When he first began spreading the phrase about Waymond Jordan, Mike Bennett figured the movie would communicate for itself. The Escambia Excessive coach had been within the South Florida preps scene lengthy sufficient to know what he was seeing from his new operating again.
“Just watching him run the football for the first time, he was amazing,” Bennett mentioned. He figured scholarship provides would roll in quickly sufficient.
Jordan had related expectations. Since he first picked up soccer, at 4 years previous, he’d all the time informed himself that he’d play at a giant college, on the largest stage. He’d come to Escambia as a senior with that in thoughts.
However in 2021, 4 years earlier than Lincoln Riley and USC would see that very same star potential, different faculty coaches, for no matter cause, weren’t paying a lot thoughts.
USC operating again Waymond Jordan carries the ball throughout a win over Georgia Southern on the Coliseum on Saturday. Neglected earlier in his profession, Jordan has turn into a key piece of the Trojans’ offense.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Instances)
Given the place Jordan stands right now — the highest operating again on one of many nation’s prime speeding offenses via two weeks of the faculty soccer season — loads of them in all probability remorse that now.
“Every coach in the country, I sent stuff to,” Bennett mentioned. “I mean, everybody. I sent it out to everybody.”
Some smaller faculties monitored Jordans’ senior 12 months at Escambia, retaining a detailed eye as he rushed for 1,225 yards and 12 touchdowns. A couple of faculties mentioned he may walk-on. However none of them prolonged a scholarship supply. Jordan couldn’t perceive why.
Hutchinson Neighborhood Faculty, a junior faculty in Hutchinson, Kan., was one of many solely locations to provide him a possibility. Hutchinson was a thousand miles from his hometown of Pensacola, and a world away from the most important faculty soccer he thought he’d be taking part in. However the workers there knew Escambia effectively, and so they believed in what they noticed in Jordan’s tape.
If all went effectively with junior faculty, he may nonetheless get the Energy 4 provides he was searching for.
“He believed in himself. And he bet on himself,” mentioned Greg Cross, the Hutchinson operating backs coach. “And I would say he bet right.”
Cross figured it was a worthy guess then, earlier than most anybody else. He may see on movie that Jordan had a uncommon intuition for making defenders miss. Within the open discipline, not many individuals may convey Jordan down on their very own both. In some methods, his skillset reminded Cross somewhat little bit of Alvin Kamara, who performed the 2014 season at Hutchinson.
“But that wasn’t going to happen for him overnight,” Cross mentioned.
USC’s Waymond Jordan stretches out to attain a landing in opposition to Georgia Southern on the Coliseum on Saturday.
(Sean M. Haffey / Getty Photographs)
Jordan was in no way a completed product on arrival at Hutchinson. He hadn’t actually discovered but learn how to maintain his physique. He was off form. He wanted so as to add muscle and alter his food plan. Plus, he struggled early on with cross safety.
Then his hamstrings began bothering him.
“I knew it was in the best interest for him to redshirt,” Cross mentioned.
Hutchinson may afford to be affected person with him. But it surely was a tricky tablet to swallow for Jordan.
“He went through a phase where he was kind of down,” Cross mentioned. “We had a lot of talks. We would talk every day. I just wanted to keep him focused, keep him locked in, keep him motivated.
“So, me and him had a talk about it, and I said, ‘You can either let it get the best of you, or you can stay motivated and work 10 times as hard.’”
It was a formative chat for Jordan. Cross implored him to get critical about taking good care of his physique. He needed him within the coaching room on daily basis. They began monitoring his meals. He started utilizing the top coach’s YMCA membership.
From then on, Cross says, “I was grilling him, 24/7.”
He got here again that second season trying like a wholly completely different participant. He misplaced weight. He was stronger and extra explosive. He had a full restoration routine.
However his hamstring was nonetheless performing up. Then, after showing in two video games as a redshirt freshman, Jordan suffered a minor fracture in his foot.
“It felt, to him, like he couldn’t catch a break,” Cross mentioned.
He wore a boot for a few weeks. When he got here again, he needed to play via ache.
Even nonetheless, there have been glimpses of what Jordan may very well be. Late within the season, in a sport in opposition to No. 2 ranked Iowa Western Neighborhood Faculty, Jordan broke out with two fourth-quarter speeding scores, one from 47 yards out, the opposite from 16, that helped put Iowa Western away. He completed with 4 carries for 99 yards and two touchdowns.
Hutchinson misplaced its subsequent sport to East Mississippi Neighborhood Faculty and fell wanting an NJCAA nationwide title in 2023. However for Jordan, all the things was trending upward that offseason.
“You really saw him take that next step,” mentioned Drew Dallas, Hutchinson’s head coach. “It was just how quickly he was hitting the hole, how fast and confident he was playing. He’d trimmed down his body fat to hardly any at all. He was just this rocked-up ball of muscle who could see the field really well.”
That spring, as phrase received round, some smaller faculties like Florida Atlantic and Florida Worldwide began asking about him.
By the top of that spring, Jordan had the scholarship provides he’d been ready for.
Cross figured he would take the chance and run with it. And he wouldn’t have blamed him for doing so. The truth is, he couldn’t keep in mind anybody in his time at Hutchinson turning down an FBS alternative to return to junior faculty.
However in Jordan’s case, he believed greater provides may come.
“He told me that if I stayed, I would be able to come to places like [USC,]” Jordan remembers. “That it would all pay out in the end.”
USC operating again Waymond Jordan cuts and adjustments course whereas carrying the ball in opposition to Georgia Southern on the Coliseum on Saturday.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Instances)
Jordan known as Cross again with a choice only a few minutes after their dialog.
“When you leaving?” Cross remembers asking him.
“He says no, ‘Coach, I’m gonna stay. I know what I can be.’”
Cross was shocked on the time. Pondering again on that dialog, he laughs.
“He put it all on red, I guess,” he mentioned.
But it surely took all of 1 week that season for Jordan’s guess to be vindicated. He rushed for 179 yards and two touchdowns throughout Hutchinson’s season opener on simply 14 carries. That Sunday, Cross received a name from a coach at Michigan State. Was Jordan for actual? As a result of, he mentioned, they have been watching carefully.
It was “one phone call after another, every week after that,” Cross mentioned. Jordan rushed for 174 yards the next week, then 175 yards and 4 touchdowns on simply 9 carries in Week 4. Over a two-week stretch in November, Jordan exploded for 348 yards and 4 touchdowns, prompting Missouri and Central Florida, two Energy 4 faculties, to supply him scholarships.
He lastly had the chance he’d been ready for. So in December, simply earlier than the NJCAA playoffs, Jordan dedicated to Central Florida.
USC didn’t come into the image till later that month, simply as Jordan was named the junior faculty nationwide participant of the 12 months. Different Energy 4 faculties, like North Carolina and Mississippi, have been already making their circumstances to Jordan. However USC had a connection to Cross via Doug Belk, the Trojans’ secondary coach.
USC didn’t essentially have a necessity at operating again, having already added explosive New Mexico switch Eli Sanders to its class. However when Anthony Jones, USC’s operating backs coach, spoke to Jordan on the telephone, he got here away satisfied that “USC needed this young man.”
“Waymond checked all the boxes that we were looking for,” Jones mentioned.
Hutchinson beat Iowa Western to win the NJCAA nationwide title regardless of Iowa Western’s all-out efforts to bottle up the Blue Dragons’ star operating again. Two weeks later, he was on USC’s campus.
As quickly as Jordan known as him throughout his go to to L.A., Cross knew he was committing to USC.
9 months later, the identical operating again who didn’t have a single Division I supply as a highschool senior was bursting out of the USC backfield, weaving via a crowd of defenders on his means into the Coliseum finish zone, identical to Reggie Bush, Marcus Allen and O.J. Simpson as soon as did.
As he scored his first landing as a Trojan, Jordan seemed up into the stands and noticed his household.
He’d waited 4 sometimes-frustrating years for that second.
“His patience, his perseverance really built him into something a lot bigger and better,” Dallas mentioned.
“I think that’s as big of a part of his journey as anything.”
