Recruiting guru Lemming visits top prep prospects in Las Vegas

Steve Guiremand

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 | 10:46 a.m.

ESPN football recruiting analyst Tom Lemming is in Las Vegas today, not to take some well deserved R&R by the Hard Rock Hotel pool.

Lemming, in the midst of a 20-day, 11,000-mile road trip through the western states that already has included stops in Denver, Salt Lake City, Tacoma, Portland, Palo Alto, Calif., Los Angeles, and Phoenix, is stopping in Las Vegas just long enough to meet with six of the top prep football prospects in Southern Nevada after driving in from Tucson on Monday afternoon.

Lemming, whose five-month road trip through 46 states is the subject of a recruiting diary for ESPN.com, will meet with Bishop Gorman linebacker Ryan Reynolds, Las Vegas offensive lineman Arturo Rodriguez, Palo Verde defensive back Jarrell Harrison, Green Valley WR/DB Brett Johnson, Cheyenne defensive lineman Perry Eppinger and Gorman junior running back DeMarco Murray this afternoon at UNLV.

It's the fifth year that Lemming, widely regarded as the nation's No. 1 prep football talent scout and a key influence in the picking of the USA Today All-America team as well as squads for the U.S. Army All-Star Game in San Antonio, has made it a point to include Las Vegas among his stops.

"It seems like we have a high school All-American type of player coming out of there just about every year," Lemming, now in his 25th year of producing his Prep Football Report magazine, said. "You look back and you see players like Steven Jackson (Oregon State, first-round pick of the Rams), Corey Williams (Washington) and Jamaal Brimmer (UNLV) who have come out of there recently. And Ryan Reynolds is going to be another All-American this year. He'll be one of the most recruited players in the country."

Lemming previously interviewed Lincoln County quarterback Kyle Seevers (6-foot-6, 190 pounds) in Lincoln, Neb., during an earlier stop on his 46-state sojourn. The only states he will not have driven though this year are North Dakota, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii.

"Reynolds and Seevers are probably the two top prospects in the state this year," Lemming said. "With so many people moving to Las Vegas and so many more high schools opening, it's an area that is going to produce more and more Division I football players over the years."

The 6-1, 225-pound Reynolds, who has been timed at 4.56 seconds in the 40-yard dash, has already been offered scholarships by 30 colleges including Oklahoma, Miami, Notre Dame, Michigan, Tennessee and UNLV. USC coach Pete Carroll and Oregon State's Mike Riley both stopped by Gorman to watch a recent spring workout.

Seevers, who suffered a torn labrum in his throwing shoulder in a basketball game last February, has also received a handful of scholarship offers from schools including Nebraska, BYU, Boise State and Nevada-Reno.

Lemming, who lives in the Chicago suburb of Barrington, started his recruiting oddessy on Feb. 25 "in a snowstorm in Charlotte." His last stop is scheduled to be July 1 in Indianapolis. Before he's done he will have personally met, interviewed and taken pictures of more than 800 of the nation's top senior football prospects to be included in his magazine as well as a number of promising juniors such as Murray.

"I never got to travel much when I was a kid, so I enjoy driving around the country every year to meet the different players," Lemming said.

Even if it means he's working or driving most of the time.

"Nah, I won't have time for that," Lemming said when asked if he planned to take a dip in the pool today. "I've got to get up early Wednesday morning to fly to Dallas."