Need to get this guy!
All the Rage: What makes 2020 recruit Justin Flowe the best linebacker in a generation
By Antonio Morales Apr 25, 2019
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Usually, the most hyped part of any recruiting camp is when quarterbacks throw to receivers in one-on-ones against the defensive backs. But not here at the Nike Opening Regionals in Long Beach, Calif. Not when five-star linebacker Justin Flowe is about to go legendary on a running back in one-on-one drills.
A horde of prospects has gathered around a 15-yard patch of red-zone turf, creating a corridor for the drill. Reporters in the crowd brandish cellphones and cameras, hoping to capture why every College Football Playoff contender is courting Flowe.
Just four days earlier, Nick Saban, while wrapping up another No. 1 recruiting class for Alabama, had made sure to call Flowe — on the morning of National Signing Day. Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables did the same. USC has floated the possibility of giving Flowe the iconic jersey No. 55. Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and Oregon are among the nearly four dozen programs that have offered him a scholarship.
Flowe, a 6-foot-2, 225-pound junior from Upland (Calif.) High, isn’t only the Class of 2020’s consensus top-rated linebacker, he’s the best in a decade. No inside linebacker has been rated higher than Flowe by 247Sports since Ernie Sims in 2003.
The rowdy campers settle into silence to watch the final rep of the drill. The backs and ‘backers have chosen their top representatives; Flowe’s opponent is Jakai Torres, who averaged 10.4 yards per carry for 1,770 rushing yards as a junior at St. Bernard High in nearby Playa del Rey. Torres holds two FBS offers, Nevada and San Jose State, and will never have a better chance to raise his profile.
Torres lines up, ball in hand, while Flowe crouches 15 yards away with his heels on the goal line. The line to gain is the seven, but really, Torres has nothing to lose.
“I already know I’m about to get blasted,” Torres recalls to The Athletic. “So, it’s no biggie.”
The camp is not full-contact — no pads, no headgear, just shirts and shorts — and this drill is designed to end with either a two-hand touch or the running back sprinting by the linebacker. Still, the crowd looks on as if it’s watching a predator hunt prey on NatGeo. Torres and everyone else knows the book on Flowe. As one of Flowe’s longtime coaches puts it, “It’s hard to tell a lion not to kill.”
Torres figures the only way to beat Flowe is with decisiveness and speed, so when the whistle blows, he races for the corner. Flowe explodes off the line, angling left toward Torres and the sideline. At the 8-yard-line — or the 7, depending on who you ask — Flowe tags Torres with two hands, a forearm and maybe a shoulder. Much more than a touch. Torres careens a few yards into the crowd, bowling over reporters to the shrieks and howls of those in attendance.
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Flowe’s mindset in situations like this is simple, “Just bring out the dog in me,” he says.
Torres now knows what few others can comprehend: how it feels to get the best from the best.
So, to help the rest of us understand the totality of Flowe’s talent — size, power, instincts, speed, big-play ability — The Athletic gathered some of his most telling highlights and then spoke to Flowe’s coaches, rivals and other witnesses for their first-hand accounts.
Because it’s one thing to hear about Justin “Babyman” Flowe, but it’s another to see it up close.
Super-sized
Flowe has always been big, even when he was little. Every season, his coaches pondered — Will this be the year the rest of the kids caught up? Listen to Priest Brooks, his coach on the Pomona Steelers of the Snoop Youth Football League, and he’ll tell you Flowe’s size nearly kept him off the field.
“I talked to his mom,” says Brooks, a rapper known as SoopaFly and a member of Tha Dogg Pound. “She showed me a picture of him. I’m like, ‘Nah, we can’t take this kid. Players can only be 7 or 8. This is obviously a 9 or 10-year-old.’ She’s like, ‘No, no. He’s 7.’”
Eventually, after persistent persuasion from Flowe’s mom, Sherra Darrette, Brooks meets Justin and is convinced to let him play. Any doubts that the 7-year-old can hang in the Snoop League — a launching pad for stars like Steelers receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, Bengals receiver John Ross, Chiefs receiver De’Anthony Thomas and former Broncos running back Ronnie Hillman — will fade early.
Lined up as a tailback, Flowe takes a handoff but is immediately met in the backfield. He plants his right foot, shifts his body weight left and leaves the first defender grabbing at air. A second would-be tackler wraps up Flowe but gets trucked and falls to the ground. A third defender falls victim to Flowe’s stiff arm, and a fourth whiffs downfield. Finally, a few yards past the sticks, tacklers five and six bring him down.
“It got to the point you had parents who wanted to see his birth certificate,” says Eric Johnson, who coached with Brooks on the Steelers. “Nobody could believe it. Some kids are just the ones. He’s just one of those kids.”
Flowe is so dominant, Brooks still wonders halfway through that first season if he’s been fooled into taking him. So he, like those parents, asks to examine the birth certificate — and his initial fears are confirmed. Flowe is not actually 7-going-on-8.
He’s 6.
“When we turn in certification,” Brooks says, “the league is looking for kids to cheat by being older. They aren’t looking for a kid to be too young to be on the team, so he slid through.”
But the birth certificate, the size or the overall domination isn’t the lasting legacy of Flowe’s youth career. It’s his nickname.
Brooks remembers chatting with Mike Bell, the Pomona Steelers’ head coach at the time, about just how good their young phenom could be.
“He was like, ‘Man, that kid. I ain’t seen one like him,’” Brooks says. “‘You got one, Fly. He reminds me of one of my big homies, rest in peace. He used to gang bang, but when he was little, he was so big. They called him ‘Babyman.’
“I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, Smooth. That’s going to be his name. That’s a Babyman.’
“Everybody started using it. It’s going to be forever now.”
Power moves
Babyman can’t sneak up on anyone and hasn’t for a couple of years now. Mission Viejo, a perennial southern California power, made the two-hour trip north last September to face Flowe and 3-0 Upland. And, midway through the second quarter, the Diablos’ game plan has kept Flowe largely in check while they build a double-digit lead.
The Diablos hand off to senior running back Jamari Ferrell, who will finish the season with 1,099 total yards and 14 touchdowns. Ferrell initially follows his pulling left guard, as do Flowe and his teammates. Then, sensing a hole opening in the wake, Ferrell cuts back against the grain and squares his shoulders. Except Flowe doesn’t key on the guard, sniffs out Ferrell’s change of direction and engulfs the hard-charging back at the line. He then lifts him off the ground and suplexes him into the turf.
“For him to be running side-by-side with a running back,” says Sam Farber, who’s called several of Flowe’s games as a broadcaster for Fox Sports West, “to lift him off the ground against his will … Justin picked him up into the air and threw him down like he was nothing.”
Despite a 41-8 thrashing by Mission Viejo, Flowe posts 21 tackles; but that body slam of Ferrell stands as his singular show of strength from the game, and maybe his career.
“He likes to strike fear into other offensive players so they know he’s here for business,” Torres says. “His strength is what pretty much defines him as a linebacker.”
Ever since his varsity debut as a freshman, Flowe has been making an impact — it’s just that his impact has become more pronounced. His freshman season ended with a 47-20 loss to state champion St. John Bosco, which prompted him to hit the weight room seriously, with agency.
“We got our ass beat against Bosco,” Brooks says. “He goes out there, nervous as hell. Me and my cousin were predicting how many tackles he’d get. I said ‘Maybe 14 or 15.’ … He makes 19. Against No. 1 St. John Bosco. Against Re-al Mitchell (now at Iowa State). Against all those grown guys. After I saw that, I said ‘Uh-oh.’”
Flowe’s strength has grown with his size, and these days it’s hard to find a picture of him when he’s not flexing, his shirt rolled up to look like it’s cut off.
That kind of hyper-confidence and physicality are the traits that Calabasas (Calif.) High coach Chris Claiborne looks for. And Claiborne knows an elite linebacker when sees one; he once wore the coveted No. 55 as an All-American linebacker at USC and was the No. 9 overall pick in the 1999 NFL Draft.
“You don’t see a lot of guys play downhill like him,” says Claiborne, who coached Flowe at some Opening events and tweeted out that Flowe is the “next 55” in the tradition of Junior Seau, Willie McGinest and Keith Rivers. “Now you get so much zone, you get kids running around blocks, they don’t want to take on blocks. They don’t want to blow stuff up, but he’s willing to do that.”
Elite instincts
Flowe isn’t hard to spot on the field, just look for a player already on the move by the time the ball is snapped. Flowe’s fast-twitch first step is frustrating for offensive linemen but downright terrifying for ball carriers. Not just because of his timing, but because Flowe can sense where to go.
In last fall’s CIF-SS Division 2 Championship, Upland faces an undefeated Rancho Verde team and its point-a-minute offense. Flowe is about to single-handedly dismantle it.
Early in the second quarter, Rancho Verde is up a score and driving as they line up in single-back shotgun. Flowe, four yards deep over the left guard, keeps his eye on the ball. At the snap, the line slants right to block a zone run away from Flowe. But Flowe gets such a jump that the left tackle misses him completely, lunging straight into the back of his left guard. In four strides, Flowe reaches the mesh point just after running back Jordan Jefferson gets the ball. By now, all Jefferson can do is brace for impact.
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The entire sequence lasts less than two seconds from snap to whistle, but that tackle, one of Flowe’s 15 that night, sets the tone for an Upland comeback win, 24-13, in which Rancho Verde scores 36 points below its average.
“That, to me, epitomized his career so far,” says Chino Hills coach Chris Stevens, who coaches against Flowe every season.
“I didn’t feel it right then and there, but for sure felt it the next morning,” Jefferson told The Athletic. “I was just like, ‘Man, that really just happened.’”
Tim Salter recently announced his retirement as Upland’s football coach. In his final season, instead of fighting Flowe’s natural instincts, Salter leaned into them. He inserted a special defensive audible just for Flowe, so he could freelance if his instincts kicked in — alerting his teammates to cover the area he vacated.
“We’ve never had a call like that before,” Salter says.
“All the time,” Flowe says, “the coaches are like, how are your instincts so good?” He admits to picking up on cadences and reading linemen tendencies. And while he’s put in more work in the film room lately, the skill is mostly innate.
”He either does more homework than anyone in high school football or he has the greatest football IQ I’ve ever seen,” Farber says. “Watch the great high school linebackers, usually someone can come up with a way to keep them from being in every play. Justin’s in every play.”
Speed traps
This scene isn’t unusual at Upland practice: quarterbacks glare at offensive linemen, who just stare back in bewilderment. Flowe is turned up, full tilt and busting into the backfield, disrupting play after play.
“It’s like chasing a ghost sometimes. We get kind of depressed,” Highlanders offensive line coach Doug MacAuley says. “When Justin’s on, I don’t care what you do. You won’t stop him.”
Salter has two options. He can get mad at his offensive linemen or he can take Flowe out for five plays so his offense can get productive reps.
Flowe sits.
“The toughest thing we do all year long is try to block him,” Salter says. “We get to the games, there’s nobody like him.”
Flowe’s speed — his velocity and violence — is a constant, whether blowing past blockers to get in the backfield, running sideline to sideline after ball carriers or dropping back and swiveling into coverage. Stevens has seen Flowe every season and says his speed has evolved the most. Flowe’s 17 tackles for loss as a junior are impressive, but even that number doesn’t capture the havoc he wreaks. At times, his burst borders on comedy.
“You remember the movie ‘The Waterboy’ where Adam Sandler is like straight through the line immediately?” Farber asks. “Always knows the correct angle, always there faster. Always, always, always. That’s Justin Flowe.”
“It’s just amazing,” Farber says. “I’ve seen a lot of talented linebackers, I’ve never seen anyone get through the line as often, as quickly, as successfully as he does.”
Big player, bigger plays
Size. Power. Instinct. Speed. Put them all together and you have a big play waiting to happen — but Flowe is not one to wait.
Upland is on the road for its 2018 season opener, a much-anticipated debut of La Habra’s renovated stadium. La Habra ends the first quarter with a touchdown and lines up for the extra point. Flowe, standing two yards off the line and to the left of the long snapper, takes two steps at the snap. He pushes off the shoulders of the long snapper and right guard before they barely get out of their stance. Flowe vaults himself through the gap, leaps vertically and blocks the kick with both hands — and his face mask for good measure.
In the second quarter, Flowe tips a pass that leads to a red-zone interception and later forces a fumble that he also recovers. He takes over the game.
Flowe creates so many big plays on defense (145 total tackles last season) and special teams (three career blocked kicks) that his coaches have been tempted to use him on offense here and there. But Flowe plays so violently their initial experiment was tabled to limit potential hits he’d take — and deliver — as a ball carrier.
Biggins says there were some people who thought Flowe, who is bigger and more physical than everyone else, might have already peaked. But those questions have subsided.
“He’s 6-foot-2, almost 230 pounds, he’s running 4.6 40s. He’s better now than he was a year ago,” Biggins says. “He’s more athletic. He’s leaned out. He’s moving better.”
We’re not looking at a peak, we’re looking at the tip of an iceberg.
Undecided
Back at The Opening, the whistle blows as Flowe and Torres hurtle out of bounds. But the last rep of the one-on-one drill isn’t quite over.
The defensive players rush to the sideline and mob Flowe in a sea of red Dri-Fit shirts. After a few seconds, Flowe breaks away from his peers, pounds his chest and slaps the turf. Torres has popped up quickly and is all grins as he argues his case to a coach, over the howls of the players around him.
The coach waves off both parties, then emphatically points to the offensive side of the drill, shifting the celebration from red to black.
Though there is a lot of hype and social media hoopla surrounding this physical hit in a non-contact drill. Brooks believes that final rep shows the best and worst of Flowe.
“I didn’t like the fact he pushed the kid out of bounds because he didn’t have to,” Brooks says. “He likes the tough stuff but I tell him at this point, you’ve proven yourself. So it’s like, ‘Be aggressive. Don’t let up on anything but don’t kill him, you know what I mean? Don’t do it to where you hurt them.’”
Flowe is often compared to Raiders linebacker Vontaze Burfict, mainly for the tenacity both linebackers possess. But Burfict’s recklessness is a trait Flowe doesn’t need to emulate. The last moments of his junior season could turn out to be a critical teaching moment.
Last December, down 7-3 with 5:45 remaining in a tight CIF State Division 1-A playoff game against Sierra Canyon, Flowe was ejected for throwing a punch at Trailblazers offensive lineman Josh Carlin. Then, with Flowe on the bench and the game in the balance, Sierra Canyon iced the game with runs of 34 and 16 yards.
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“My brother made a play in the backfield … ” Flowe says, “The play was way over and (Carlin) tried to push me on my ass after the play. I wasn’t having that, I was already mad because we were losing and the game’s about to be over so I threw a punch. But it’ll never happen again.
“I learned I’ve got to keep my temper, play my game and get up the next play.”
Flowe’s younger brother, Jonathan, is already a national recruit in the 2021 cycle, with 20 offers from Power 5 programs. As for Justin, he is stirring up fan bases wherever he goes. He recently toured the south with his seven-on-seven team, Premium, taking unofficial visits to some of his eventual Top 12 contenders, Clemson and Georgia, as well as to schools he’ll ultimately drop — Auburn, Tennessee, Kentucky and Louisville. At every stop, he ignited hopes and set message boards on fire.
“The SEC (is) something to think about,” Brooks says. “Of course it’s his decision, but the SEC is going to stick out.”
“I like the attention, but not too much,” says Flowe, who announced his Top 12 earlier this month. “I won’t overdo it with attention.”
But just like on the field, his skills will make it impossible for him to hide. Because no matter how much he tones down, his combination of size, power, instincts and speed will keep Babyman in the spotlight. Which is right where he belongs.
All the Rage: What makes 2020 recruit Justin Flowe the best linebacker in a generation
By Antonio Morales Apr 25, 2019
Usually, the most hyped part of any recruiting camp is when quarterbacks throw to receivers in one-on-ones against the defensive backs. But not here at the Nike Opening Regionals in Long Beach, Calif. Not when five-star linebacker Justin Flowe is about to go legendary on a running back in one-on-one drills.
A horde of prospects has gathered around a 15-yard patch of red-zone turf, creating a corridor for the drill. Reporters in the crowd brandish cellphones and cameras, hoping to capture why every College Football Playoff contender is courting Flowe.
Just four days earlier, Nick Saban, while wrapping up another No. 1 recruiting class for Alabama, had made sure to call Flowe — on the morning of National Signing Day. Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables did the same. USC has floated the possibility of giving Flowe the iconic jersey No. 55. Texas, Oklahoma, Florida and Oregon are among the nearly four dozen programs that have offered him a scholarship.
Flowe, a 6-foot-2, 225-pound junior from Upland (Calif.) High, isn’t only the Class of 2020’s consensus top-rated linebacker, he’s the best in a decade. No inside linebacker has been rated higher than Flowe by 247Sports since Ernie Sims in 2003.
The rowdy campers settle into silence to watch the final rep of the drill. The backs and ‘backers have chosen their top representatives; Flowe’s opponent is Jakai Torres, who averaged 10.4 yards per carry for 1,770 rushing yards as a junior at St. Bernard High in nearby Playa del Rey. Torres holds two FBS offers, Nevada and San Jose State, and will never have a better chance to raise his profile.
Torres lines up, ball in hand, while Flowe crouches 15 yards away with his heels on the goal line. The line to gain is the seven, but really, Torres has nothing to lose.
“I already know I’m about to get blasted,” Torres recalls to The Athletic. “So, it’s no biggie.”
The camp is not full-contact — no pads, no headgear, just shirts and shorts — and this drill is designed to end with either a two-hand touch or the running back sprinting by the linebacker. Still, the crowd looks on as if it’s watching a predator hunt prey on NatGeo. Torres and everyone else knows the book on Flowe. As one of Flowe’s longtime coaches puts it, “It’s hard to tell a lion not to kill.”
Torres figures the only way to beat Flowe is with decisiveness and speed, so when the whistle blows, he races for the corner. Flowe explodes off the line, angling left toward Torres and the sideline. At the 8-yard-line — or the 7, depending on who you ask — Flowe tags Torres with two hands, a forearm and maybe a shoulder. Much more than a touch. Torres careens a few yards into the crowd, bowling over reporters to the shrieks and howls of those in attendance.
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Flowe’s mindset in situations like this is simple, “Just bring out the dog in me,” he says.
Torres now knows what few others can comprehend: how it feels to get the best from the best.
So, to help the rest of us understand the totality of Flowe’s talent — size, power, instincts, speed, big-play ability — The Athletic gathered some of his most telling highlights and then spoke to Flowe’s coaches, rivals and other witnesses for their first-hand accounts.
Because it’s one thing to hear about Justin “Babyman” Flowe, but it’s another to see it up close.
Super-sized
Flowe has always been big, even when he was little. Every season, his coaches pondered — Will this be the year the rest of the kids caught up? Listen to Priest Brooks, his coach on the Pomona Steelers of the Snoop Youth Football League, and he’ll tell you Flowe’s size nearly kept him off the field.
“I talked to his mom,” says Brooks, a rapper known as SoopaFly and a member of Tha Dogg Pound. “She showed me a picture of him. I’m like, ‘Nah, we can’t take this kid. Players can only be 7 or 8. This is obviously a 9 or 10-year-old.’ She’s like, ‘No, no. He’s 7.’”
Eventually, after persistent persuasion from Flowe’s mom, Sherra Darrette, Brooks meets Justin and is convinced to let him play. Any doubts that the 7-year-old can hang in the Snoop League — a launching pad for stars like Steelers receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, Bengals receiver John Ross, Chiefs receiver De’Anthony Thomas and former Broncos running back Ronnie Hillman — will fade early.
Lined up as a tailback, Flowe takes a handoff but is immediately met in the backfield. He plants his right foot, shifts his body weight left and leaves the first defender grabbing at air. A second would-be tackler wraps up Flowe but gets trucked and falls to the ground. A third defender falls victim to Flowe’s stiff arm, and a fourth whiffs downfield. Finally, a few yards past the sticks, tacklers five and six bring him down.
“It got to the point you had parents who wanted to see his birth certificate,” says Eric Johnson, who coached with Brooks on the Steelers. “Nobody could believe it. Some kids are just the ones. He’s just one of those kids.”
Flowe is so dominant, Brooks still wonders halfway through that first season if he’s been fooled into taking him. So he, like those parents, asks to examine the birth certificate — and his initial fears are confirmed. Flowe is not actually 7-going-on-8.
He’s 6.
“When we turn in certification,” Brooks says, “the league is looking for kids to cheat by being older. They aren’t looking for a kid to be too young to be on the team, so he slid through.”
But the birth certificate, the size or the overall domination isn’t the lasting legacy of Flowe’s youth career. It’s his nickname.
Brooks remembers chatting with Mike Bell, the Pomona Steelers’ head coach at the time, about just how good their young phenom could be.
“He was like, ‘Man, that kid. I ain’t seen one like him,’” Brooks says. “‘You got one, Fly. He reminds me of one of my big homies, rest in peace. He used to gang bang, but when he was little, he was so big. They called him ‘Babyman.’
“I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, Smooth. That’s going to be his name. That’s a Babyman.’
“Everybody started using it. It’s going to be forever now.”
Power moves
Babyman can’t sneak up on anyone and hasn’t for a couple of years now. Mission Viejo, a perennial southern California power, made the two-hour trip north last September to face Flowe and 3-0 Upland. And, midway through the second quarter, the Diablos’ game plan has kept Flowe largely in check while they build a double-digit lead.
The Diablos hand off to senior running back Jamari Ferrell, who will finish the season with 1,099 total yards and 14 touchdowns. Ferrell initially follows his pulling left guard, as do Flowe and his teammates. Then, sensing a hole opening in the wake, Ferrell cuts back against the grain and squares his shoulders. Except Flowe doesn’t key on the guard, sniffs out Ferrell’s change of direction and engulfs the hard-charging back at the line. He then lifts him off the ground and suplexes him into the turf.
“For him to be running side-by-side with a running back,” says Sam Farber, who’s called several of Flowe’s games as a broadcaster for Fox Sports West, “to lift him off the ground against his will … Justin picked him up into the air and threw him down like he was nothing.”
Despite a 41-8 thrashing by Mission Viejo, Flowe posts 21 tackles; but that body slam of Ferrell stands as his singular show of strength from the game, and maybe his career.
“He likes to strike fear into other offensive players so they know he’s here for business,” Torres says. “His strength is what pretty much defines him as a linebacker.”
Ever since his varsity debut as a freshman, Flowe has been making an impact — it’s just that his impact has become more pronounced. His freshman season ended with a 47-20 loss to state champion St. John Bosco, which prompted him to hit the weight room seriously, with agency.
“We got our ass beat against Bosco,” Brooks says. “He goes out there, nervous as hell. Me and my cousin were predicting how many tackles he’d get. I said ‘Maybe 14 or 15.’ … He makes 19. Against No. 1 St. John Bosco. Against Re-al Mitchell (now at Iowa State). Against all those grown guys. After I saw that, I said ‘Uh-oh.’”
Flowe’s strength has grown with his size, and these days it’s hard to find a picture of him when he’s not flexing, his shirt rolled up to look like it’s cut off.
That kind of hyper-confidence and physicality are the traits that Calabasas (Calif.) High coach Chris Claiborne looks for. And Claiborne knows an elite linebacker when sees one; he once wore the coveted No. 55 as an All-American linebacker at USC and was the No. 9 overall pick in the 1999 NFL Draft.
“You don’t see a lot of guys play downhill like him,” says Claiborne, who coached Flowe at some Opening events and tweeted out that Flowe is the “next 55” in the tradition of Junior Seau, Willie McGinest and Keith Rivers. “Now you get so much zone, you get kids running around blocks, they don’t want to take on blocks. They don’t want to blow stuff up, but he’s willing to do that.”
Elite instincts
Flowe isn’t hard to spot on the field, just look for a player already on the move by the time the ball is snapped. Flowe’s fast-twitch first step is frustrating for offensive linemen but downright terrifying for ball carriers. Not just because of his timing, but because Flowe can sense where to go.
In last fall’s CIF-SS Division 2 Championship, Upland faces an undefeated Rancho Verde team and its point-a-minute offense. Flowe is about to single-handedly dismantle it.
Early in the second quarter, Rancho Verde is up a score and driving as they line up in single-back shotgun. Flowe, four yards deep over the left guard, keeps his eye on the ball. At the snap, the line slants right to block a zone run away from Flowe. But Flowe gets such a jump that the left tackle misses him completely, lunging straight into the back of his left guard. In four strides, Flowe reaches the mesh point just after running back Jordan Jefferson gets the ball. By now, all Jefferson can do is brace for impact.
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The entire sequence lasts less than two seconds from snap to whistle, but that tackle, one of Flowe’s 15 that night, sets the tone for an Upland comeback win, 24-13, in which Rancho Verde scores 36 points below its average.
“That, to me, epitomized his career so far,” says Chino Hills coach Chris Stevens, who coaches against Flowe every season.
“I didn’t feel it right then and there, but for sure felt it the next morning,” Jefferson told The Athletic. “I was just like, ‘Man, that really just happened.’”
Tim Salter recently announced his retirement as Upland’s football coach. In his final season, instead of fighting Flowe’s natural instincts, Salter leaned into them. He inserted a special defensive audible just for Flowe, so he could freelance if his instincts kicked in — alerting his teammates to cover the area he vacated.
“We’ve never had a call like that before,” Salter says.
“All the time,” Flowe says, “the coaches are like, how are your instincts so good?” He admits to picking up on cadences and reading linemen tendencies. And while he’s put in more work in the film room lately, the skill is mostly innate.
”He either does more homework than anyone in high school football or he has the greatest football IQ I’ve ever seen,” Farber says. “Watch the great high school linebackers, usually someone can come up with a way to keep them from being in every play. Justin’s in every play.”
Speed traps
This scene isn’t unusual at Upland practice: quarterbacks glare at offensive linemen, who just stare back in bewilderment. Flowe is turned up, full tilt and busting into the backfield, disrupting play after play.
“It’s like chasing a ghost sometimes. We get kind of depressed,” Highlanders offensive line coach Doug MacAuley says. “When Justin’s on, I don’t care what you do. You won’t stop him.”
Salter has two options. He can get mad at his offensive linemen or he can take Flowe out for five plays so his offense can get productive reps.
Flowe sits.
“The toughest thing we do all year long is try to block him,” Salter says. “We get to the games, there’s nobody like him.”
Flowe’s speed — his velocity and violence — is a constant, whether blowing past blockers to get in the backfield, running sideline to sideline after ball carriers or dropping back and swiveling into coverage. Stevens has seen Flowe every season and says his speed has evolved the most. Flowe’s 17 tackles for loss as a junior are impressive, but even that number doesn’t capture the havoc he wreaks. At times, his burst borders on comedy.
“You remember the movie ‘The Waterboy’ where Adam Sandler is like straight through the line immediately?” Farber asks. “Always knows the correct angle, always there faster. Always, always, always. That’s Justin Flowe.”
“It’s just amazing,” Farber says. “I’ve seen a lot of talented linebackers, I’ve never seen anyone get through the line as often, as quickly, as successfully as he does.”
Big player, bigger plays
Size. Power. Instinct. Speed. Put them all together and you have a big play waiting to happen — but Flowe is not one to wait.
Upland is on the road for its 2018 season opener, a much-anticipated debut of La Habra’s renovated stadium. La Habra ends the first quarter with a touchdown and lines up for the extra point. Flowe, standing two yards off the line and to the left of the long snapper, takes two steps at the snap. He pushes off the shoulders of the long snapper and right guard before they barely get out of their stance. Flowe vaults himself through the gap, leaps vertically and blocks the kick with both hands — and his face mask for good measure.
In the second quarter, Flowe tips a pass that leads to a red-zone interception and later forces a fumble that he also recovers. He takes over the game.
Flowe creates so many big plays on defense (145 total tackles last season) and special teams (three career blocked kicks) that his coaches have been tempted to use him on offense here and there. But Flowe plays so violently their initial experiment was tabled to limit potential hits he’d take — and deliver — as a ball carrier.
Biggins says there were some people who thought Flowe, who is bigger and more physical than everyone else, might have already peaked. But those questions have subsided.
“He’s 6-foot-2, almost 230 pounds, he’s running 4.6 40s. He’s better now than he was a year ago,” Biggins says. “He’s more athletic. He’s leaned out. He’s moving better.”
We’re not looking at a peak, we’re looking at the tip of an iceberg.
Undecided
Back at The Opening, the whistle blows as Flowe and Torres hurtle out of bounds. But the last rep of the one-on-one drill isn’t quite over.
The defensive players rush to the sideline and mob Flowe in a sea of red Dri-Fit shirts. After a few seconds, Flowe breaks away from his peers, pounds his chest and slaps the turf. Torres has popped up quickly and is all grins as he argues his case to a coach, over the howls of the players around him.
The coach waves off both parties, then emphatically points to the offensive side of the drill, shifting the celebration from red to black.
Though there is a lot of hype and social media hoopla surrounding this physical hit in a non-contact drill. Brooks believes that final rep shows the best and worst of Flowe.
“I didn’t like the fact he pushed the kid out of bounds because he didn’t have to,” Brooks says. “He likes the tough stuff but I tell him at this point, you’ve proven yourself. So it’s like, ‘Be aggressive. Don’t let up on anything but don’t kill him, you know what I mean? Don’t do it to where you hurt them.’”
Flowe is often compared to Raiders linebacker Vontaze Burfict, mainly for the tenacity both linebackers possess. But Burfict’s recklessness is a trait Flowe doesn’t need to emulate. The last moments of his junior season could turn out to be a critical teaching moment.
Last December, down 7-3 with 5:45 remaining in a tight CIF State Division 1-A playoff game against Sierra Canyon, Flowe was ejected for throwing a punch at Trailblazers offensive lineman Josh Carlin. Then, with Flowe on the bench and the game in the balance, Sierra Canyon iced the game with runs of 34 and 16 yards.
Tony Ciniglio
@TCinigliohttps://twitter.com/TCiniglio/status/1069085680947539969
Upland’s Justin Flowe (No. 10) was ejected on this play after retaliating for being thrown onto the ground (camera caught part of fracas). Upland has ball at own 15 with 4:30 left. Sierra Canyon leads 7-3.
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“My brother made a play in the backfield … ” Flowe says, “The play was way over and (Carlin) tried to push me on my ass after the play. I wasn’t having that, I was already mad because we were losing and the game’s about to be over so I threw a punch. But it’ll never happen again.
“I learned I’ve got to keep my temper, play my game and get up the next play.”
Flowe’s younger brother, Jonathan, is already a national recruit in the 2021 cycle, with 20 offers from Power 5 programs. As for Justin, he is stirring up fan bases wherever he goes. He recently toured the south with his seven-on-seven team, Premium, taking unofficial visits to some of his eventual Top 12 contenders, Clemson and Georgia, as well as to schools he’ll ultimately drop — Auburn, Tennessee, Kentucky and Louisville. At every stop, he ignited hopes and set message boards on fire.
“The SEC (is) something to think about,” Brooks says. “Of course it’s his decision, but the SEC is going to stick out.”
“I like the attention, but not too much,” says Flowe, who announced his Top 12 earlier this month. “I won’t overdo it with attention.”
But just like on the field, his skills will make it impossible for him to hide. Because no matter how much he tones down, his combination of size, power, instincts and speed will keep Babyman in the spotlight. Which is right where he belongs.
