‘Man among boys’: Boise State recruit was on ESPN’s ‘You Got Mossed,’ has brother in NFL
Boise State offensive coordinator Tim Plough said he didn’t know much about wide receiver Prince Strachan the first time he watched his highlight tape, but it didn’t take long to know he’d found a diamond in the rough.
“You just see this long dude going up and making all these crazy catches,” Plough told the Idaho Statesman in December.
Strachan flew under the college football recruiting radar for a reason. He grew up in the Bahamas and never even put on full pads until he took the field for his first junior varsity game at John Carroll Catholic High School in Fort Pierce, Florida, after moving to the United States in 2019.
A lack of experience didn’t stop the 6-foot-4, 195-pound receiver from posting 1,406 yards and 17 touchdowns in two varsity seasons at John Carroll.
Plough was determined to keep Strachan under wraps heading into college football’s early signing period in December, and he almost got away with it. Then ESPN let the cat out of the bag.
One of Strachan’s many highlights during his senior year was a 52-yard touchdown catch against Champagnat Catholic in the Region 4-2A championship game, and it was featured on the “You Got Mossed” segment of ESPN’s “Sunday NFL Countdown” on Nov. 27.
The clip — narrated by the segment’s namesake, former NFL wide receiver and Hall of Famer Randy Moss — showed Strachan leap over a defender on a deep ball and trot into the end zone. Plough said he was in a hotel room making last-minute preparations for Boise State’s regular-season finale at San Diego State when he saw the clip.
“I look up from what I’m doing and I see him on ‘You Got Mossed,’ and it was like, ‘Well, now everyone is going to know about him,’” Plough said.
Despite the publicity, and the fact that Boise State didn’t offer Strachan a scholarship until three days before early signing day, he was one of 22 recruits signed on Dec. 15. The program will put the finishing touches on its 2022 recruiting class during the traditional signing period, which begins on Wednesday.
Strachan won’t join the Broncos with the rest of this class, though. He’s scheduled to graduate from high school in May, but he’ll grayshirt this year and won’t officially enroll at Boise State until January 2023. That’s in part because the Broncos have to juggle roster numbers, a result of players taking the NCAA up on its offer of extra eligibility in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Boise State head coach Andy Avalos said.
Strachan said he plans to run track this spring and spend the rest of the year training for the moment he gets to live the dream that convinced him to leave his family and everyone he knew in the Bahamas when he was just 15 years old.
“The goal is to play college football at a high level,” Strachan said. “It’s something I’ve dreamed about my whole life, and it’s important to my family.”
Running routes on fairways
Strachan didn’t grow up playing football, but he grew up in a home where the sport was part of life — a home full of Dallas Cowboys fans.
Strachan’s father, Jerome, was a high school track star in the Bahamas and went on to play college football at Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida. He not only gathered the family in front of the TV whenever the Cowboys were playing, but urged his sons to build on his football dreams.
“He pushed me real hard, and he was the guy who taught me everything I knew when I came to the U.S.,” Prince Strachan said. “ ... Without him, none of this would be possible.”
There was no shortage of open fields for Strachan and his older brother, Michael, to practice running routes on in the Bahamas, but manicured turf fields were another story. So Strachan’s father used to sneak his boys onto golf courses, where they could get used to running on something that at least resembled a football field.
They were kicked off more than one course, Prince said, but those formative days spent running routes on fairways helped shape the work ethic that led to his pursuit by Boise State’s coaches after an alum sent Strachan’s high school highlight film to Avalos last fall.
“He comes from a family with an athletic background,” Boise State wide receivers coach Matt Miller said, “but what’s more important is he’s a grinder, and people say we can’t miss with him because he’s going to work his tail off.”
NFL bloodlines
Strachan followed his brother’s footsteps in coming to the United States as a sophomore in high school, and he hopes to follow his lead in football as well.
Michael Strachan, who is five years older, settled in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he enrolled at Liberty Christian Academy. He went on to play wide receiver at a Division II school, the University of Charleston in West Virginia, where he set single-season program records with 1,319 yards and 19 receiving touchdowns as a redshirt junior in 2019.
After opting out of his senior season because of COVID-19, he was picked by the Indianapolis Colts in the seventh round of the 2021 NFL Draft, and it didn’t take Michael long to turn heads. In his first NFL action — a preseason game against the Panthers — he came up with a leaping catch that looked remarkably similar to Prince’s acrobatic grab on “You Got Mossed.”
“To see him get drafted, that motivated me and sent me back to school for my senior year with a different confidence,” Prince said.
Prince moved in with Michael in West Virginia when John Carroll went to online classes in February 2020 because of the pandemic. After training with his brother while he prepared for the NFL Draft, Prince rejoined his team in Florida just before school started that August. He went on to racked up 633 receiving yards and eight touchdowns in 2020 and led John Carroll with 34 catches for 773 yards and nine touchdowns last year.
“That was probably one of the hardest training periods of my life,” Prince said of the months spent with his brother. “I learned a lot and came back my junior year a new person.”
Prince Strachan transformed his body that summer with his brother, John Carroll Catholic football coach Mickey Groody said. The first day he walked back into the weight room, Groody said he took a picture of Strachan standing next to 6-3, 245-pound defensive end Wilky Denaud — a 2023 recruit with scholarship offers from SEC and ACC programs — and sent it to all of his assistant coaches. They couldn’t believe they were looking at the same player they once called a baby giraffe.
“He came back a man among boys,” Groody said. “No one in the state could stick with him when he went up for a jump ball. He can run all the routes, and he’s got all the measurables, but his ability to high-point the ball is what’s going to take him pretty far.”
Strachan doesn’t have a four-star rating from recruiting services and he didn’t have a pile of scholarship offers from Power Five programs. Neither did one of the greatest players in Boise State history: quarterback Kellen Moore, who went on to win an NCAA-record 50 games as a starter.
“For us, (Strachan is) going to be a fun project, because this is a place in Boise State that was built on developing guys,” Miller said.
BOISE STATE’S 2022 CLASS
CB Dionte Thornton, 6-3, 185, Lawndale (California) High
OT Kage Casey, 6-6, 250, Clackamas (Oregon) High
TE Austin Terry, 6-5, 230, Tumwater High (Olympia, Washington)
S Keenan McCaddy, 6-4, 180, Moanalua High (Honolulu, Hawaii)
OT Roger Carreon, 6-5, 295, Jal (New Mexico) High
DL JJ Talo, 6-3, 250, Kearns High (Salt Lake City, Utah)
LB Jayden Virgin, 6-3, 220, Mt. Carmel High (San Diego, California)
OT Hall Schmidt, 6-7, 300, Peninsula (Washington) High
WR Zamondre Merriweather, 6-2, 200, Valencia (California) High
QB Maddux Madsen, 6-0, 185, American Fork (Utah) High
LB Jake Ripp, 6-3, 215, Los Gatos (California) High
LB Gavin Hambrick, 6-2, 220, Apple Valley (California) High
RB Ashton Jeanty, 5-9, 195, Lone Star (Texas) High
P James Ferguson, 6-1, 175, Pro Kick Australia
OT Tyson Molio’o, 6-4, 295, St. John Bosco (Bellfower, California)
DE Cortez Hogans Jr., 6-3, 265, Snow College (Palatine, Illinois)
LB Dishawn Misa, 6-3, 230, Eastside Catholic (Sammamish, Washington)
Edge Deven Wright, 6-5, 230, Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (Clarksdale, Mississippi)
OL Cade Beresford, 6-7, 300, Washington State (Woodinville, Washington)
Edge George Tarlas, 6-4, 260, Weber State (Chalkida, Greece)
WR Prince Strachan, 6-4, 185, John Carroll High (Fort Pierce, Florida)
DT Braxton Fely, 6-2, 240, Timpview High (Provo, Utah)
QB Sam Vidlak, 6-1, 187, Oregon State (Applegate, Oregon)
This story was originally published February 1, 2022 at 1:40 PM.
