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FOOTBALL: McDowell departs from Loyola, one of nation’s top recruits set to play senior season elsewhere
DETROIT – Malik McDowell is moving on.
The state’s No.1 rated high school football recruit in the Class of 2014 has left Detroit Loyola and will play his senior season on the gridiron somewhere else, most likely in the suburbs.
McDowell, a behemoth and athletically-gifted 6-foot-7, 290 pound defensive end, has tallied 28 sacks over the past two seasons. He had 16 last fall to go along with 65 tackles and three fumble recoveries as a junior, leading Loyola to a Catholic League C-D championship and an appearance in the Division 7 state finals at Ford Field.
Sources close to the situation say McDowell left Loyola following a disciplinary issue and might end up at Southfield High School to team with Michigan-recruit Lawrence Marshall on the Bluejays’ defensive line – a thought that certainly makes offensive coordinators and signal-callers alike in the Oakland Activity Association White Division quiver.
Not short on suitors, McDowell has received over two dozen Division I college scholarship offers. Many of those offers hail from elite programs.
Besides both Michigan and Michigan State being hot on his trail, McDowell has offers from national powerhouses like Alabama, Florida, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Oregon and USC to name a few.
It will be interesting to see how the MHSAA handles this particular high-profile transfer in light of the recent ruling that athletically-motivated school-moves will be monitored more stringently starting in the 2014-2015 school year.
Records do not currently show McDowell or his immediate family living in Southfield.
Loyola was 24-2 over the past two seasons, claiming back-to-back league and district crowns.
Last August, the state’s No. 1-ranked boys basketball player in the Class of 2013, McDonald’s All-American and Kentucky-signee James Young, made headlines when he transferred from Troy to Rochester for his senior season on the hardwood. Young, part of a John Calapari-chosen Blue Chip crop that experts are calling the greatest recruiting class in college basketball history, took Rochester to epic heights in the winter, averaging 27 points, 17 rebounds and six assists per night and piloting the Falcons to its first district title in 25 years and its first regional championship since the early 1950s.
