RB Shekai Mills-Knight building bond with Coach Merritt

The Canadian Invasion has begun. After signing Isaiah Thomas and landing Akheem Mesidor as a transfer, the Canes have offered 6’2, 215-pound RB Shekai Mills-Knight from Montreal. Like many talented Canadian prospects, Mills-Knight has ventured south to pursue his football career, landing at the Baylor School in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Mills-Knight is currently unranked but boasts offers from Oregon, Auburn, Wisconsin and Miami.

If it was up to his mom, Mills-Knight never would have gone down the gridiron path.

"My mom didn't want me to play," Mills-Knight recounts. "She was like, that's a dangerous sport."

His father supported his football ambitions, and Mills-Knight took up the sport at the age of 7. With a large frame and track speed (his uncle was Usain Bolt's track coach), Mills-Knight developed into the top running back in Quebec. Unfortunately, after moving to Tennessee to seek better competition, he fractured his ankle. Mills-Knight rehabbed every day, missing the first four weeks but finishing his junior season with 1,200 total yards and being named All-State.

He prides himself on running angry and models his game after Eddie George and Marshawn Lynch. In fact, Eddie George personally offered him as the head coach of Tennessee State.

“I run extremely hard. Like you see in the tape, I fall forward all the time. It's just muscle memory for me to fall forward and fight for extra yards.”

Schools like Tennessee, Ole Miss, Auburn and Florida are in pursuit, but Mills-Knight has developed a strong relationship with new Hurricanes RB coach Matt Merritt. He quickly set up an official visit to Miami on the loaded June 7th weekend.

"Miami, as soon as I got in contact with them, they're all showing love," he said. “From the moment we connected, I really liked him because he's a man of God, just like me. I grew up in church.”

Mills-Knight, who is of Jamaican descent, is also well aware of the quality of Jamaican food in Miami. “I know Florida. I got friends down there and they be telling me like, it's the real deal.”

Mills-Knight is also taking unofficials to Michigan, Michigan State and Liberty.