Lamar is rated a 4-star linebacker heading into his senior season. (Michael Carvell / AJC)
Roswell inside linebacker Tre Lamar is rated as a four-star linebacker. Flush that. There's a better number to describe his worth on a football field.
Try three broken toes. He’s a three-broke toe prospect to stick right in the teeth of a big-time Saturday defense.
The 6-foot-4, 240-pounder with 4.65 second speed in the 40-yard dash tried to begin a season with not one, not two, but three broken toes. Those are kind of important at a position earmarked for having a tractor beam in one’s forehead to the football.
The 70 tackles he registered as a sophomore came in just six games. He missed the first few games of that season because of a condition which developed during the summer leading up to that season. His big toe was fractured. His middle toe was crumbled bone. Then his third toe had a hairline fracture.
“I feel like I owe something to my team,” Lamar said. “The minimum of that has to be toughness. I thought those toes weren’t bad enough where I could not run on them. I could still play. I could still help the team. I felt like I was good enough to play in the game. It hurt to move, but I could still help the team. My toes were hurting, but they didn’t keep me from playing football.”
That sort of “leather helmet” attitude is being pursued the most by Alabama, Auburn and Clemson. Its a toss-up right now between those three in regard to which one of those schools he’s thinking about playing for the most.
Alabama, Auburn and Clemson are the program giving him the most attention right now. (Michael Carvell / AJC)
“If you asked me which three of them are the most present in his thoughts right now, I would have to tell you it is both Auburn and Alabama,” his father George Lamar said.
Lamar told the AJC the Alabama and Auburn offers are not contingent on him coming to any of their camps.
“Neither one of those schools has ever told me I needed to come to one of their camps to be able to commit,” Lamar said.
It has been mentioned he might also have the ability to play defensive end at those schools, but his preference is to remain at the inside linebacker position he is comfortable with. Lamar said Clemson is recruiting him the hardest at the time. He just about has everyday contact with Clemson.
“I’m condensing my list of schools right now to the list I am comfortable with,” Tre Lamar said. “I just want to narrow it down little-by-little to the place where I think I might be able to make the biggest impact on their defense.”
Lamar will also make sure to stalk an engineering degree along with the football. That is vital to his decision. Florida, Notre Dame and Stanford are also in the recruiting picture for him, too.
“Education in this process for him is really important,” George Lamar said. “Its not just him talking about it. He lives it. I don’t think the kid in all of his years has ever brought me a ‘C’ home. His GPA is in that 3.5 range. He’s never brought home less than a ‘B’ even through football season. Not even through any kind of adversity. He’s never brought me a ‘C’ home.”
Lamar is taking summer classes right now to make sure he can enroll early during the winter semester. Is he considering Georgia? It appears like the Bulldogs were a little late in the hunt for his name on the scholarship papers.
"Georgia is a great school and I've been talking to that program for awhile but I've always said that I've wanted to go to school out of state," Lamar said. "Coach (Tracy) Rocker and Coach (Mike) Ekler and Coach (Kevin) Sherrer are all great coaches. They have a great facility over there and just a great system but for me I was already condensing my list when they came in with a scholarship offer. I already had the schools that I was really looking at."
Jeff Sentell covers UGA recruiting for AJC.com and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Follow him on Twitter for the latest on who’s on their way to play Between the Hedges.
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