In late January, ASU co-defensive coordinator Antonio Pierce flew from Phoenix to New York. He rented a car and began his descent down Interstate-95. He threw high school after high school in his GPS and cruised down the Atlantic coastline.
A few weeks later, he pulled up Google Maps on his computer, projecting it to a bigger screen on his right. He showed his route on a map equipped with hundreds of virtual pins. The locations spanned the United States, but it was clear more than half were east of the Mississippi.
Arizona State had marked every prospect in the country who fit their DNA. They had turned recruiting into a science where their main variable was height. And by initially evaluating every high school football player in the country by one main variable, all a sudden its sample size became manageable.
“This isn’t even (about) stars,” Pierce said then. “This is just 6-(foot)-5, 6-3, 6-4 -- the height and the length. Some players are good. Some players are better than others. For us, it was just -- you look at it, we have the entire Pac-12 fighting over, just say it’s 40 guys here (pointing to the West Coast) and I can hit this corridor (pointing to some small spot east of the Mississippi) and hit 40. Just look at the numbers.”
Pierce had made an east coast road trip in search of the unicorns, the defensive linemen who were 6-foot-4 and taller. He met with dozens of them in his two weeks on the road, bringing the Sun Devil logo into a lot of those high schools for the first time.
Pierce pointed to an actual calendar in the corner of his office. In black marker, he filled in the April 15 date as the start of another east coast recruiting trip. He wanted to hit more schools and make return visits to those he already formed relationships with in January. ASU’s east coast recruiting effort was going to be in full force. That, of course never played out.
Nonetheless, Pierce isn’t a guy who makes excuses, the last person who would use anything -- even something as drastic as a global pandemic -- to stop him from his goals. So, going back to early February, as he stared at his United States map, looking at every dot, at every lengthy defensive linemen, Pierce was asked how many he could realistically bring to Tempe.
“Our goal is to get 10 in two years,” he said, confidently.
If all goes to plan, Eric Gentry -- a three-star linebacker from Philadelphia -- will be one of them. And, for those wondering, yes, he’s over 6-4. He’s got Pierce’s scale beat by two inches.
Along his road trip, Pierce stopped by Gentry’s high school, Neumann-Goretti, and later the two talked for what turned out to be a wide-ranging half-hour conversation.
“He just told me, ‘Don’t focus on what anyone else has to say. Don’t things bring you down. Don’t be focused on the social life -- be more focused on football and focused on you. Every stage of school and life prepares you for the next stage of life,” Gentry said Pierce told him.
“He said he really likes the way I play. I always appreciate someone -- especially of his caliber, being in the NFL and being successful in the league -- talking with me and acknowledging me.”
To Gentry, his 30-minute conversation with Pierce was a rarity. Most of the time, he noted, coaches are darting from school to school. They’ll spend a few minutes with a couple of different kids and then be on their way. With Pierce, it was a real conversation about life, football, and the future.
Gentry loves to seek others out for their wisdom. And ASU’s coaches, most of whom have spent some time in the NFL, have truckloads of it.
Pierce was adamant about his football journey from Southern California to a Super Bowl. Defensive line coach Robert Rodriguez told Gentry about different moves he could use off the edge and about his experience coaching with the Minnesota Vikings. Head coach Herm Edwards spoke more to Gentry about his family and the high-schooler taking care of his family during the pandemic.
“It’s always been (about) lessons,” Gentry said of his conversations with the ASU coaches. “Always something new to learn, new to find out. I always keep things in my head that are meaningful and that will help me.”
At the moment, Gentry holds 13 offers from big-name programs including Oregon, Washington, Texas A&M, Tennessee and others. But, because COVID-19 has shut down the recruiting world, Gentry has yet to take an official visit and the flurry of west coast unofficial visits he had planned for this summer were canceled.
Because of the uncertainty, Gentry is still unclear when he’ll commit and is hesitant to narrow his list down to even a top 10 without taking any visits.
Regardless, the Sun Devils seem to have made an impression.
While going through a recruiting process without any in-person communication, Gentry has relied on the internet. He’s Googled every school he’s seriously considering and looked up its graduation rates, average GPA, average student-athlete GPA and studied last year’s film to see how he may fit into the school’s defense.
“I remember them (in the Sun Bowl),” Gentry said. “I remember watching the draft and them having a number of players in the draft. I remember (former ASU receiver) Jaelen Strong going there, who’s from Philadelphia.”
He raved about the Sun Devil coaches’ ability to keep his family in the loop on all the happenings of his recruitment and build relationships with him. That’s a draw to ASU for Gentry, but above everything else, it’s the pro experience their coaches carry.
“Just knowing that they’ve been there and that could be a great connection for me trying to get to the NFL,” Gentry said.
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