Collins Acheampong could end up as the most intriguing recruit on the West Coast in the 2023 class. The 6-foot-7 athlete has not played in a football game since his freshman season after arriving to the United States from Ghana in 2019, but he will head into the spring as one of the most buzzed-about prospects among college coaches in the region.
Acheampong, who could be an edge rusher or tight end at the next level, attends Fairmont Prep in Anaheim but the schools had to disband its football program amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
In that time, the junior has focused mostly on basketball while learning more about the game of football. His foray into playing football started as a way to help him get acclimated with his new surroundings, but his untapped potential has coaches eager to get him on campus to begin working with him next season.
That has led to recent offers from USC, Oregon, Washington, UCLA, Utah, Colorado and others. The magnitude of the opportunities now in front of him isn’t lost on Acheampong, but he is also not surprised to see the attention he is now receiving from the college programs now in pursuit.
“It’s kind of shocking to begin with, but then it’s like I’ve been putting in the work behind the scenes,” he said. “So, I’ve been ready for it.”
Every day has been a learning experience for Acheampong. So, when he stepped on the field at the Under Armour camp in Orange County on Sunday he knew it would be a different type of challenge than he had faced previously.
Many of his counterparts have been playing football for as long as they can remember. Acheampong is still becoming familiar with all the rules and techniques needed to play the game.
“I’ll say a lot, because every single game and every single practice I had to learn something new,” he said about how much progress he has made since stepping on a football field for the first time. “I went into practice like, ‘Today I have to learn something new.’ The next day I have to learn something new. Every day I’m learning something different helping me become better and get me to where I am right now.
“Staying in the country for the last two years, even though I haven’t played football, I got to watch football. Understand the game, watch people at my position and learn their techniques and how they move. So, I think that also helped me a lot.”
Acheampong, in many ways, still looks like a basketball player on the football field. He has a lean frame and plenty of length that he uses when he’s on the court. As a football player, there is clear potential with flashes of being an impact player at the next level. It has plenty of schools excited about what Acheampong could become in the coming years.
“It’s a blank slate that they can work on and craft and mold to how they want,” Acheampong said of what he’s heard has attracted college coaches to him. “Their ideas align with mine. Basically every school I’m talking to aligns with mine in terms of my development. Like I said, it’s go hard or go home. I want to go hard and get to the highest point I can achieve, which is get the best education and hopefully make it to the NFL.”
The recruiting process is still in its infancy for Acheampong, but that will soon change. He recently had an opportunity to visit UCLA, and Saturday he made the trek out to USC’s campus for an unofficial visit with the Trojans.
