Three-star Texan Stone Eby Spurns Duke, Stays Home
The Fourth of July wasn’t good to Duke football coaches, as the Blue Devils missed out on a pair of prospects who committed to other schools.
One was three-star 2021 defensive end Stone Eby, who announced he was headed to SMU.
The 6-foot-4, 240-pound Eby is No. 1,085 in the class of 2021, according to 247Sports. He’s the No. 66 strong-side defensive end and the No. 169 player in Texas, where he plays for Flower Mound High. He had 78 tackles last year, including 22.5 tackles for a loss, six sacks, six pass breakups and two fumbles forced. Eby also had a critical block of an extra point in a one-point victory in the state playoffs. He was named First Team All-District.
Eby is a versatile player who could play either end or outside linebacker, depending on the defensive scheme.
“He was a quarterback in middle school, and when he was a freshman, he ended up playing quarterback, receiver, free safety," Flower Mound coach Brian Basil told the Dallas Morning News last season. "The spring of his freshman year, we really spent some time talking about where he could help us. He had the tools to play defensive end and he stepped in there and did a really, really good job."
Duke was late to the party with Eby, offering a scholarship in early June, a week after Eby had cut his list to eight schools: Baylor, Georgia Tech, Purdue, Iowa State, Washington State, Rice, SMU and Stephen F. Austin.
Duke wasn’t able to make up for the lost time. Eby announced on Twitter that he was “staying home.”
Duke has one defensive end in its 2021 class—Southern Durham’s Aaron Hall. Duke has offered more than two dozen pass rushers in the class, but only about eight are still uncommitted. Duke’s best bet of the remaining prospects may be McDonough, Georgia’s Devin Lee.
