Penn State football commit Mehki Flowers continuing to improve with Central Dauphin East
Penn State football commit Mehki Flowers worked every day during the offseason to sculpt his craft on the offensive and defensive sides of the football.
Lifting, paying attention to detail on his route running, breaking in and out of backpedals — it’s all in a day’s work for Flowers, who continued to impress in Central Dauphin East’s 34-13 victory over State College on Friday. Neither the dedication nor the success is surprising to his head coach, Lance Deane, who followed Flowers from Steel-High.
“The biggest thing for him was growth,” Deane said. “The skill level is there and it’s always going to be there. He’s just a natural-born talent, but to see the step he’s taken from a maturity aspect, mentally, his accountability, I’m just proud of that kid and the growth he’s had. Just like everyone else, he has a far way to go, but he’s definitely heading in the right direction.”
Deane characterizes Flowers as a player that “hates to lose.” His only losing season came during his freshman year with Steel-High in 2018, where the Rollers went 4-7. Since then, he helped lead the Rollers to a 8-3 record the following season and 12-0 the next year. Now, the Panthers are 4-1 in large part to the efforts of Flowers, who doesn’t liked to be outworked on the field by even his own teammates.
The 6-foot-1, 190-pound wide receiver and safety is ranked 120th in the nation, the 16th-best wide receiver in his class and the third-ranked player in the Class of 2022 in Pennsylvania, per 247Sports. He began his career at Steel-High and caught 60 passes for 1,006 yards and 15 touchdowns last season. Flowers added 36 tackles with five interceptions and 10 pass deflections.
Flowers talks every day with other Class of 2022 Penn State commits, a group that’s currently ranked No. 1 in the country, per 247Sports. The commits have a group chat with each of them bonding through messages and Flowers calling them his “brothers.”
They’ve only spent time together once during an official visit, but Flowers believes that it’s an unbreakable bond. He’s excited to be able to play for head coach James Franklin, as the Nittany Lions have started their season 4-0 and have a chance to build toward a prolific future.
“It means a lot having a coach like James Franklin,” Flowers said. “He’s a great guy all around. He’s rallying the team around at Penn State — they’re goons and just beat an SEC team. That’s big. That’s a big step in the direction that we talked about. Every time that I’ve gone up there, we talked about the vision. It’s just building Penn State from what it is — it’s already greatness. So it’s about adding onto what’s already great.”
Last week against Auburn, Flowers was able to take in the atmosphere that is a Penn State White Out game. Watching the Nittany Lions defeat the Tigers in a nationally televised game, in front of a near capacity crowd made the young athlete’s eyes light up.
He was one of many recruits to view the sea of white T-shirts and raucous fans in person. It was something he said he wouldn’t trade for anything and an experience that he’ll be able to take part in soon.
“The atmosphere there, you can’t compare it to anything else,” Flowers said. “That atmosphere was crazy. I was there [at Penn State], but this year was different. That year off — everybody was talking about it. Everybody was there, even Auburn fans were wearing white. Their whole team wore white. It was a crazy experience that I wouldn’t trade for anything and I can’t wait to play there.”
Flowers was everywhere for Central Dauphin East on Friday night, so much so that State College wouldn’t even punt to him or throw his way. The Little Lions tried their hardest to stop him from getting involved in the game, but Flowers’ presence couldn’t be contained — especially on the offensive side of the ball.
He went for an early 30-yard touchdown reception from the arm of Terrance Jackson-Copney and had another screen pass that he took for 30-plus yards. Paired with his teammate Marcel McDaniels, who had a pair of 47-yard touchdown rushes, the two expect big things to close out their season.
“Chip. Chip. Chip. Chip. We’re expecting to win every single game,” McDaniels said. “That’s all we do. We expect to win every single game. Me, Mehki and [the others] are all fast. We’re a fast team.”
After a 12-0, state championship season at Steel-High, Flowers moved on. He wanted to win on his own volition, a bond he built with Deane and a goal to lead Central Dauphin East to the Promised Land.
He now has the opportunity to focus on his final high school football season.
“Coming over here to East when I first transferred, I looked to see who I could help out the most and it was this school,” Flowers said. “They went 0-7 last year — just coming over and showing them different. That’s all that I wanted to do. That’s all that I’ve been doing. The goal is the state championship and I believe that we can conquer that.”
When Flowers finally does make it to Penn State, Deane believes that the sky is the limit for the player that he’s seen grow throughout the years. It doesn’t matter if it’s on offense or defense for the 4-star athlete.
“Whether it’s offense or defense, he’s physical,” Deane said. “His ability to make plays — it kind of goes both ways. It’s not necessarily that he goes just on offense or defense, you see that he’s physical on both sides of the ball and you see that he makes plays on both sides of the ball. I feel like as far as his future and potential, he’s his own biggest guy in that sense where he has the potential to go as far as he wants. He just has to keep his mind focused and take one day at a time and everything else will come naturally for him.”
