Cooper City, Pitt DE Weaver picked by Titans
When Rashad Weaver moved to South Florida from Indiana, he came to Cooper City High as a quarterback.
That did not last long.
“I saw him throw a couple times,” former Cooper City coach Brandon Walker said, “and I said, ‘Nah, quarterback’s probably not going be a good suit for you. How about defensive line?’ ”
Weaver moved to defensive line, and the move ultimately paid off. The former Cooper City standout was selected by the Tennessee Titans with the 135th pick, in the fourth round of the NFL Draft on Saturday.
“I think he’s a kid that we kind of always knew was special,” Walker said. “We were just kind of waiting to see how he was going to develop. He had, obviously, great natural size. Super smart kid. Athletic. You see a kid and you project him and their ceiling’s really high. He was just that kid. He had such a high ceiling.
“We knew, coming out of Cooper, he was so far from the top of his ceiling; he had so much room to improve. It was just a matter of if he was going to go into a college setting and work hard enough, prepare himself enough to be great. That’s kind of exactly what he did. He went in there and did everything they asked him to do and became the guy that we always knew he could be.”
Walker said that at Cooper City, Weaver was always a disruptive force on the defensive line, even if he wasn’t the player who made a tackle.
“Even when he didn’t make plays,” Walker said, “he made plays.”
Weaver was not a highly touted prospect, earning a low three-star ranking in 247Sports’ composite rankings. He signed with Pittsburgh and redshirted his freshman year. He earned playing time as a sophomore and had a breakout year as a junior, racking up 47 tackles, 14 tackles for loss, 6.5 sacks, four pass breakups, three fumble recoveries and two forced fumbles.
Weaver was poised for a strong senior campaign in 2019, but he suffered a torn ACL in training camp and missed all of the 2019 season.
Weaver returned to the Panthers’ starting defense as a redshirt senior and had a dominant season. He had 35 tackles, 14.5 tackles for loss, 7.5 sacks, three forced fumbles and a fumble recovery.
“Rashad’s a very focused young man,” Walker said. “When he sets his mind to doing something, he just gets it done. From the time he got injured, his objective was to come back better than he was before.”