Death Valley Insider: LSU Tigers Football & Basketball Recruiting - 2025 RB Harlem Barry talks early offers, strong LSU camp showing
First seven college offers follow 2,000-yard freshman season, outdoor track sprinting championships.
Harlem Berry has to admit to an instance or two that have already surprised him in how early or to what extent they have come.
Whether exploding for 2,036 yards and 30 touchdowns in seven games as a freshman running back who thought he'd be a wide receiver.
Or raising eyebrows at home-state LSU's recent Elite Prospects Camp with a 4.38-second 40-yard dash and 38-inch vertical.
Or, with three years of high school remaining, a string of seven scholarship offers in just over a month and other college staffs starting to recruit as well.
But the 2025 St. Martin's Episcopal prospect tries to take each success and opportunity in the same smooth stride that helped earn them and remember plenty of work remains to reach his potential not only in high school, but well beyond.
"It was pretty exciting knowing that coaches are looking at me and seeing that I do have talent to play at the next level," he said. "But, I love it and all, but I just try to stay focused and keep working so that I can get more and more, so I can make it to the next, next level, which is the NFL."
Berry is determined to eclipse the already-prolific numbers he put up this past fall.
He said continue to improve his ball security and running with more patience behind his linemen are among his biggest focal points this offseason.
"Coming into that season, I didn't really do a lot of hard preparation like I do now for football, because the beginning of that summer I was playing basketball," he said. "So I didn't really do any hard, intense (football-specific) training.
"I just went to practice and worked hard. And once I got into that season and started running those type of numbers, then I realized I really could do something with this. So that's when I started training and doing a lot more with football."
Grambling State, UTSA, Nebraska and Texas A&M offered during the second half of May, followed by Mississippi State in early June.
And Louisiana Tech and Southern both joined the mix July 17 at the LSU camp amid a performance that also further piqued the interest of the host Tigers.
"When I got to campus, they greeted me at the door, I signed in and stuff, and I got elected to be in the Tiger group, which was all the prospects they were looking at," he said. "So they gave me my jersey and put me with all the seniors, surprisingly. I wasn't expecting that."
Berry had run 4.45- and 4.44-second 40-yard dashes two weeks earlier at Florida, where uncle Jabbar Juluke is associate head coach on the Gators' new staff.
And he didn't expect to run even better than those already-impressive marks.
Berry then spent the drills portion of the camp working under renowned Louisiana coach and recruiter Frank Wilson III and former Tigers 1,000-yard rusher Nicholas Brossette.
"I was calm with it," he said. "I work for moments like that... I just got out there and worked my butt off and showed everybody why I'm supposed to be on that top level with them."
Two of the athletes whom Berry said he most looks up to are former New Orleans prep stars whom Wilson helped recruit to and coach at LSU in his first tenure with the program: Odell Beckham Jr. and Leonard Fournette.
"I take pride in New Orleans," Berry said. "You can ask anyone from New Orleans. They take pride in being from down here. I just love New Orleans. I would like to move and see the world, because I don't really go anywhere. But I love New Orleans and Louisiana."
Hall-of-Fame wide receiver Randy Moss was another of Berry's early favorites.
And since transitioning to running back, he's started watching more running backs such as five-time Pro Bowler Marshawn Lynch and Hall-of-Famer Barry Sanders.
"I think I heard of (Sanders)," he said. "I don't remember the exact first time, but I wanna say probably my dad. But I just started watching him more and more and started liking how he ran with the ball and how he played.
"He was really elusive and explosive with it. So I try to model myself over that, because I'm not the biggest back so I just try to make moves like he did and get into the open field like he did."
Berry has also started doing some of his research on which colleges could provide the best fits and opportunities.
But one of the benefits of his recruiting process kicking into such high gear so early is that he will have years to weigh options before having to make his decision.
"I have looked at what colleges I would like to go to and what college would benefit me in stuff that they do," he said. "But more or less, I'm just so shocked with all this, so I'm just taking it all in."
