Salivating at the possibility of Figueroa and Thomas standing up on opposite sides of an odd-front. Eventually, you're talking about two 6'4, 235 backers who can rush the passer or drop into coverage with fluidity. The offense won't know what's coming.
We don't really know how big this kid is. I saw heights listed from 6'2" to 6'4". He was first team all met on a very good year for defensive players in D.C. That's according to one poster on a message board who claims to follow D.C. H.S. football. I live in the D.C. area but don't follow it very closely.
I'll believe he's in a class with Thomas when I see it. I've been watching recruiting from the mid 80's and my experience tells me that the south Florida kids seem to be a cut above. It's like when D.J. Williams came in. My early reports from fall practice were that Vilma was better than Williams when they both came in.
Back in the '80's we recruited Bukasa Kalombo from Herndon, VA. I think he was a first tream All-Met for the D.C. area and had 19 sacks his senior year. He hardly ever played at Miami.
They play pretty decent football in the D.C. area, including especially in northern Virginia, but whether this kid will be a starter at UM, we don't know yet. We were burned the last couple of years with kids we recruited from D.C. and Virginia. There was another kid from D.C. who committed and then de-committed, I think another LB. Then there was that LB from the Tidewater area of VA who spent a year or two in the program then left when Golden came in.