What makes Smoke Monday different

[WFE12 9,191]

This is an older article that I don't believe was posted and I just had to seeing as he's my favorite freshman and that it's a great read.

 

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Auburn commit Quindarious Monday treasures path to Under Armour All-American

Benjamin Wolk

 

ATLANTA — Quindarious Monday is wired differently than most high schoolers.

His priorities are a perfect example. What’s your football dream? Most 17-year-olds go with the obvious: the NFL, a Heisman, a national championship, a first-round draft pick, an Under Armour All-American — which Monday is — glory, fame, the whole shebang.

The Auburn safety commit knows all of those things can be accomplished if he sticks to his own dream.

“My football dream is to play every down like it’s my last because you never know when your time is up,” Monday said.

That’s “Smoke,” his nickname to most, in a nutshell.

Auburn commit Quindarious Monday will be an Under Armour All-American. (Benjamin Wolk/SEC Country)

He plays at full speed. He leads. He hits you hard. He talks trash. He tells you he’s better than you. He teaches you how to be the best. He admits his failures and learns from them.

You won’t find many like Monday, and that’s what makes him an All-American.

“With Quindarious, he can walk into any place and not know anybody, and in 30 minutes, they’re all going to know who he is, and you’re going to see them gravitate toward him,” Carver (Atlanta) football coach Darren Myles told SEC Country. “He has this infectious smile. He has this charisma about himself. He won’t bow down to anybody, but he will make everybody feel comfortable. He just has that special gift.”

Those characteristics led Monday from a scrawny freshman football player to one of the top defensive prospects in the entire country, being chased heavily by Georgia and Clemson despite already being committed to Auburn.

Monday always felt he had what it took to be an All-American, but it wasn’t until receiving his Under Armour game jersey that he realized it was actually happening.

“It means a lot. You’ll never get this again. You’ll never get your parents and the whole community behind you like this. It’s really hard to do. I just love how they’ve got my back and all that,” Monday said while wearing his crisp white game jersey. “Plus, I look great. I look great. Wait until I put the pads on. It’s going to look real good.”

Two anecdotes on Monday’s rise to stardom

For college football recruits, big-time college offers are usually the first sign of an All-American in the making. Monday’s offers started piling up in August of 2016 when Auburn and Florida started to show serious interest.

That’s when Monday started to believe.

“After I started getting all the offers, I really looked and was like, ‘I can do this. I can be an All-American,” Monday said.

Auburn safety commit Quindarious Monday is one of the most important pieces in the 2018 class. (Benjamin Wolk/SEC Country)

But his coach knew well before that.

In fact, Myles has two particular anecdotes he likes to bring up when he looks back at Monday’s progression from tall, skinny scout-teamer to the star of the Atlanta Public Schools system.

Myles’ first story took place in one of those scout team moments when sophomore Monday, now notorious for his fearlessness when hitting people, took on a starting offensive lineman in practice.

“We were working on blitz pickup. We had an offensive guard that was about 6-1, 250. Smoke came on a blitz and ran straight down the middle and put him on his back. We were all looking at the guard like, ‘Monday is a 165-pound kid. What are you doing on your back?'” Myles said. “But I really looked at it like, ‘This kid is not afraid of contact.’ He could’ve went around. He could’ve beat him in a gap. He could’ve run around. But he wanted to go through the guard. That really opened my eyes with him.”

It reached the point where Myles had no choice but to get Monday involved in varsity action.

And when he did, Monday didn’t disappoint.

“Tenth grade, probably Week 7 of his sophomore year, he blocked a punt. The ball bounced off the ground. He scooped it up while a guy was hanging on him and ran it in for a touchdown. I had never seen a guy block the punt with one hand, scoop it with another hand, broke a tackle while someone had their hand around his waist and then score the touchdown,” Myles said. “I said this kid is going to be something special.”

That he became.

Self-expectations through the roof

Here’s a little Quindarious Monday story from my perspective.

My first encounter with Monday was at the Nike Opening regional in Atlanta. Someone told me to keep an eye out for him and see how he looked, considering he was a major Auburn target. What I noticed — much like the personality his coach described — was a supremely confident player who led all the other elite prospects through stretching drills, took on top receivers in drills and made his voice heard and his presence felt.

I returned with this overwhelming response: This guy is an unbelievable athlete, but more than that, he leads peers in a way few other high schoolers are able to do.

Auburn safety commit Quindarious Monday has ridiculously high self-expectations. (Benjamin Wolk/SEC Country)

It’s a good thing Monday sets his own expectations, however, because he wasn’t satisfied. That Nike camp was a springboard for Monday turning into the player he wanted to be.

“After the Nike camp, my coach was a little mad at me for not stepping up to be first in line during drills, and I see why he was mad at me,” Monday said. “They have 4 stars or 5 stars just like I do. I had to step up.”

Monday took that constructive criticism in stride.

He was back to camp the next week, this time for the Under Armour camp in Atlanta. With secondary legend Deion Sanders in attendance, and watching closely, Monday put on a display he was much more proud of from a leadership perspective.

To Myles, those moments best describe the football player Monday has become.

“There was a transition, but he’s an extremely hard worker,” Myles said. “If we practice for two-and-a-half hours and one of my former players comes by and says he wants to work on something, Smoke’s going to go right back out there with him. He loves to practice and work on things. That’s what separates him.”

 

 

[WFE12 9,191]

[ClaytonAU 4,606]

Gotta add some weight but my goodness I love watching him play. An instinct for the ball.

[AUpreacherman22 3,876]

In this pic he looks a lot like Sterling K Brown

[AUsince72 11,084]

Well his name certainly sounds different.

Sounds like a company in one of those "progressive" states offering an incentive to make the first day of the work week...not so bad .