Colorado standing out among Kavon Baptiste's options
Kavon Baptiste didn’t receive his first FBS offer until April 22. But once he got his first, the others started rolling in.
Cornerbacks coach Demetrice Martin and the Colorado Buffaloes reached out with an offer a few weeks later.
“I think before I got my first offer, we started talking,” Baptiste said. “Then when I got the first one, we started talking more and more. And then after the first three, we started talking like we got a connection, a great connection and that's when they offered me.”
Batiste now holds offers from Sacramento State, San Jose State, Utah State and Colorado.
The 6-foot-3, 180-pounder has gotten more and more comfortable with ‘Coach Meat’ and Martin has some high praise for him.
“He talks about how he loves the type of player I am,” Baptiste said. “How he loves how I carry myself, how my grades are good.”
Baptiste also had a phone calls with head coach Karl Dorrell.
“He's great. He's a great coach,” Baptiste said. “He likes the way I play, he likes how I carry myself. And he talked to my head coach, so my head coach had a lot of good things to say about him that he likes.”
The California native hails from John W. North High School in Riverside (Calif.) where the Buffs are also recruiting offensive lineman Austin Barry.
“I always talk to him and say like, ‘Where are you gonna go?’ and he says, ‘Wherever you’re going to go,’” Baptiste said about his conversations with Barry. “But we always talk about the schools because we have the same schools so we always talk about that.”
He said it is definitely a possibility that they end up at the same school but they are not a package deal or anything like that.
Baptiste has great length for a cornerback but has also played safety for his high school teams. He says most teams like him at cornerback because there aren’t many out there like him.
“Since I’m big, there aren’t a lot of big corners out there,” Baptiste said. “So I’m really physical at the line and I’m long.”
He also plays wide receiver in high school and played quarterback on the freshman team. He doesn’t have a preference about where he plays in college but says most schools are recruiting him at cornerback.
Baptiste will take a virtual visit with Colorado in the coming weeks but really wants to get to Boulder to see from himself.
“I want to go to Colorado,” he said on where he wants to visit. “All the schools, but the main one, I want to go to Colorado.”
He doesn’t have a timeline for his decision and is just looking for a place where he can feel like family.
“I'm looking for a brotherhood with my teammates, a brotherhood with the coaches,” Baptiste said. “People I could talk to inside football and outside football, after football. A positive connection with people.”