Yes, a freshman just committed to UNC. It's not their first foray of securing early verbals and we, personally, don't have a problem with early recruiting. However, this is the first instance of early recruiting gone awry. We've looked over young Ara Atayan's highlight videos, both lacrosse and football, and the 9th grader feeds into early recruiting critics. We know that coaches base and compare a kid's performance with others in his age group, but, frankly, Atayan and his peers are munchkins.
After watching his football tape (below), one will soon begin to understand UNC's reasoning for receiving a verbal commitment. Judging by Atayan's lacrosse tape from this Summer, he's a hard-nosed middie with a knack for clearing the ball and finding the open man after drawing an initial slide.
We're not knocking Atayan's skills at all. We just think UNC may have jumped the gun on a player who hasn't matured with size. He's not exactly Forry Smith (6'2", 175 pounds), who committed to Hopkins last Fall as a freshman.
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