COCHRAN, Georgia. — There are those rare prospects who take us all back to times when we used the Create-A-Player mode on our treasured college football video games from back in the day. Bleckley County senior Amarius Mimis is certainly one of those players.
Folks can see that 5-star ranking and his slot as the nation’s No. 2 OT and No. 6 overall prospect for 2021 (247Sports Composite ratings) and get caught stargazing. The rankings take on a life of their own and identify the player more than the eyeball test.
With Mims, the real treat is watching him in person. The 6-foot-8 (and then some) prospect has managed to augment his body considerably from the player we saw last season.
RELATED: The 8 things to know right now about the Amarius Mims recruitment
He was also playing offensive tackle last fall for the first time as a high school player. Mims was athletic enough to spend his sophomore year lined up at tight end. He could make plays there in the run game, but that’s also because his Royals had a pair of senior tackles who could get it done on the edge, too.
Watch his junior film at length. Just be sure to realize he’s at least an inch taller and about 15 pounds heavier than he was last season. But that’s really just him stepping on a scale.
The important assessment here is how he has reshaped those 320 or so pounds. DawgNation forum contributor @SoFl_Dawg saw an early leak of the photos in this post last week and said “built in a lab” in regard to Mims.
That’s a logical assessment.
Check out several frames of Mims from Bleckley County’s rainy morning practice late last week.
Amarius Mims: Getting better every day
How has he improved his game for his final season of high school football?
“He’s gotten taller and now he really doesn’t have any fat,” Bleckley County coach Von Lassiter said. “He’s done a good job there. His numbers have gone up. All of his lifts have gone up.”
“He went from like 300 last year to now over 325 on cleans and he’s still getting stronger and bigger. He’s worked extremely hard. He hasn’t missed a single day of workouts or meetings or zoom meetings since we have gotten out here for recruiting or anything else.”
Mims looks like he could be contending for a two-deep in college football right now. Anywhere. A big share of the credit there will go to offensive line coach Ryan McKenzie at Bleckley County.
“I think his technique has now gotten to the point where he has gotten so much better with the little things,” Lassiter said. “It is not just that ‘I am bigger than everybody’ anymore. It is now he really knows how to use his body, use his steps and put my hands like this. Coach McKenzie has done a fine job with him and that’s why he has gotten better every single day.”
If you could watch his practice film, a lot of things will pop out. Teammates will use him as the ultimate litmus in practice periods. They will employ their fellow Royals to take on Mims. To run him over. To step up in his gap and get a taste.
He’s the type of young prospect that makes one wonder what he’d look like if he really cut loose on his teammates in a practice period. The likely outcome would be fewer healthy Royals left to get after it in practice.
The biggest thing might be his hips and the way he now uses them.
“His leverage is now really good,” said Lassiter, who also coached Georgia ALL-SEC candidate Trey Hill in high school. “He can bend better than any big body I have ever been around. He’s good with his feet. Good with his hands and now good with his leverage on his hips.”
Times are different. Recruiters now go straight to the prospect and their families. The barrage of calls to Lassiter’s cell phone line is not as constant as most might think.
He said that Auburn, Georgia and Tennessee are the only schools that have called on him since Bleckley County got out of school for the pandemic. Georgia’s Matt Luke is determined among that pack. Luke is the only coach at any school who will reach out to Lassiter every day.
Luke and Lassiter will chat up a lot of Xs and Os. They will take about concepts or organizing practices and leading a team. Luke is well-versed at that from his three years as an SEC head coach at Ole Miss. But he will also send Lassiter a picture of what he has cooking on the grill at times, too.
Auburn has reached out twice during that span. The Vols have reached out once.
“Coach Luke is relentless,” Lassiter said. “But it is good. Sometimes we just talk football. Not recruiting. But they understand. They understand that they don’t want to let this kid out of the state. They have done a good job recruiting him. And he others have, too. But as far as going through me and what I know. I know exactly what Georgia is doing in recruiting Amarius but then I really don’t have a feel for that for anybody else.”
They’ll get the recruiting done and shut the door on that. Then they will just speak as coaches about concepts relating to running the inside zone and outside zone.
“He will kind of help me on things about being a head coach,” Lassiter said. “That’s been real interesting to work with him in that way, too.”
Amarius Mims: The other unmistakable practice visual
Georgia was the first school to offer Mims. Defensive coordinator Dan Lanning actually extended that offer. That offer helped to cement the things that the Bleckley County staff was thinking about Mims.
They had the feeling Mims was going to go big-time and it would be earlier in his high school career.
“They saw what we thought we had and then quickly confirmed it,” Lassiter said. “We thought that this kid was going to be on a different level than even the great tackles in high school. Georgia confirmed it.”
Somebody needs to start working on a name, image and likeness branding of “Mt. Mims” in reference to this 5-star. He liked that nickname.
That’s not alliteration. But a reality. Mims is a tower of a presence on the practice field.
He’ll pop his helmet off from time to time, but when he is strapped up his helmet begins at the apex of the headgear for teammates bubble up in the huddle.
The head-shaking part here is Mims told DawgNation that his growth plates are still open. He could wind up as a 6-foot-9 offensive tackle on Saturdays.
Check out these images below. He makes some of the 6-foot and 6-foot-1 linemen at Bleckley County appear shorter than they actually are.
SENTELL’S INTEL
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