Looks like freshman TE Beckett Wales will see some time in this weekend’s game at USF. Wales is a product of Venice High, just 90 minutes south of the Bulls campus. With the TE corps decimated by injury, there’s been no time to red shirt Wales. He’s been asked to step in immediately and contribute.
Which is good, because we couldn’t go much longer without a “What Kind of Name is Beckett Wales?” post. When we first wrote about Wales, it seemed like Doug Marrone had merely stepped onto the campus of the Welton Academy for Boys and picked out the dorm leader.
Welton was the New England all-boys prep school featured in Dead Poets Society, a pompous, stilted academy churning out Ivy League hopefuls. Just look at the roll call for characters in Poets: Welton Vicar, John Keating, Gerard Pitts, McAllistar, Chet Danburry, and my personal fave Knox Overstreet (which I always felt would make a great band name).
“Wales, you run a go-route toward the oak tree. Knox will cross underneath, Welton stays in to block and McAllistar will look for you deep.”
In fact, with The Social Network playing to rave reviews (much of the buzz unearned in our mind), why don’t we throw in the Winklevoss twins – Cameron and Tyler. Prep school legacy children who row crew for Harvard? Now that’s Beckett Wales’ kind of guys!
Alas, Beckett hales from a so¬†very non-preppy part of the country despite his high school sharing a name with one of the most romantic cities in Europe. If you’ve ever been to the Tampa/Sarasota/Gulf Coast region, you know Bubba Burnwell is as likely to be throwing you the football as¬†Trey Barton. Wait, Trey Barton!? The converted Florida Gators TE was Wales’ QB at Venice and sounds like he could step out of the Welton admissions office too.
How did the Orange stumble into a solid TE from a football heavy district who’s contributing early?
“Marrone is convinced that it was Wales‚Äô frame that caused the Florida schools to overlook the player on the recruiting trail. Venice cranks out enough Division I football talent ‚Äì another former Wales‚Äô teammate, defensive end Brandon Wilkinson, will be in a South Florida uniform Saturday ‚Äì that it is impossible to fall under the radar if a player has the goods. Wales, like fellow Floridian Nick Provo when he arrived at SU four years ago, had plenty of ability but was missing about 20 pounds worth of goods.”
Thank goodness Wales is bringing a Big 10-like toughness and not some smarmy Northeast prep school attitude. Now we just need a good TE nickname for him, like “Banger” or “Hoss,” because Beckett is just not cutting it.
Posted: D.A.
