Not many high school football programs are talented enough to send three different seniors to Division 1 squads – let alone graduate three upperclassmen to the same Power Five program.
Tampa (Fla.) Plant High, however, is an exception.
Linebacker Thomas Allen, wide receiver Whop Philyor and athlete Juwan Burgess are all leaving head coach Robert Weiner’s squad at Plant to join the Hoosiers as freshmen for the upcoming season.
Philyor and Burgess both announced their commitments after visiting Indiana over the Jan. 14 weekend.
Weiner said he talks with each of his players throughout their recruiting process, and remains active with them to help sort through it all. When Indiana head coach Tom Allen paid the two a visit following their trips to Bloomington, Weiner noted Whop was ready right away, and Burgess was onboard as soon as he talked to all his family since his father couldn’t make the official visit.
They typically don’t allow players to commit on official visits so they can get over the “honeymoon viewing”.
“I’ve taken my quarterback on a college trip and I was talking with him and his dad, and I said honestly if we add it up at the end of the day, in my 13 years at Plant I think we’ve had more kids play in the state of Indiana than any other state,” Weiner said. “We’ve had kids at Purdue, Ball State and Indiana of course.
“We’ve had kids throughout the entire state, and a lot of them.”
Philyor is being recruited to IU as a receiver after grabbing 91 catches for 1,329 receiving yards and 18 touchdowns in his senior season. He also rushed for 201 yards and two touchdowns, while registering 38 tackles, two interceptions and a forced fumble defensively.
Whop's birth name is actually De'Angelo Philyor, but when he was a younger child and he was old enough to stop eating baby food, his parents took him to Burger King and he always wanted the No. 1 – The Whopper.
And thus, “Whop” was born - and has stuck with him ever since.
“It’s easy to look at his film and say the guy has incredible moves and top-end speed, but one of the things that made him a little overlooked in recruiting as he didn’t have a million teams from the Top 25 is maybe he was a little smaller,” Weiner said. “What people underestimated is he’s an incredibly strong player physically, and then his motivation and drive.
“If you watch his highlight film, you’ll see he never gets tackled and goes backward. He is always going forward, and sometimes going forward not to get just 2-3 extra yards, but sometimes he maintains an incredible balance and takes it the distance. So he’ll turn a 5-yard play into a 50-yard play.
“He can really do it by catching the long ball, or giving him a bubble screen and letting him run with it afterwards. I can tell you one thing, not only as the head coach but as the playcaller, he makes a bad playcaller look really good sometimes.
“Honestly, Whop was very sacrificial and played the other side of the ball for us even though that wasn’t something he really wanted to do. He basically played every snap. He was a tremendous corner for us as well. And some people looked at him and said he could have been easily recruited for that as well.”
Burgess – who flipped his commitment from Southern Cal. to Indiana- finished with 63 tackles, three interceptions and a fumble recovery as a senior.
“With Juwan, he’s a really long rangy player,” Weiner said. “As a safety, I think that’s his best position.
“He’s an outstanding offensive player as well, but as a safety he really has sideline-to-sideline potential. He’s outstanding at seeing the play in front of him, and then being able to make an immediate reaction on the ball. His ball skills of course are extraordinary, so he can go make a play on it after that.
“And he’s been very significant for us in the return game. He’s an outstanding return man in punt and kick return.
“There’s a lot of things both of those guys [Whop and Burgess] bring to the table that in small ways can maybe even be utilized right away, and then of course more as they continue to grow.”
In addition to the two new pickups, Allen has been committed to the Hoosiers since June and is already on campus as an early enrollee. He finished with an eye-popping 147 total tackles as a senior, including 51 for a loss, in addition to two pass breakups, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery.
Beyond his play on the field, Weiner explained what really stands out about Allen is his leadership. Most kids go to high school and spend all that time with their parents, and then leave them when they go to college.
The Plant head coach said he was lucky to have the opposite happen with Thomas, who stuck around to play for him and now joins his dad – now the head coach at Indiana - in Bloomington.
“He’s one of the finest young men I’ve ever coached,” Weiner said of Thomas Allen. “Just the whole Allen family - Tom and Tracy and then of course Thomas - I don’t know many finer human beings.
“Forget coaches and players, I don’t know many finer people than they are. So to have my players be able to play for Tom and be influenced by Tom and be around Thomas for more time, that’s a really special thing.
“Thomas is one of the finest leaders I’ve ever been around. Sometimes he talks to the players in a fatherly way, and sometimes I stand back and I’m like ‘I’m not sure this would be received very well,’ and I look around and our players have such respect for him, I end up saying ‘They’re listening to everything he’s saying.’ He’s got that perfect balance of being able to step out of the box and lead from outside and seeing the bigger picture, but also being one of the guys, and that’s a crucial part.”
You don’t have to believe just the words about the kids and IU’s new head coach – you can also see the truth revealed in their actions.
Particularly, the additions of Philyor and Burgess sends a strong signal for the kind of person the Hoosiers head coach is, and the kind of success he could have at Indiana. Through both Thomas and time spent around the family, Philyor and Burgess got to know the in’s and out’s of the Allens better than anyone – and when it came crunch time to decide where they wanted to invest their futures, they knew exactly where to look.
“Someone else just may know him [Allen] as a recruiter or previously as a defensive coordinator, but to have our guys who have been around him so often – and Thomas is one of their best friends – to have our guys make the statement that we would like to continue our careers with him, that kind of is the ultimate statement,” Weiner said. “To put their stamp of approval on that after they know him so well.”
And as far as on the field, a pipeline to Plant is certainly a fruitful one to have. The Panthers finished 13-1 overall in 2016, only falling to powerhouse St. Thomas Acquinas in Florida’s Class 7A state finals.
In the 2015 cycle, Plant sent players to Clemson, Kentucky, Georgia Tech, South Florida and Southern Miss. And in 2014, the Panthers had players graduate to Wisconsin, Tennessee, Texas and South Florida (again,) among others.
And here we are in the 2017 cycle – three players headed to join the Hoosiers.
Weiner agreed that Allen, Philyor and Burgess could be just the beginning of Plant stars to IU.
“We’ve had people ask why we might have more guys go to Georgia than Florida, and that’s because sometimes the first guy went to Georgia, and we’re such a tight-knit family that our kids talk amongst themselves and so they like to go where other guys have gone,” Weiner said. “So there’s no doubt, there’s a good possibility that we have more Panthers become Hoosiers.”
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