The stories are becoming all-too-familiar in the world of college football recruiting.
A coach pops in a highlight tape of a player, sees a handful of plays and is sold.
Sometimes it’s based on potential, pure talent or a combination of the two. There’s one commonality in it all: It’s done without a face-to-face meeting most of the time.
In this particular case, it took Florida State offensive line coach Rick Trickett a little more than a half of dozen plays on Ethan Frith’s highlight tape and he had seen enough.
Trickett ordered an FSU graduate assistant to track down North Pike football coach Chris Smith’s number and an offer soon followed.
That was on March 22, and it unofficially marked the beginning on his courtship.
“(Trickett) called and ... he said, ‘Well I’ve watched him on film, and I’ve watched about eight clips and I told my GA to get your phone number,’ ” said Smith, noting that Trickett asked if anyone had offered Frith yet. “And Trickett said, ‘We’re going to be his first offer,’ and it kind of caught me off guard. That’s a heck of a program.”
Trickett is a legendary offensive line coach with 40 years of coaching experience, which has included stops at Southern Miss, Mississippi State, Auburn, LSU and West Virginia, among others, so it didn’t take long for him to see what he liked.
At 6-foot-7, 320 pounds, Frith is literally a can’t miss offensive line prospect, as in can’t miss on the field. The rising senior has dwarfed his competition in Class 4A ever since he started growing and has quietly become one of the top linemen prospects in the state.
“He’s not your typical big guy. He’s big, but he moves well. I think he’s still raw,” Smith said. “I think he’s still got a lot of room for improvement and he knows that. He busts his tail and that’s one thing about him, he don’t mind working.”
Frith’s offer from Florida State is likely just the tip of the iceberg, or maybe simply just an icebreaker. Two days after Florida State’s offer, LSU sent a handwritten letter inviting Frith to its Spring Game on April 20. He’ll be in Tallahassee, Fla., this weekend for FSU’s Spring Game and could see an influx of offers soon.
Frith, who spent Saturday in Birmingham, Ala., at the Rivals.com regional camp, has also received interest from Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Southern Miss, Louisiana Tech and Missouri.
“I haven’t decided what I’m going to major in but that’s going to play a good role in it; also just a good football team,” he said. “I want to feel home wherever I go and mainly a good football team. I’m trying to win wherever I go.”
The behemoth played right tackle in 2012 as a junior and left tackle in 2011. He’d be a perfect fit as a left tackle to protect a quarterback’s blind side.
And the scary part is he’s still developing.
Frith has a chance to be one of top linemen prospects in Pike County in the past two decades. The most notable name is former McComb standout Cooper Carlisle, who went to school at Florida and is currently with the Oakland Raiders. South Pike also had a pair of linemen — Tre’ Stallings and Jeremy Bridges — who both spent time in the NFL.
“Footwork, (Carlisle and Frith) are a lot alike,” said Smith, who coached junior high football at McComb while Carlisle was there. “They both have good feet. They remind me a lot of each other. I watched Cooper practice every day, so I can relate to him more than the others.”
