Midland Legacy High School senior running back Makhilyn Young, whose 1,548 yards rushing and 23 touchdowns helped lead the Rebels to a 9-2 finish last season, works as hard getting himself ready for game day as he does on game day.
“He doesn’t miss workouts,” Rebels head coach Clint Hartman told the Midland Reporter-Telegram. “One night, he asked us to the turn the lights on so he could run at 9 o’clock at night. You can be vocal whenever people know how you are living.”
Young has been setting the standard since his sophomore season, when he burst onto the scene by averaging 9.0 yards per carry on an a team that went 11-2 and won all but one of its district games by 21 points or more to share the district title with Permian. Young insists he’s not about to allow himself or his teammates to rest on their laurels this season.
“We’re different, nothing is the same as last year,” Young told the Reporter-Telegram. “I like how we have a lot of weapons like we had last year. I’m tired of ‘Oh we expected this.’ Like Coach Hartman said, expectations are nothing but somebody expecting you to do something. You haven’t done anything yet. I’m trying to make it an expectation that we’re going to make it happen.”
For the Rebels, who are picked by Dave Campbell’s Texas Football to win District 2-6A, it all starts with the 5-foot-10, 190-pound star running back.
“He’s a great leader,” Hartman told the paper. “He’s infectious. People like him. People gravitate toward him because of who he is. Given the history of Legacy High School and how many good running backs we’ve had, he’s in there with them.”
Young joins other Legacy running back greats like Cedric Benson, Farris Strambler, Isaac Garnett, Josh Norman, Josh Traylor, Trent Hines and Jason McAfee, all of whom rushed for upwards of 1,500 yards in a season. Like former Detroit Lions great Barry Sanders and New York Giants star Saquon Barkley, whom he patterns his game after, Young has the ability to break away on any play at any time.
“My running style is I can run through you, run over you, run by you or even jump over you,” said Young, who has attracted attention from the likes of Jackson State, Houston Baptist, UT-Permian Basin, Arkansas Tech and Stephen F. Austin. “You might as well choose your poison because you’re not touching me.”
Having someone as cool as Young in the backfield should help sophomore Marcos Davilla, who is expected to be the Rebels’ starting signal-caller. Legacy is also expecting major contributions from 6-foot-4 receiver Christopher Brazzell, who has already signed to attend Florida Atlantic.
“I expect for us to be a really good football team again,” Hartman added. “We have really a good and tough (pre-district) schedule and that’s for a reason, so we can get better.”
In seeking their first outright district title in more than two decades, Legacy also returns six players on defense, led by three-year starting defensive linemen Kameron Curry (42 tackles, 9 tackles for loss in 2020) and preseason all-state linebacker Wesley Smith (119 tackles and 14 tackles for loss).