Bearcats Freshman Profile: Chris Ferguson

The Essentials

• High School: Lake Nona, Orlando Florida
• Position: Offensive Line
• Height: 6'5"
• Weight: 280
• Consensus Rank*: 78 (**)

* As determined by 24/7 sports composite algorithm which combines and weights the rankings of 24/7, Rivals, Scout and ESPN to come up with one number.

Its hard to know what exactly to make of Chris Ferguson. Up until April of 2013 Ferguson hadn't so much as stepped foot inside an American high school, let alone played football. Ferguson is a native of the Bahama's and spent the majority of his time growing up in Nassau. Due to the close proximity of the Bahamas to the US* there is a huge following for American Football on the islands. There are currently no high schools in the Commonwealth that sponsor the sport. There are smaller independent clubs that play the game. But the level of competition and organisation is obviously much higher in the states.

* Its about an hour flight from Nassau to Miami

For someone playing his first season of football, and even then only playing about half of it, Ferguson exploded on the recruiting scene. Illinois and Minnesota both offered him, Georgia sniffed around trying to get him to flip late before signing day. But he is a Bearcat, now the question is what do you do with him?

Tubs and Co. will start him out on the offensive line this year. Regardless of where he ends up Ferguson is in essentially the same position that Lindsay Crook was in a year ago. A red shirt is assured, just so Ferguson has a chance to sit, learn and grow. He checked into camp at 6'4" 275 which is plenty big for a freshman offensive linemen here. Ferguson is probably very familiar with the weight room given his mother's profession. But a year in a college strength and conditioning program will really change his body.

Given his lack of experience Ferguson is a project for a few years down the road. The good thing about guys who are new to the game is that they don't have any bad habits to break, they don't even have habits in the conventional sense. Ferguson is a smart kid, his GPA was well over 3.5 in the Bahamas and he clearly passed the clearinghouse without issue. Physically David Neill and Orlando Smith will be able to get Ferguson to a spot where he can hold his own physically by this time next year. The question is whether Ferguson can use his intelligence to paper over the gaps in his experience.