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2018 4* Juco DT Daquan Newkirk (Auburn 6/18/15)


McLoofus

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Per reports, having trouble linking, Coach Malzahn has helped get Newkirk lined up with a JUCO. Newkirk is still 100% on coming to Auburn once done there.

Good deal
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Per reports, having trouble linking, Coach Malzahn has helped get Newkirk lined up with a JUCO. Newkirk is still 100% on coming to Auburn once done there.

Good deal

^^^^^^^ great news

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  • 3 weeks later...

I just read that Daquan has de-committed from Auburn. If it's grade problems, I hope Gus will help him get into a junior college for a while until we start recruiting him again.

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I just read that Daquan has de-committed from Auburn. If it's grade problems, I hope Gus will help him get into a junior college for a while until we start recruiting him again.

OK about 3 posts above yours is this

Per reports, having trouble linking, Coach Malzahn has helped get Newkirk lined up with a JUCO. Newkirk is still 100% on coming to Auburn once done there.

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If that is the case, and it was THAT long ago, why is he still listed under current commitments?

I seem to remember hearing that, but he has stayed part of the list of current commitments, so I figured maybe it got worked out.

Then today, somewhere, I also saw he had decommitted

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I'm glad to know he's still 100% for the Auburn Tigers. I look forward to seeing Daquan in AU orange and blue in about 2 years if not sooner.

Edited by auburn4ever
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Great article about Daquan

http://www.orlandose...0131-story.html

Wednesday morning, when most of the highly coveted college football prospects from around the country prepare to sign their NCAA National Letters of Intent, one of them will be sitting in Perkinston, Miss., wondering what his ceremony might have been like.

Daquan Newkirk, a defensive lineman and running back this past season at Orlando’s First Academy, will be wondering what if he had buckled down back in his freshman and sophomore years of high school? What if he had hit the books with the same energy that he hits opposing football players?

Newkirk could have been one of the top recruits in the entire country for the Class of 2016. In the short time that he played at TFA, he was obviously the best football player in Central Florida.

But no one knew of him last year. He was the mysterious guy who showed up for a visit to Auburn University last summer, quickly committed to head coach Gus Malzahn’s Tigers, and suddenly had everyone asking, “Who is that kid?”

“It was hard to accept at first, but at the end of the day … this is what I have to do,” said Newkirk, who has bypassed his final semester at TFA to enroll at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College as he works to improve his academics.

There is nothing to gain from bogging down on the past. What’s done is done. His future is bright and he knows it. It’s time to apply himself to his academics if he ever wants to be the football star that coaches at Auburn know he can be.

Newkirk is not the only one. Several Central Florida seniors are still scrambling to gain NCAA admission, needing either a higher core GPA or a higher college entrance exam score.

Newkirk’s friend and former Orlando Evans High teammate Woody Barrett is also supposed to be a future Auburn Tiger. Barrett also has yet to meet NCAA standards.

Newkirk, a 6-foot-3, 240-pound specimen who immediately passes the eye test, started out at Evans with Barrett. Both players eventually transferred during a mass exodus after the school administration ousted former head football coach Chip Gierke. Newkirk headed to Orlando’s First Academy and Barrett went to Winter Garden West Orange.

Newkirk will finish up his needed course work at Gulf Coast with hopes of enrolling at Auburn in the summer of 2017.

Barrett continues to strive for the score he needs on the SAT to gain admission to Auburn. He made his third attempt last week and still awaits the results. Barrett and the rest of his West Orange teammates will sign their National Letters of Intent on Wednesday. He has every intention of enrolling at Auburn this summer. Auburn coaches expect it.

“Coach Malzahn said juco is not an option for Woody,” West Orange coach Bob Head said. “His core GPA is over a 3.0, so now it’s just a matter of him meeting the mark on the [NCAA] sliding scale. He’s working really hard, doing a good job and just hoping this test gives him enough to where we can combine scores in certain areas from previous tests so he can be qualified.

“But I think Woody will be fine. I really do. I feel for him because he’s a really smart kid, but now his back is against the wall to get into college.”

It happens every year. Athletes get to their senior year and realize they are nowhere close to qualifying for NCAA admission. Then the scramble begins.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Head, who, every winter, turns from full-time football coach to full-time counselor. “They all just hurt themselves early [in high school]. The kids just need to start getting Cs or better on their core classes earlier and all of it can be avoided.

“They just have to take their academics more serious and get on it earlier.”

Newkirk has taken a different route than what many high school students might. He left TFA after just three semesters.

Transferring from Evans was supposed to remedy all of these technicalities. He was going to have a more disciplined regiment in academic workload. He was going to be surrounded by more tutors. He was going to have a broader support network.

Well, he had all of the above, and he said he was well on his way to achieving his needed academic qualifications. But then he came down with an illness that derailed his progress. Newkirk said he had a virus that caused him to miss more than a week of school just after the football season had ended.

It was a lot to overcome.

“I missed too much school and I already had a lot of work to do, so I had to come this way,” Newkirk said. “The only good outcome is that once I get my associate’s degree, I can then go to Auburn.”

It wasn’t exactly how everything had been mapped out upon his arrival at TFA. It was to be his springboard to success at the next level, but things kept going in reverse. He also suffered a pair of injuries during the season to his thumb and then his shoulder that caused him to missed time on the field.

“The last year has been kind of hectic. It was overwhelming once I committed to Auburn,” Newkirk said. “It was a big step because it took me a while to get my grades situated. I was like border-line then, so when I got sick and missing school and all of that, it wasn’t helping.

“So that’s why I’m in the situation I’m in right now.”

He’s been fortunate and so has Barrett. Auburn has shown its support. Many athletes who fail to make the grade or do not apply themselves to the process, often end up chasing their dream on their own, with less guidance than what high school had to offer.

Newkirk said Coach Malzahn and assistant coach Scott Fountain have been instrumental in helping provide direction to his future.

“Ever since I made the promise to Coach Gus Malzahn that I wouldn’t go to any other college and I stayed loyal to him … he stayed loyal to me,” Newkirk said. “They’ve been with me the whole step of the way.

“Probably about a good month and a half ago, me and my recruiting coach, Coach Fountain, we were just going over stuff and they came up with the idea that if I leave early, then the faster I can get to Auburn, so that’s what happened.”

He said he will eventually obtain his GED. He will also be working toward his associate’s degree at Gulf Coast. Newkirk will also play his freshman year at Gulf Coast.

“I was disappointed at first, but I’ve taken a different approach,” Newkirk said of his path. “There’s really nothing I can do about [the past]. I was sick for a good week and missing school at TFA is like asking to fail, basically. Then, after that, I had to catch back up and it was just a lot to do.”

No one ever told him it would be easy. It’s just turned out a lot more difficult than what he had imagined.

“My ninth grade year and mainly my sophomore year, I played around a lot,” Newkirk said. “I really didn’t focus on school much. It came back to bite me.”

Now he wants to bite back, but he’s just hoping he hasn’t bitten off more than he can chew.

“If I would have worked hard in the beginning, I wouldn’t be in the situation I am now,” he said.

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That's frustrating, but it's also uplifting. He's owning his mistakes and moving forward. That attitude is all you can ever ask of someone. I really hope to see him in orange and blue next year.

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I hope and pray he can get his academics taken care of. You have got to have an education first and foremost. Life has so many twists and turns, and if you do not have your education, your life will be so much harder. I do have a gut feeling that this young man will in a few years, be tearing it up at JHS!

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i have watched a lot of video on newkirk, and it made me sick when the news came out about him taking the juco route....this kid has some serious athleticism....i hope he can get his act together because he will be a QB's worst nightmare coming off the edge......

Edited by tombigbeetiger
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I think this kid has his head on straight he knows what he has to do and he will do it. I look forward when he joins Auburn.

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  • 11 months later...

Update - To be a part of 2018 Class

Quote
By Drew Champlin | dchamplin@al.com 
Email the author | Follow on Twitter 
on January 05, 2017 at 1:59 PM, updated January 05, 2017 at 2:02 PM
 
  •  
 
Daquan Newkirk plans to be part of Auburn's class of 2018 with three years left to play.

The 6-foot-4 defensive end had to go to Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College after learning he would not be academically eligible to play for Auburn out of high school at The First Academy in Orlando.

He was committed to being part of Auburn's 2016 class. Now, he'll be part of the 2018 class with three years left to play three. He is a four-star junior college recruit, per 247Sports.

Newkirk spent last fall as a redshirt and will have three years left to play three at Auburn, and he'll be a redshirt freshman for Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.

"Update, I will be playing this season at Gulf Coast," Newkirk said in a direct message to AL.com. "I just finished my last test and passed."

Other class of 2018 commitments for Auburn include quarterback Joey Gatewood from Jacksonville, Fla., and all-purpose back Shaun Shivers from Hollywood, Fla.

Source

 

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Good for Daquan. So hopefully we will see him at Auburn as a RS Soph DE in the 2018 class a year from now.  Right?

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42 minutes ago, aufan57 said:

Update - To be a part of 2018 Class

 

AU 247 reported this at least half a year ago.

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1 minute ago, ellitor said:

AU 247 reported this at least half a year ago.

they had an academic update on him today. And no new posts on the thread since Feb 2016. 

 

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11 minutes ago, aufan57 said:

they had an academic update on him today. And no new posts on the thread since Feb 2016. 

 

Yeah nobody just brought it over months ago. The only thing new in there was him passing his freshman classes. Everything else in there was a remind of what Keith posted months ago even though it was not phrased that way.

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from Sept. 16, 2016

Quote

 

After checking with some sources, we've added former Auburn commit Daquan Newkirk back to the commit list.

Newkirk, a defensive end from Florida, gave his verbal to the Tigers in the summer of 2015. But he was unable to meet the necessary academic requirements and enrolled at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College in January.

Newkirk has never wavered with his desire to play for Auburn. In fact, when we visited him in May he told us he considered himself a commit.

But the question was, in which class would we list his commitment -- 2017 or 2018?

Subscribe to the FREE Auburn Undercover newsletter for the best, most-up-to-date Tigers coverage on the planet -- and it only takes five seconds to sign up!

Newkirk hoped to land at Auburn after one full year at MGC. That would have put him in the 2017 class. But instead, he will not finish up at MGC until after the fall semester of 2017.

Thus, he will be a 2018 addition to the Tigers. And we have now added him to the 2018 commit list.

"Should be there for the season of 2018 but I will leave December of 2017 if everything goes smooth," Newkirk told AuburnUndercover.

On Wednesday, Newkirk sent out the following Tweet:

 

1 year ago but don't worry I'm still AU blooded? it's a process that I'm willing to wait out.

 

 

 

In high school, Newkirk was a 3-star defensive end at Orlando (Fla.) First Academy. The Tigers have always believed, though, he had 4-star ability, according to our intel.

Newkirk is taking a redshirt at MGC this season. That means following the 2017 season, he would have three years to play three seasons at Auburn.

 

 

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Just now, bigbird said:

He could be that edge rusher we haven't had since Dee

I hope he has a big year. 2017 will be his 1st year at DE in live game action since his high school Jr year  which will be nearly 3 years.

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