Mcbride gets an invitation to Nike Opening.
http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/baynews9/sports/article.html/content/news/articles/bhsn/2013/6/12/the_opening_invite_c.html
PINELLAS PARK --*
Six months ago, Plant City OL Montel McBride didn't have a single offer.
Fast forward to June 12, and the 6-foot-4, 330-pound lineman has 15 of them, including ones from USF, UCF, Florida State, Auburn and Louisville, but his biggest one came on June 3.
And he'll never forget that moment, either.
McBride was at McDonald's after school with a few of his friends. He called Alabama's defensive line coach*Chris Rumph, then talked with offensive line coach Mario Cristobal. His friends didn't believe he was on the line with Alabama. Then, Nick Saban gets on the phone.
"Next thing they hear is, 'Hey Montel, this is coach Nick Saban,'" McBride recalled, laughing. "It went from walking away to, wait, who is that? It was so funny."
The next part of the conversation went pretty well for the three-star prospect.
"He said, 'I wanted to tell you that you had an offer from the University of Alabama,'" McBride said. "He had a long dragged-out speech and he said it a few times. By that time, it had already sunk in. I was like, whoa. I was beyond excited, bouncing around and going crazy."
News traveled pretty fast.
"The walk from Plant City to McDonald's is less than five minutes," McBride said. "By the time I get off the phone and got into the school, I get six text messages saying congrats on your offer. That was fast."
"I was shocked, and ecstatic."
Not many kids in the country, let alone Tampa Bay, can say they have an Alabama offer. It's just one of the many surprises in McBride's recruitment, which has skyrocketed since the calendar flipped to 2013. Just days after Bama offers, Auburn extends him a scholarship.
"It's just great," he said. "I'm loving this right now."
Montel's first offer came from UMass on January 27th. Soon, UCF offered. Then, in March, FSU, Kentucky and USF extended him ones in a week's time. He won OL MVP honors at a Rivals Camp a few week later, and his recruitment continued to rise.
This week, he's on an unsigned preps bus tour, taking him to Kentucky, Clemson, Vanderbilt, Louisville and Tennessee. He plans to visit Alabama in the summer, as well.
Oh, and he'll have to clear his calendar in late June. Tuesday, he was invited to The Opening 2013, a four-day camp presented by NIKE football that includes training, coaching and competition for 150 of the country’s most elite high school football players. It's held June 30-July 3 at Nike's World Headquarters in Beaverton, Ore. He's the eighth Tampa Bay-area player invited.
"This summer is going to be a lot of fun for me," he said. "I'm not going to have much of a personal life."
It's all come pretty fast for McBride, but he can't say he wasn't warned.
"At the beginning of the year, I didn't have any offers. I was skeptical about recruiting and I wasn't sure whether if it was going to happen or not," he said. "That was just because I was doubting [myself], but back when I was a freshman, (Plant City) coach (Wayne) Ward told me I had the potential to be a national recruit.
"At first I didn't believe it...now I'm just happy, excited and ready for the season. I'm going to have the most fun possible."
