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Brevin Jordan, the top high school tight end in America, says he’s ready to help take the University of Miami to new heights in football.
But first, he must graduate from high school.
Sunday afternoon, Jordan will close one door and open another as he participates in Bishop Gorman High School commencement in his hometown of Las Vegas.
At 1 a.m. Monday, this All-American will be soaring with his mom on a red-eye flight from Vegas to Miami, nearly bursting with daydreams that flood his mind in anticipation of his newest passage.
By Monday afternoon, he’ll be moving into a UM dorm to begin his college education and prepare for a freshman season full of promise.
“I think about the LSU game every night before I go to sleep,” Jordan told the Miami Herald of UM’s nationally televised Sept. 2 season opener at AT&T Stadium. “I think about how loud the stadium will be, and [fellow top tight-end signee] Will Mallory and me running out of the tunnel — ‘Tight End U,’ true freshmen, all the expectations and stuff.
“I’m ready to go. I’m ready to get out of here. I’m ready for college. I’m ready for a new life.”
And the Miami Hurricanes are more than ready for Jordan.
With graduated tight end Christopher Herndon recently drafted in the fourth round by the New York Jets, the 6-3, 250-pound Jordan, a gifted 17-year-old who pretty much can do it all on the football field, will be relied on to continue the extraordinary tight-end legacy left by others such as Jeremy Shockey and Kellen Winslow II and Greg Olsen and Jimmy Graham and Clive Walford and David Njoku.
Jordan is expected to be joined Monday by most, if not all, of the remaining recruiting class of 2018 signees who didn’t enroll early to participate in spring practice. All of them are buddies, he said, communicating by text daily in a group chat.
“He was the ringleader of that class,” said South Florida recruiting analyst Larry Blustein. “They were all buds.”
How did Blustein, considered a guru of South Florida high school football, describe Jordan?
“A freak,” Blustein said. “He’s going to be one of those guys that takes it right over. He’s a dominator. This kid is really, really, really good.”
So good that if he performs as expected, Jordan could be a force from the start, likely playing regularly in a two-tight-end set along with the 6-5, 220-pound Mallory, his new UM roommate and top-5 rated tight end from Jacksonville Providence School.
After Herndon’s departure, UM’s most experienced tight end is junior Michael Irvin II, who caught nine passes for 78 yards last season. Sophomore Brian Polendey played sparingly on special teams and served much of the season on the scout team.
Jordan, rated the No. 1 tight end in the nation by ESPN.com and 247Sports (No. 2 by Rivals), helped lead Bishop Gorman to its ninth consecutive Nevada State Championship last season by posting career highs in receiving yards (1,111), receptions (63) and touchdowns (13).
“I told them both they’re going to be brothers for life,” UM tight ends coach Todd Hartley said of Jordan and Mallory. ...”They bought in. They saw the vision and committed and stayed loyal.”
Hartley called Jordan “a high-end player” with “unbelievable ball skills -- just the ability to track a football and make the catch, body control in the air. Once he makes the catch, he’s such an athlete and makes plays in space that most big men can’t make. And then he has the size and girth to break an arm tackle or run through a DB trying to tackle him. Then, he has the ability to get on the line of scrimmage and block anything that anybody throws at him.
“You don’t want to say he’s ready-made, but he’s as close to ready-made as you’ll find throughout the high-school ranks. He’s a good kid, too.”
Jordan said what drew him to UM over dozens of offers from elite programs was mainly coach Mark Richt and Hartley -- “the dude, for real” -- as well as the energy and the diverse, thriving culture in Miami.
“Coach Richt kept it straight,” Jordan said. “He said, ‘We need tight ends. I don’t guarantee players playing time, but based off your film there’s no doubt you’re going to play early.’ He was always up front and honest. When he talks, it’s facts.
“Other schools were talking about tight end this and tight end that. But Miami just showed us film. The evidence was there.”
Jordan’s mother, Beverly, is a Realtor who knows she’ll miss Brevin, her middle of three sons, but was thoroughly impressed with Richt and Hartley.
Jordan’s father, Darrell, did not live with the family and died of a heart attack, Beverly said, in February. Darrell Jordan was picked by the Atlanta Falcons in the ninth round of the 1990 NFL Draft, but never got to play after tearing his rotator cuff in the preseason.
Beverly Jordan said UM’s football program was “a small part” of what sold her to the university.
“I believe in chemistry and I’m a very spiritual person,” she said. “I didn’t get the same feeling from any other coach like I did from Coach Richt and Coach Hartley.
“Coach Richt said, ‘We’re a small, private school, but we’re small and mighty. Just like Bishop Gorman, small and mighty.’
“I loved everything about that school.”
Jordan just keeps thinking about LSU.
“I want people to understand that just because I’m a freshman, doesn’t mean I won’t get into a defensive end from LSU — a 300-pound defensive end,” he said. “It’s crazy. It’s insane. I’m ready.”