- October 24, 2024
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There’s a lot in this world we cannot control, and because of this, how one handles what is controllable can be the best judge of one’s makeup.
When it comes to the curious college recruiting case of Ocoee High football player Michael McClenton, his approach to what is controllable and what is not speaks volumes about his character.
Over the past two seasons, the 6-foot, 225-pound junior linebacker has been the most dominant player in West Orange and Southwest Orange, and his stat line proves it. In 18 games from 2023-24, McClenton recorded 384 total tackles — 86 of which were for a loss — and 48 sacks.
That’s an average of 21.3 tackles, with 4.8 being for a loss, and 2.7 sacks a game.
“Basically, Michael McClenton is a legitimate football player,” Ocoee coach Buck Gurley said. “With Mike, you have someone that has a plethora of knowledge of the game, and then his skill set on the field is what really makes him a bit different from any other football player. He’s not just one of those players who runs around and just hopes to make plays. No, he understands the details of the game; from things like hand placement, he understands ball awareness, he understands offenses, and I think that makes it a whole lot easier for him to play the game the way he does.
“A lot of the time, players who are athletic just end up using their athleticism to get into the backfield,” he said. “Mike doesn’t play like that. He also has a crazy motor on him and this instinctual desire to get to the ball. A lot of people don’t have that drive to continue to want to get to the ball every play. So, you put his skills along with the constant desire to get to the ball, and well, you have yourself a dominant football player.”
Still, that type of play and his production in the state’s largest high school football classification hasn’t been enough to create the frenetic recruiting buzz one might expect.
Quite the opposite.
McClenton currently holds offers from Liberty, Marshall, Tennessee State and UNC-Pembroke. They all are quality schools — but not the type of football programs that attract players who dominate Class 7A high school games in Florida.
Gurley, a former Florida Gators player and Super Bowl champion, doesn’t understand why college coaches aren’t fighting tooth and nail to get McClenton to their school.
“I know everything right now, especially in college, is all about measurements,” Gurley said. “But I’ll tell you what: If they had this approach when I was in school, who knows? I probably wouldn’t have made it myself — and we’re talking about me as the No. 1 defensive player in the United States at the time. But here’s the thing: No one can deny the fact that Mike is a player (who) goes out there and makes plays. When you get to the next level, it’s not about your measurements anymore. It’s about whether you are able to make plays or not. When it comes to guys like Mike, we’re overthinking it, and guys like him are getting overlooked because we’re too focused on their size and not their skill set.”
McClenton knows the recruiting process isn’t simple and, as his coach says, often, he’s going to be overlooked for reasons that have nothing to do with what he’s been able to do on the field.
That doesn’t bother him, though. All McClenton is focused on is what he can control during the process, and that starts with his mindset.
“Yes, I definitely feel like I’m being overlooked in the recruiting process,” McClenton said. “But what am I supposed to do? Go home and cry to my family about it or cry to Coach Buck saying things like I’m not going to go to college? No way. And to be honest, there are too many good people around me who have reminded me to just keep believing in God and putting everything in His hands, because I can’t control the process. Everybody’s story is different. So, all I can do is continue to put in the work and keep telling myself that my time is coming. That’s what I do. Every day, I wake up, and I look in the mirror and just keep telling myself, ‘Your time is coming.’ And every night, I pray to God and put it in His hands. I just know my time is coming; there’s been so many people praying for me, so I know God’s watching over me.”
Beyond his mentality, another aspect of the process McClenton can control — along with the help of his coaches — is taking and applying the feedback he’s received from college coaches and recruiters. That includes making the move to middle linebacker.
“As a freshman at Lake Mary (High), he was already getting the job done as a defensive tackle, having like (96) tackles as a freshman,” Gurley said. “Well, we decided when he got here — myself, Mike and his dad, who is our defensive coordinator — to help put him even more on the recruiting map, to play him everywhere. Because of his body type, he is just too aggressive and too elusive to be just a guy to play on the inside of the defensive line. So, we moved him everywhere, so he could make a whole lot of plays, right? And he did, especially as an edge rusher last season.
“Now, with the attention he’s gotten, we’ve spoken to coaches, and the position they tell us he needs to be in, which, I don’t think makes a difference with a guy like Mike, is middle linebacker,” he said. “So, he’s been playing there this season, and he’s really bought into learning the position, and because of his awareness and the way he watches film, he’s excelled at it. It has seemed pretty easy for him to make the transition.
“Ultimately, I think him playing linebacker will probably be the best thing for his career, because he can move around the field and play in a lot of different roles,” Gurley said. “With most teams, if you put a guy at linebacker, all of a sudden, one play he lines up on the edge and he rushes, the next he’s playing the run in the gap. Because Mike is such a versatile player, making the move opens up a lot of opportunities on the field to make plays and in recruitment.”
Although McClenton will always have a special place in his heart for the edge rusher role, not only has he bought into the positional change, but also he has seen himself grow as a teammate and leader because of the added responsibility of playing inside linebacker.
“Since I was a kid, I’ve been developing this passion for the edge rush spot,” McClenton said. “I remember just staying up late at night, watching videos on pass rushers I liked, trying to learn how to get off the ball like them. How to use my hands, how to just make everything work. That’s probably what makes things so efficient for me off the edge, because of those mental reps I’ve had since I was a kid.
“But making the move to inside linebacker has been great, even though it is a big difference, because now, I have to consider much more when it comes to the entire game,” he said. “I have to be reading the pulling guards, watching the running back coming out of the backfield; a lot of stuff like that. But me, my dad and coach Buck — we’ve all spent a lot of time on the board, just learning not only where I need to be but also looking at what different college schemes require from their inside backers.”
This sort of growth, along with his production and freakish athletic talent, is just another reason why McClenton’s slow recruiting process doesn’t make sense. It is downright tragic that a football player of this quality — who has answered any and all questions asked of him — isn’t a highly-touted prospect.
When asked what a college football program would be getting from him, McClenton’s answer confirmed once again why he’s being criminally underrated as a prospect.
“I would just tell them that they’re going to first and foremost get a great teammate (who is) going to do everything he can to help the team get better every week,” he said. “Obviously, I want to go to college and develop as a player and person and do great things, but my focus is being the type of leader and well-rounded person who will help his teammates grow so we can all win.”
