Season recap: Lukas Foreman
In Sam Dollar's 12 seasons as defensive coordinator at Naples (Fla.) High, few players have made a more memorable first impression than Lukas Foreman.
When the Maryland-bound safety joined the Golden Eagles’ program three years ago, Dollar and his staff couldn’t help but notice the lanky freshman’s stature and apparent potential.
“He came in at about 6-1 as a freshman football player and we thought, ‘Man, he’s going to be tall and we hope he can run well and hope he has good agility.’ And sure enough he developed all of that,” Dollar said. “By the time he hit 10th grade [he was starting]. It is very, very rare that we have a 10th-grader starting on varsity. In my 12 years, it’s only happened a few times. And he did it at safety. We ended up only losing to the eventual state champion that year. He was definitely a good football player for us.”
The finale to Foreman’s Naples career was a good one, with the 6-foot-3, 190-pound senior safety helping the Golden Eagles to an 11-1 record. Foreman finished the season with 59 tackles (45 solo), two interceptions and one forced fumble. He also punted 25 times for a 40.07-yard average, including a long punt of 60 yards and nine kicks inside the 20.
“Anytime we played great competition, he would always rise,” Dollar said. “You could easily see he was a great player on defense. When we had a great running back to face, he played extremely well for us. He’s a fierce tackler that likes to get to the football, and he can cover really well.”
Dollar ran a 4-3 defense that required Foreman to be versatile. Naples’ defensive package sometimes called for Foreman to drop back in man coverage, and other times to provide run support. Whatever the task assigned by Dollar, Foreman was up for the challenge.
“Basically for all 11 guys out there, there’s no room to hide,” Dollar said. “You had to be a hard hitter, physical and stop the run. And then the [defensive backs] also had to be able to play man coverage. … I put him against [Ohio State tight end commitment Jeff Heuerman], had him cover him and be in run support. He’d come up and take him on and fill his gaps. So he would definitely be more of a strong safety, but he could’ve easily sat back there at free safety. The bottom line is that in our formation, he had to be able to do both.”
In Naples’ season-ending 28-21 loss to South Fort Myers in the Florida Class 3A playoffs, Foreman ran step-for-step with an opposing wide receiver and picked off a pass inside the 10 at a crucial point in the game. For Dollar, that play was emblematic of Foreman’s high school career – nobody would outwork the future Terp.
“I’ll definitely remember him most for just having the greatest desire of anybody I’ve ever seen,” Dollar said. “A lot of times you’ll have DI guys that just kind of coast. But his desire to play the game and really be successful was unbelievable. I just love the effort that he gave and the desire that he had to be successful every week. In my 12 years, I’ve never seen anybody with his kind of skill play that hard.”
