Matthew Taylor '12 Recruiting Profile

     Hello, I am Matt Taylor.  I am a senior this year at Rossville High School in Rossville, KS.  I am a 6’1/190 pound free safety, wide receiver and kicker/punter.  I have a 4.5 second forty time and a 4.1 pro shuffle drill from a football camp at Kansas State University during the summer of 2011.  I love to play football, but I mostly love to win, but not at any cost.  I do follow the rules of the game.  I have played football since I was a 7^th grader, but prior to that I played soccer as a goalie since I was four years old.  A personal interest piece about me is I am completely deaf, but this has never held me back in accomplishing anything I have put my mind to.

     I played varsity football at Topeka High my sophomore year, which is a 6A school, and I lettered that year.  I then transferred to Rossville, a 3A school, as it is a smaller school which allowed me to play both offense and defense.  I lettered both my junior and senior seasons.  Both years we made it to the playoffs and came up a little short of making it to the championship game.  I made 1^st team all Mid-East League in Kansas my junior and senior year and I was honorable mention All State 3A Class both my junior and senior years.  My deafness is not a bad thing for me as it doesn’t allow for distractions and I keep everything in front of me.  I also break on the ball much quicker as I read body language very well.  I have very sure hands and catch most everything thrown at me and I punt the ball very well, with a combined punt average for my junior and senior year of 41.5 yards per kick.  My senior year, I set a school record for field goal length of 44 yards.

     I was a co-captain my senior year.  I try to push my teammates to want to win as badly as I do.  My dream is play college football at some level as a freshman and be a big help to a team by the time I am a junior and senior.  I want to play for a winning team.  I would like to play for a school that is no farther than 3 hours away from home, but I am willing to listen to any school.  My parents are both government employees and I have a brother and sister who are in college currently, so any financial assistance would be a big help to our family.