his freshman year.
As a sophomore, he made the move to cornerback, then he started playing both corner and wide receiver for Bishop Verot last season. Even though Graves was more productive as a receiver, most teams are recruiting him as a defensive back.
Graves said he’s now up to 6-2 and thinks he could wind up as tall as 6-4 — his grandfather is 6-6. His wingspan is noticeably long and he ran the 100-yard dash in as fast at 11.02 seconds this year.
“There’s not too many corners that are 6-2, 180 at my age and I’ve still got some growing to do,” Graves said. “It was a hard position at first. I just started diving into the details and techniques, started working with trainers and stuff, made me better.”
It’s why his list of top suitors looks the way it does despite his three-star ranking.
After he takes his Miami visits, Graves will take official visits with the LSU Tigers and South Carolina Gamecocks for the final two weekends of June.
LSU is on his radar for the same reason it gets on any cornerback’s radar. “That’s a good program for DBs,” he said.
South Carolina doesn’t have quite the same history with defensive backs, but Graves said former Gamecocks cornerback Jaycee Horn, who was the No. 8 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft last month, is his favorite corner.
The Hurricanes have an angle to play with Horn, too. Robinson was South Carolina’s defensive backs coach the last five years and helped develop Horn into a top-10 pick.
Van Dyke, however, is the assistant coach leading this recruitment, Graves said, and Graves feels he can relate to the 32-year-old position coach.
“A few years ago, he was in the same place I am,” Graves said. “He’s kind of young, so I kind of listen to what he’s got to say.”
This story was originally published May 27, 2021 at 2:13 PM.
