Devion Clayton has an official track time of 10.65 in the 100 meter dash at the Division I state track meet last May. He was the 4th fastest sprinter in the whole state. To give an idea, Lexington Thomas is also a 10.6 guy, but the difference is Clayton's body is 6'3" and 195 lbs. He has Lexington Thomas-like speed but Kendal Keys-like size, and he's still just in high school. UNLV does not have athletes in that mold.
Players like Myles Dumas (above) are a dime a dozen. Yeah he's a decent player but there's nothing overly unique about his physical attributes. And UNLV is really his first offer.
Clayton's two lower division offers don't indicate his potential. Arizona State is starting to gain interest in him as well.
I thought a similar thing about RJ Hubert because he had only offers from Weber State and Northern Arizona and eventually UNR, but it seemed obvious he was arguably the best WR in southern Nevada. And finally the Utah Utes saw a close glimpse of him and snatched him up. Otherwise he would have been a huge miss.
Bottom line is Devion Clayton is a physical specimen. You can't "coach" that type of size and speed combo in a player. A school like UNLV should be grabbing these types of elite athletes any way they can find them, and then worry about coaching them. The fact he's a local kid is a nice plus.
Randall Cunningham says, ""The kid is, in my opinion, probably the most talented kid in the state overall," - NevadaPreps.com
This purely is speculation on my part and I agree with your take on this. Just offering a couple other possibilities here.
First being that since he is a local, in house and campus visits are far easier to secure and set up. They may be trying to get as many out of town visits secured before they make another push in Las Vegas.
The Second possibility is that Coach Sanchez having coached at Gorman last year and his brother coaching there this year has a pretty good idea about local talent. He also has connections with other local coaches. Its possible in his mind this kid isn't talented enough to play for UNLV or maybe there are some character concerns we don't know about. Not insinuating this kid has any issues off the field or that his grades aren't in order. Just saying the possibility is always there.
Devion Clayton
