![Columbia High School Tigers wide receiver Marcus Peterson (18) rushes for yardage in the first half action football game Friday night, September 25, 2020 at Trinity Christian in Jacksonville, Florida. [Stan Badz/Special to The Florida Times-Union]](https://cdn.cincylink.com/pub/content/uploads/sites/27/2021/06/Columbia-High-Schools-Marcus-Peterson-commits.jpg)
Editor’s Note: Columbia High School rising senior wide receiver Marcus Peterson has written the following first-person story to announce where he’ll play college football.
The 6-foot-2, 210-pound Peterson is a three-star recruit and the No. 103 player in the state of Florida on the 247Sports composite rankings. He received more than 30 offers, including Cincinnati, Florida State, Pittsburgh and UCF.
Peterson accounted for 1,128 yards of total offense, caught a team-high seven touchdown passes and was tied for the team lead with six touchdowns passes and four rushing touchdowns.
Basketball has always been my first love.
Since I was in sixth grade, that was my favorite sport. I like everything about it — dunking and posting people up, shooting 3’s. All of it.
I first dunked in my eighth-grade year. it was wonderful. We were doing a scrimmage game and I caught it on a fast break and dunked it.
It was really this past year when I got serious about football.
People kept telling me I had a lot of talent and I couldn’t let It go to waste. I decided to just go out and there and be somebody.
I played football before. I played Pop Warner. But it was just something I did to do it.
Last year, being on the football field felt natural.
To me, it was pretty cool to play so many positions last year. It was tiring, but it was a lot of fun.
Wide receiver is my favorite spot for sure. Having DBs trying to guard me, knowing they can’t guard me. I was just having fun out there, scoring touchdowns.
Some schools were recruiting me to play wide receiver and some wanted to play tight end. I’m not a tight end. I tell every coach that who offers me as a tight end that I wasn’t playing tight end any of my years that I played, so for them to recruit me as a tight end, I just wasn’t interested.
The recruiting process has been crazy. There are positives to it for sure. It’s good because you get offers and you can go anywhere in the country. But it’s difficult when you get phone calls back-to-back and then texts back-to-back. There were a lot of times where my phone just kept blowing up. It’s been stressful and I’m glad that I’m committing now.
I want to thank my coaches, my family, my mom and dad and my friends for the support they’ve given me and just for being there for me. My parents have helped me a lot through this process, just talking with me about everything.
I’m happy to announce that I’ll be taking my talents to the University of Cincinnati.
When they offered me, the coaches hit me up every day and checked on me. The coaches are good guys and there’s a vibe where it’s chill. It was very important to me that I got to visit the schools I was interested in this month. I needed to see the school in person to examine it to see if I really wanted to go there.
Cincinnati is far away from home, so I can get my mind off everything and just play football. It’s grind mode.
It also helped that one of my former teammates, Marquez Bell, is there and he’s had a good time there.
He kept it real with me – how coach is going to be, how things operate around there. it just made me comfortable.
I’m ready to go.
I’m a Bearcat.
Source link
