Malik Washington is markedly different from most of the other quarterbacks in the Top247, so his recruitment was on a different trajectory and time table.
The Severn (Md.) Archbishop Spalding two-sport standout balanced football recruiting with a busy school and AAU basketball schedule, which kept him from making a ton of visits and camping at schools to work with coaches.
He is the only top 25 quarterback yet to announce his commitment but that will change Friday at 1 p.m. The 6-foot-4, 200-pound Washington will be on the 247Sports YouTube channel to make his pick known. His finalists are Virginia Tech, Maryland, UCF and Syracuse.
“(Recruiting) goes by super fast and information is very valuable,” Washington said. “Those are two things I picked up on. Asking questions about not only the football aspect, but the life part is real, too. Every day living where you are living at, the class load, those are questions that are super important.
“I didn’t get to go on a bunch of campuses and see how things were so I really had to focus on asking a lot of questions because I couldn’t see too much myself.”
Washington made official visits to each of his finalists, including one to Maryland this past weekend.
His recruitment took him to some other places as well, including early favorite Penn State, as well as Oregon. His offer list stretched around the nation and also included Arkansas, Colorado, Duke, Illinois, Texas A&M, UCLA, Virginia and West Virginia.
But has Washington went through the process, he was surprised with several part of it.
“Probably how quick things can change,” he said. “Having coaches at one place my freshman and sophomore year, and now they’re not there anymore. Moving to other schools and they are recruiting me at that school now. It’s just how fast things can change and nothing is really ever set in stone.”
Because Washington’s busy schedule kept him from making a ton of visits, a bunch of schools started looking at other prospects but the four finalists remained steadfast in making him a priority prospect.
“I try not to burn any bridges,” Washington said. “I try to keep relationships with everybody because you never know where they are going to move to. A school that you might not want to go to, and their (offensive coordinator), he might go to a school you really want to go to but because you burned that bridge, you don’t respond to him when he was at another school, he can mess up your changes there so I tried to keep every door open.”
He is also a high-level talent who led Archbishop Spalding to the MIAA A title last fall. He completed 195 of 313 passes for 2,093 yards, 21 touchdowns and nine interceptions while also running for 204 yards and six touchdowns.
