South Florida game a homecoming for Turner
TAMPA, Fla. — Before Messiah Turner began the journey back to his hometown of Tampa, his coaches at UConn had a little surprise for him.
In need of a place for a walk through and having developed a rapport with the folks at Tampa Catholic High School while recruiting Turner, the decision was made to use the school where Turner played his final two seasons in both football and basketball.
So how did all of this come to be?
“I am not even sure,” Turner said. “Coach [Randy Edsall] pulled me aside and said we are going to have a little walk through so I got excited to be able to go back to the high school.”
Turner is one of nine scholarship defensive backs brought in by the UConn staff this year. Eight of them have appeared in at least one game with five of them starting at least once in the secondary.
Turner hasn’t drawn a starting assignment, but he did register a career high three tackles in UConn’s most recent game against Memphis.
Turner has been utilized mostly as a deep safety but it was not his coverage skills that first drew the attention of his coaches at UConn.
“When he hits you he knocks you backwards a little bit, he is not scared to really stick his nose in there,” UConn defensive coordinator Billy Crocker said.
Turner seems comfortable as the last time of defense although Crocker admits there is plenty of learning yet to do for the 6-foot-1, 205-pound Turner.
“Some times he ends up playing the same thing when he shouldn’t be, he makes all the different things look the same so that is something we are trying to work on with him,” Crocker said.
Turner admits that he wasn’t accustomed to watching game film before he arrived at UConn. Like so many of his fellow true freshmen, to adjustment to college football has been a bit of a rude awakening.
“I have a lot of things to get better at, getting better at my techniques and I think I am doing pretty good with that,” Turner said. “It is a process and day by day I get better. When people start to graduate and as we start to get older it is going to help us, we are going to be able to recognize things that we went through when we were freshmen so it is going to be great.
“Experience is one of the best things that young guys can get as far as if you want to be ready to play or not. We can get a lot of experience. In practice we can get yelled at, do it over, do it over but when you are in the game, your heart rate is different, everything is different. I think if you get that experience under your belt, everything will be good.”
Turner said his entire family will be in the stands at Raymond James Stadium.
There will also be a familiar face on the field as South Florida redshirt freshman defensive back Bentlee Sanders opened the season by making 10 tackles in a win over Elon. He had a forced fumble a week later against Georgia Tech.
“He is a good friend of mine so it is going to be fun playing against him,” Turner said.
With all due respect to Sanders, he is not the most prominent Tampa Catholic product that Turner has played with.
Turner was a former high school and AAU teammate of New York Knicks rookie Kevin Knox who had 17 points in Friday night’s loss to the Brooklyn Nets. With Knox averaging nearly 29 point per game, Tampa Catholic reached the 2017 FHSAA 5A title game.