Scott has the tools at linebacker
“You just have to be savage to play linebacker.”
So says a smiling Raymond Scott, a 16-year-old junior at Harbor City Narbonne.
“You just have to be a beast.”
At 6 feet 2 and 220 pounds, with a steely stare and quick feet, Scott is very good at anticipating where the football is headed. It’s called being instinctive.
“He came out of the womb ready to tackle,” one Narbonne supporter says.
Scott has been a starter on two City Section Division I championship teams and last year’s Division I-A state title team. He received a scholarship offer from USC in April and quickly committed.
Everything seems to be happening fast. He played only one year of youth football as an eighth-grader, then immediately got put into Narbonne’s starting lineup because he was physically ready.
“He was ripped,” Coach Manuel Douglas says. “He wasn’t 220, but he was 200 pounds. He’s very athletic, he’s long, he plays well in spaces. He’s smart and instinctive.”
At inside linebacker last season, Scott made 140 tackles, 28 for losses. This season, he’s moving to outside linebacker, where he’ll have more responsibility for covering receivers or blitzing the quarterback.
He still remembers his first tackle in a football game as an eighth-grader. He can still hear the shouting from family members, “Raymond, let’s go.”
“It was a two-back formation and I blitzed,” he says. “I passed the blocker and got the sack. It felt great. I felt this is a sport I’d be doing well in.”
Douglas has been particularly impressed with Scott’s commitment to improving, and his passion for the game.
“He doesn’t walk around with the attitude, ‘I’m Raymond Scott, All-American,’ ” Douglas says. “The first offer he got was Oregon State. When we told him, you could tell it meant a lot because tears came to his eyes. He wasn’t embarrassed to actually cry.”
Narbonne has been producing some very good linebackers, from Keishawn Bierria (Washington) to Lawson Hall (Nevada). The Gauchos have another outstanding junior linebacker in Darien Butler, who also has been on the varsity since his freshman year. And the Gauchos have moved All-City senior defensive end Anthony Pandy to linebacker.
As a group, Narbonne’s linebackers are in a class by themselves.
Scott and Butler are 16-year-olds, still growing and getting stronger and faster.
Dealing with Scott on defense this season is going to be a challenge for opponents.
He’s a disruptor and big-play maker. And who knows how good he’ll be by the time he graduates in 2018.
“I don’t think Raymond realizes how good he is,” Douglas says. “I don’t think he’s nearly as good as he’s going to be.”