Coach | 2022 Notre Dame DL Target Anthony Lucas Athletic Prospect, Awesome Kid

Anthony Lucas‍ certainly passes the Look Test, according to Chaparral High School head coach Brent Barnes.

“First off, when you look at him, he’s quite a specimen as far as his athletic build,” Barnes says of the 2022 Arizona defensive lineman. “He’s probably about 6-5 and 290 right now. At that size, he’s also very athletic. He plays basketball and plays baseball too, actually. We actually work him a little bit at tight end and some other things too.

“He’s a guy who has some really, really good athletic ability for his size and he’s also extremely strong for where he’s at. Plus, he’s still young. He’s very young for his class. He’s not even 16 yet, but if you look at him, he looks like a 19-year-old.”

Lucas plays first base for Chaparral’s baseball squad.

“He says he plays third, I haven’t seen it though,” laughs Barnes. “I imagine if he connects with a fastball, it probably travels a good distance.”

Barnes says, “that stuff obviously pops out at you when you see him in person, but he’s just an awesome kid too.

“He has a great family, really great support,” he continues. “He’s just one of those guys who always seems to be in a good mood and having good times with the guys.”

Since June alone, Lucas has added offers from Notre Dame, Texas, Texas A&M, Penn State and Michigan State. He’d already had offers from schools like Arizona, USC, Oklahoma, Florida State and Washington among others.

It’s early, but Barnes believes Notre Dame is a school Lucas will look at seriously.

“I know he asked to visit there a long time ago before all of this happened,” the coach says. “He actually ended up talking with a couple other schools that ended up pulling the trigger a little quicker, so he visited some of those instead. But I know that’s one he had listed.

“He does really well in the classroom, so anybody who is a true student-athlete, I think Notre Dame is always going to be one at the top of his list. It’s one I could certainly see with him. But again, he has so many options that there’s really no telling. It’ll be interesting to see what path he takes.”

Barnes hasn’t been around his players as much as usual since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, but has had some limited opportunities to be around his guys and says nothing about Lucas has changed as his recruiting continues to ramp up.

“He’s the same kid,” the coach says. “Again, when you have a great support system like he has at home and around him in general. I think he’s handled it extremely well. I think he knows that with all of that attention and all of that praise, he still has to hold up his end of the bargain and take care of things in the classroom like he has and continue doing that. He knows there’s still a road ahead, but obviously he’s excited about the opportunities he’s going to have down the road.”

Barnes is hopeful that since Lucas is just going into his junior season, he still has time to have somewhat of a normal recruiting process.

“He’s probably in a little more fortunate situation than others because he’s still young and is just going into junior year and has time.”