CSU signee Braylin Scott has 'huge upside,' coaches say

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. – The highlights are impressive.

A one-handed touchdown catch. A couple nifty moves that turn short passes into 92-yard and 97-yard touchdown receptions. Monster dunks on the basketball court.

Braylin Scott is a "phenomenal athlete," CSU football coach Mike Bobo said after receiving the 6-foot-3, 175-pounder's letter of intent on national signing day earlier this month. He's got tremendous leaping ability, good hands, great body control, terrific vision and deceptive speed.

But what sets Scott apart, his high school football coach said last week, is his passion for competition. Not just when he's playing games, but in everything he does as an athlete.

While others grimace as they're trying to complete one more repetition in the bench press, Scott does it with a smile, Liberty High School coach Bryan Nixon said. Same thing when he's running 40-yard sprints in the sweltering heat of a 105-degree day in California's Central Valley.

"I've never seen a kid have more fun at practice, have more fun in the weight room or when we're out conditioning and those types of things," Nixon said while pulling up highlight clips of Scott on his school computer to show a visiting reporter. "He has an amazing time. He's laughing, he's cutting up. But at the same time, he's beating everybody while he's doing it."

That's just who he is and how he's always been, his mother, Robyn Sumlin, said later that night, after Scott and his teammates won a basketball game 65-56 at cross-town rival Centennial High School. Scott got into early foul trouble and was limited to just six points, the last two on an impressive one-handed dunk from the baseline.

It was an "off night" for her son, who also pulled down more than a half-dozen rebounds, had a handful of steals and assists and blocked a couple shots. Scott doesn't always score a ton of points for the Patriots, basketball coach A.J. Shearon told Bakersfield's KEFO-TV earlier this season after Scott scored 25 points with two highlight-reel dunks in the championship game of a holiday tournament. But he does a "little bit of everything" in every game for a team that's 19-9 entering this week's Central Section playoffs.

Scott was shooting basketballs at a 4-foot high hoop on a "court in the kitchen" before the age of 2, his mother said. When he wasn't practicing or playing soccer, basketball or football growing up, he was hanging out with his dad, Micheal Scott, watching games on television and discussing the strategy and execution. His father played college football at Louisville, and his mother has brothers who played football at Fresno State and Western Illinois.

The joy he gets from sports, Scott said, comes from "being around my teammates and having the feeling they have my back every day and just working hard."

And no one works harder than Scott, Nixon said.

"He wants to be great," Nixon said. "He's a Division I athlete and could very well be a Division I athlete in two sports, but he chose football."

Actually, Scott said, football chose him. It's the sport colleges first noticed him for in this fall, while he was averaging 122.5 all-purpose yards a game for a Liberty team that went 10-3 and was the runner-up in the Central Section Division I playoffs. Scott caught 37 passes for 902 yards and nine touchdowns as a receiver and added another 785 yards on punt and kickoff returns.

On defense, he was a "lock-down corner," Nixon said. He made 19 solo tackles and broke up five passes against teams that went out of their way to avoid throwing to whomever he was covering.

"He's a talented kid who certainly can play several positions," said Terry Fair, CSU's defensive backs coach. "You look on film and see immediately he's a talented receiver that can play anywhere in the country."

He's got the defensive skills to play "anywhere in the country," too, Fair said. "He can roam around and make a lot of plays with his athletic ability and his long frame" at free safety or cornerback.

CSU, Bobo said, will use Scott wherever he best fits the program's needs. He'll start out as a defensive back but could get a look at receiver, too. And whatever side of the ball he winds up on, he'll certainly get a look as a punt and kickoff returner.

"He's a phenomenal athlete," Bobo said. "He's a guy that, quite frankly, when I turned on the film, I couldn't believe that a lot more people weren't recruiting. … He's the kind of guy we're looking for; he's a long, rangy guy that's got a huge upside."

Scott was still available, Nixon said, because he hardly played his junior year after transferring during the season from Bakersfield High to Liberty. By the time he went through the required progression of noncontact and contact practices before he could appear in a game for his new school, the season was nearly over.

He had been recruited by CSU's previous coaching staff and made an official visit last fall, when the Rams beat Tulsa in their annual Ag Day game. But he hadn't yet made a commitment when former coach Jim McElwain left Dec. 4 for Florida. He was left in limbo during the month-long NCAA blackout period from mid-December to mid-January, when Bobo and his new staff were unable to contact recruits.

Scott had offers from Eastern Washington and Northern Colorado but wanted to study engineering at CSU, if the offer was still valid. It was, Bobo, Fair and quarterbacks coach Ronnie Letson told him as soon as they could get out to meet Scott and his family. Scott lives in Bakersfield with his mother, an instructional assistant for Kern County schools, and an older and younger sister. His father runs a barbecue restaurant in Los Angeles.

"It was a little nerve-wracking," his mother said. "We just waited it out to see what happened. … It was very important for us to be able to see them, talk to them, ask a lot of questions, feel them out for their plans."

Nixon figures Scott will add another 40 to 50 pounds to his frame once he gets in a college nutrition and weight program. CSU's coaches are eager to see how Scott develops, too.

"He's very raw, so his upside is really great in terms of where he could be in the development process," Fair said. "He's a good kid, comes from a great family. Coaches, teammates, everybody had great things to say about him.

"So for us, it was a no-brainer. We really wanted him at Colorado State."

Follow reporter Kelly Lyell at twitter.com/KellyLyell and facebook.com/KellyLyell.news.