Raekwon Davis said the defensive line has the tools to be deadly

The pride of Meridian High School, Davis is every bit of 6-foot-7 and more than 300 pounds, but the exactly weight isn’t precisely nailed down and depends largely on whom you ask.

The University of Alabama’s latest defensive tackle, a part of the Crimson Tide’s No. 1 rated 2016 recruiting class, is listed in the rivals.com database at 305 pounds. UA’s press release has him at 325 pounds. Davis said he currently weighs 340 pounds. One of his high school coaches said he’s 360.

The varying sizes don’t mean much because no matter how much Davis weighed Wednesday morning, he wore it well. He didn’t look sloppy or out of shape. He just looked massive.

Davis looked like an unmovable object in the middle of Alabama’s future defensive line.

“He’s probably the biggest I’ve ever coached in 41 years,” Meridian High School coach Larry Weems said. “I mean, just, he’s huge. You can’t make a guy that’s 6-7. He’s just blessed with the framework of being able to put the size on at his position that everybody wants. There’s not a lot of those guys hanging around. He’s got a chance to really be a big player.

“He’s not just a big ol’ fat kid. He’s just a huge, huge kid. I don’t think he’ll get bigger, but I do think he’ll get stronger.”

That’s troublesome for Alabama’s opponents, another big, strong lineman in Alabama’s front seven that just seems to keep plugging in another four- or five-star player each season.

Davis ranked No. 88 nationally, the seventh-best defensive tackle in the country and the sixth-best player in the state of Mississippi, a state in which notoriously difficult to recruit a player from out of state.

To that end, Davis almost ended up in Starkville and not Tuscaloosa. Well, that’s the rumor at least.

He was the first verbal commitment for Alabama’s 2016 class, pledging to UA head coach Nick Saban before his junior year in 2014.

Yet about two weeks ago reports started flying around on the internet that Davis had flipped his commitment to Mississippi State. Ultimately Davis reaffirmed his plans to enroll at Alabama.

Blaming it on reporters, Davis said there was nothing to the rstory of him switching to the Bulldogs.

“I don’t know. It was just reporters. Reporters, they’ll do anything to put stuff out there,” Davis said “That’s what they do. That’s what their job is.

“For me it was Alabama, it was just the environment, the coaches. When I go there it feels like it’s home. Like, that’s where I want to be. I feel like I want to spend my three or four years there.

“It wasn’t that hard to leave Mississippi. You just have to find the place for you and where you want to be.”

To make UA his home away from home, Davis has some work to accomplish in the classroom to fully qualify. That’s why he also signed a letter of intent with Jones County Community College in Ellisville, Miss. as a back-up plan.

Alabama defensive line coach Bo Davis was Davis’ main recruiter. That relationship is really what put the Crimson Tide over the top.Raekwon Davis said Alabama has the players to not miss a beat up front defensively in 2016.

“It’s going to be deadly,” he said. “We’ve got the tools. We’ve got the weapons. We’ve got the gun. We’re like a gun ready to be sprayed.

“Man, I’m telling you. We’ve got the tools. We could be great this year. We should be the deadliest weapon for 2016.”

Reach Aaron Suttles at aaron@tidesports.com or at 205-722-0229.