The Irish coaching staff have made their presence felt at the Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland recently while recruiting 2014 defensive back standout Troy Vincent, but apparently there's another high-profile defender in Biff Poggi’s program that has attracted Notre Dame's attention in a big way.
“Notre Dame has offered our linebacker Melvin Keihn,” said Gilman assistant coach Henry Russell. “Melvin is an unbelievable athlete for his size. He's just a tremendous player and his best attribute is getting to the passer. I believe he had 14 sacks last year and I believe his best is yet to come. He's still raw in my opinion and is still learning the game. He has an amazing upside to him.”
The talented Maryland product already has offers from Boston College, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Miami(FL), North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest and West Virginia just to name a few.
Keihn finished the 2012 season measuring 6-foot-3 and weighing 215 pounds, which is a pretty good size for an outside linebacker, but Russell sees him adding more size to his frame without the threat of losing his 4.5 speed.
“I think right now he's around 220 pounds and I believe the toughest thing for Melvin right now is keeping weight on because he runs a lot of track,” he explained. “He runs the 100-meters, the 110-meter hurdles and the 300-meter hurdles. When you're running that much it's hard to put on a lot of weight, but I expect him to be playing football at around 225 pounds this year.”
The Gilman defensive standout has had to deal with a lot of adversity growing up and according to his coach, it's made him the young man he is today.
“Melvin is just a wonderful kid to be around,” shared Russell. “He's originally from Liberia and he came to this country as a young boy and had to leave his mother. He hasn't seen her since he left and you can imagine how tough that is, but I'll tell you this, Melvin has as big of a heart as anybody and he's just a great kid.”
The Irish definitely like everything that Keihn has to offer and have recently stopped by to show the linebacker and his teammate, Troy Vincent, just how much the Irish respect their abilities, but Russell isn't quite sure when a trek to South Bend might be in the cards.
“Notre Dame last stopped by in January to check in on both of them and they’ve been by the school a couple of times to recruit those guys,” he said. “I'm not positive on when they’re going to get up to Notre Dame because Troy's finishing up basketball and Melvin is finishing up indoor track. I know Troy's been to the campus before and he went up to Notre Dame's camp last summer, but I'm not sure what Melvin's plans are yet.”
