When he first began spreading the phrase about Waymond Jordan, Mike Bennett figured the movie would converse for itself. The Escambia Excessive coach had been within the South Florida preps scene lengthy sufficient to know what he was seeing from his new operating again.
“Simply watching him run the soccer for the primary time, he was superb,” Bennett mentioned. He figured scholarship provides would roll in quickly sufficient.
Jordan had related expectations. Since he first picked up soccer, at 4 years previous, he’d all the time instructed himself that he’d play at an enormous faculty, on the largest stage. He’d come to Escambia as a senior with that in thoughts.
However in 2021, 4 years earlier than Lincoln Riley and USC would see that very same star potential, different faculty coaches, for no matter motive, weren’t paying a lot thoughts.
USC operating again Waymond Jordan carries the ball throughout a win over Georgia Southern on the Coliseum on Saturday. Neglected earlier in his profession, Jordan has turn out to be a key piece of the Trojans’ offense.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Instances)
Given the place Jordan stands right this moment — the highest operating again on one of many nation’s prime speeding offenses by two weeks of the school soccer season — loads of them most likely remorse that now.
“Each coach within the nation, I despatched stuff to,” Bennett mentioned. “I imply, everyone. I despatched it out to everyone.”
Some smaller faculties monitored Jordans’ senior yr at Escambia, holding an in depth eye as he rushed for 1,225 yards and 12 touchdowns. A couple of faculties mentioned he might walk-on. However none of them prolonged a scholarship supply. Jordan couldn’t perceive why.
Hutchinson Group School, a junior faculty in Hutchinson, Kan., was one of many solely locations to present him a chance. Hutchinson was a thousand miles from his hometown of Pensacola, and a world away from the main faculty soccer he thought he’d be taking part in. However the workers there knew Escambia effectively, and so they believed in what they noticed in Jordan’s tape.
If all went effectively with junior faculty, he might nonetheless get the Energy 4 provides he was in search of.
“He believed in himself. And he guess on himself,” mentioned Greg Cross, the Hutchinson operating backs coach. “And I might say he guess proper.”
Cross figured it was a worthy guess then, earlier than most anybody else. He might see on movie that Jordan had a uncommon intuition for making defenders miss. Within the open discipline, not many individuals might carry Jordan down on their very own both. In some methods, his skillset reminded Cross a bit little bit of Alvin Kamara, who performed the 2014 season at Hutchinson.
“However that wasn’t going to occur for him in a single day,” Cross mentioned.
USC’s Waymond Jordan stretches out to attain a landing in opposition to Georgia Southern on the Coliseum on Saturday.
(Sean M. Haffey / Getty Photographs)
Jordan was under no circumstances a completed product on arrival at Hutchinson. He hadn’t actually discovered but the right way to maintain his physique. He was off form. He wanted so as to add muscle and alter his food regimen. Plus, he struggled early on with cross safety.
Then his hamstrings began bothering him.
“I knew it was in the very best curiosity for him to redshirt,” Cross mentioned.
Hutchinson might afford to be affected person with him. However it was a tricky capsule to swallow for Jordan.
“He went by a part the place he was type of down,” Cross mentioned. “We had lots of talks. We’d speak day-after-day. I simply wished to maintain him targeted, maintain him locked in, maintain him motivated.
“So, me and him had a discuss it, and I mentioned, ‘You’ll be able to both let it get the very best of you, or you’ll be able to keep motivated and work 10 occasions as onerous.’”
It was a formative chat for Jordan. Cross implored him to get critical about caring for his physique. He wished him within the coaching room day-after-day. They began monitoring his meals. He started utilizing the top coach’s YMCA membership.
From then on, Cross says, “I used to be grilling him, 24/7.”
He got here again that second season wanting like a wholly totally different participant. He misplaced weight. He was stronger and extra explosive. He had a full restoration routine.
However his hamstring was nonetheless performing up. Then, after showing in two video games as a redshirt freshman, Jordan suffered a minor fracture in his foot.
“It felt, to him, like he couldn’t catch a break,” Cross mentioned.
He wore a boot for a few weeks. When he got here again, he needed to play by ache.
Even nonetheless, there have been glimpses of what Jordan could possibly be. Late within the season, in a recreation in opposition to No. 2 ranked Iowa Western Group School, Jordan broke out with two fourth-quarter speeding scores, one from 47 yards out, the opposite from 16, that helped put Iowa Western away. He completed with 4 carries for 99 yards and two touchdowns.
Hutchinson misplaced its subsequent recreation to East Mississippi Group School and fell wanting an NJCAA nationwide title in 2023. However for Jordan, every little thing was trending upward that offseason.
“You actually noticed him take that subsequent step,” mentioned Drew Dallas, Hutchinson’s head coach. “It was simply how rapidly he was hitting the outlet, how briskly and assured he was taking part in. He’d trimmed down his physique fats to hardly any in any respect. He was simply this rocked-up ball of muscle who might see the sector very well.”
That spring, as phrase bought round, some smaller faculties like Florida Atlantic and Florida Worldwide began asking about him.
By the tip of that spring, Jordan had the scholarship provides he’d been ready for.
Cross figured he would take the chance and run with it. And he wouldn’t have blamed him for doing so. The truth is, he couldn’t bear in mind anybody in his time at Hutchinson turning down an FBS alternative to return to junior faculty.
However in Jordan’s case, he believed greater provides might come.
“He instructed me that if I stayed, I might be capable to come to locations like [USC,]” Jordan recollects. “That it might all pay out ultimately.”
USC operating again Waymond Jordan cuts and modifications route whereas carrying the ball in opposition to Georgia Southern on the Coliseum on Saturday.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Instances)
Jordan known as Cross again with a choice only a few minutes after their dialog.
“If you leaving?” Cross remembers asking him.
“He says no, ‘Coach, I’m gonna keep. I do know what I could be.’”
Cross was surprised on the time. Pondering again on that dialog, he laughs.
“He put all of it on purple, I suppose,” he mentioned.
However it took all of 1 week that season for Jordan’s guess to be vindicated. He rushed for 179 yards and two touchdowns throughout Hutchinson’s season opener on simply 14 carries. That Sunday, Cross bought a name from a coach at Michigan State. Was Jordan for actual? As a result of, he mentioned, they have been watching carefully.
It was “one cellphone name after one other, each week after that,” Cross mentioned. Jordan rushed for 174 yards the next week, then 175 yards and 4 touchdowns on simply 9 carries in Week 4. Over a two-week stretch in November, Jordan exploded for 348 yards and 4 touchdowns, prompting Missouri and Central Florida, two Energy 4 faculties, to supply him scholarships.
He lastly had the chance he’d been ready for. So in December, simply earlier than the NJCAA playoffs, Jordan dedicated to Central Florida.
USC didn’t come into the image till later that month, simply as Jordan was named the junior faculty nationwide participant of the yr. Different Energy 4 faculties, like North Carolina and Mississippi, have been already making their instances to Jordan. However USC had a connection to Cross by Doug Belk, the Trojans’ secondary coach.
USC didn’t essentially have a necessity at operating again, having already added explosive New Mexico switch Eli Sanders to its class. However when Anthony Jones, USC’s operating backs coach, spoke to Jordan on the cellphone, he got here away satisfied that “USC wanted this younger man.”
“Waymond checked all of the bins that we have been in search of,” Jones mentioned.
Hutchinson beat Iowa Western to win the NJCAA nationwide title regardless of Iowa Western’s all-out efforts to bottle up the Blue Dragons’ star operating again. Two weeks later, he was on USC’s campus.
As quickly as Jordan known as him throughout his go to to L.A., Cross knew he was committing to USC.
9 months later, the identical operating again who didn’t have a single Division I supply as a highschool senior was bursting out of the USC backfield, weaving by a crowd of defenders on his approach into the Coliseum finish zone, identical to Reggie Bush, Marcus Allen and O.J. Simpson as soon as did.
As he scored his first landing as a Trojan, Jordan appeared up into the stands and noticed his household.
He’d waited 4 sometimes-frustrating years for that second.
“His endurance, his perseverance actually constructed him into one thing quite a bit greater and higher,” Dallas mentioned.
“I feel that’s as massive of part of his journey as something.”
