Antioch’s Harris debuts in Alabama
Najee Harris, The Chronicle’s two-time Metro Player of the Year, got an early feel Saturday afternoon for how playing at arguably the nation’s top college football program will be.
Nearly 75,000 fans and a national television audience got to see why there has been so much talk about the Antioch High alum, 247Sports’ topranked player in the Class of 2017.
Harris, who graduated from Antioch and enrolled at Alabama early, rushed 17 times for 70 yards and caught three passes for 37 yards in Alabama’s spring game.
He started on Alabama’s White squad, which lost 27-24 to the Crimson. Alabama rested its top three returning backs, Bo Scarbrough, Damien Harris and B.J. Emmons because of injury, so Harris was the featured back.
Despite playing with a small meniscus tear that required surgery after the season, Harris rushed for 2,776 yards and 34 touchdowns as a senior.
He looked to be at full strength Saturday, said Antioch offensive coordinator Brett Dudley, who — along with the rest of the Panthers’ coaching staff — watched the ESPN-televised game at a local restaurant.
It was hard to believe 74,326 were on hand for a glorified intrasquad scrimmage. Around Tuscaloosa, they call the spring game “A-Day.”
“It was weird in an exciting sort of way to see him on TV and not be there with him,” Dudley said. “It’s sort of crazy. He was just here a few months ago.” Headed to USC: Tuli Letuligasenoa, the Bay Area’s highest-rated football recruit from the Class of 2018, said there was no reason to delay his announcement. The 6-foot-2, 295-pound defensive tackle from De La Salle-Concord picked USC on Sunday over Oregon, UCLA and Washington.
Ranked the 13th-best defensive tackle in the country by 247Sports, Letuligasenoa tweeted: “I am blessed to say I have committed to my dream school.” NFL draft: While many fans wonder where Freedom-Oakley graduate Joe Mixon of Oklahoma will wind up in this week’s draft, the best feel-good selection locally will occur when Kennedy-Richmond alum Takkarist McKinley is taken.
The 6-2, 250-pound former UCLA defensive end is listed as an outside linebacker on many boards and projected as a middle-to-late first-round pick.
McKinley overcame a rough childhood, turned around his academics at Contra Costa College under coach Alonzo Carter and earned All-Pac-12 honors at UCLA.
Kennedy coach George Jackson said McKinley mentored several players from the current team, which went 10-2 last season and won its first playoff game in 28 seasons. Buckner to St. Mary’s: It didn’t take long for former Riordan basketball coach Rich Buckner to land a job, this one at St. Mary’s-Berkeley. Buckner joins St. Mary’s three weeks after being let go by Riordan principal Vittorio Anastasio after 19 seasons, 10 as the head coach. Riordan was 8-18 last season.
Buckner, a Riordan graduate who coached his alma mater to two Central Coast Section titles, said he landed at the “Riordan of the East Bay.”
St. Mary’s, which won a state title in 2001 and averaged 28 wins in the 2004-05 to 2010-11 seasons, was 6-18 last season.
“It’s a great school, campus and location with lots of history, like Riordan,” Buckner said. “I’m so happy to land at a school that cares just as much about the individual as winning.”