The Orange Lutheran High School (CA) football team might have a young star wide receiver on its roster and might not even know it yet. Junior to be Michael Nelson not only won the wide receiver MVP award at the end of the weekend long Football University Camp in Liberty, Missouri, but he has his position coach calling him “the natural” throughout the weekend. His coach? Pro Bowl receiver and Super Bowl champion Andre Rison. Rison couldn’t give Nelson enough compliments throughout the weekend, and frankly, Nelson deserved them all.
When handing out the wide receiver MVP award, Rison praised Nelson’s hard work, constant effort, and the fact that he was a sleeper coming in to the camp and is leaving as a player that college coaches around the country should be watching. At 6′2″ and about 175 pounds, Nelson never took a route off during the 3 day camp. He showed explosion off the line as well as out of breaks in his routes. The way Nelson made every drill and every route look easy led to Rison coining Nelson “the natural.” Even when coach Rison would change the route by yelling out what coverage the defense is playing seconds before the play would begin, Nelson showed the quick thinking coaches love as he understood exactly where he need to be against the multiple defensive sets.
With his MVP performance this weekend, Nelson is no longer the ’sleeper’ that Rison described him as when he awarded Nelson as the MVP. Instead, Nelson has put himself on many list as someone to watch and develop over the next year.
