There’s a pretty good chance you don’t have any idea who Zaquandre White is. That won’t last long. If you haven’t already seen it, now is as good a time as any to see one of the craziest runs ever, courtesy of Zaquandre White, the guy you never heard of until just a second ago.
Zaquandre White brought the days of Tecmo Super Bowl back to life in one play, as he evaded would-be tackler after would-be tackler during an insane run that went from bad to impossible to glorious in just a matter of seconds.
Breaking the Play Down
It truly is one of the better runs we’ve seen in some time and probably could be thrown into that “best run ever” argument. It’s obviously worth noting that it was done on the high school level and not in the pros or even college, but an amazing run is an amazing run. The beauty of this run is just how many times White looks dead to rights. When the play first starts, the right side of the line is no longer anywhere to be seen and White’s initial path to success is shut down by a defender. This forces him to juke left, where the rest of the defense lies, which naturally forces him further left in an effort to find anything worth salvaging.
From there, White slides through a weak ankle tackle, shakes off a defender that is draped on his back and holding his jersey and regains his footing enough to completely toss the defender to the ground. The situation looks even more dire after that, as the defense then swarms in on him, but two defenders sandwich him at just the right time so he is able to absorb both blows and spins out of the hit, keeping enough footing to stay up and turn back towards the right side of the field.
At that point, all White needs is a little juice to accelerate past the last legit defender and use proper angling and whatever speed he has left to win a foot race to the end zone. He gets a nice block in the back from #4, but overall does almost all of the heavy lifting on his own to create a play that would make Bo Jackson or Barry Sanders proud.
Why is this so cool? Any highlight where a running back can shed tackles and make a defense look silly is fun, but the change of direction, balance, awareness, vision and acceleration displayed on just one play truly was a sight to see. If you couldn’t see the video for some reason, hopefully our break down did it justice – although we’re pretty sure even Ernest Hemingway couldn’t accomplish that.
Who is Zaquandre White?
As interesting as this play was, it’s even cooler to discover that Zaquandre White isn’t just some random high school running back that got a little lucky. This four-star recruit is destined for Florida State and was already a highly touted high school prospect. Could we see White destroy college defenses and work his way to the pros? Perhaps. But regardless of what he does, this sick video will always be online for anyone to see. Even if he never has another great run, Zaquandre White will at least be known for that his custom football jerseys and one insane run he put on tape that made him look like he was in a video game. And for that, we thank him.
