Much of that success was thanks to a defense that didn’t allow more than 10 points until its seventh game of the year and averaged just 10.75 points allowed per game.<\/p>\n
A portion of that success was thanks to a pair of star Raptor defenders in the class of 2027. Cornerback Ace Alston is rated a top 100 player in the country and the No. 2 player in Ohio for the class of 2027. EDGE Antwoine Higgins is rated just behind him, a top 200 player and Ohio’s No. 4 player.<\/p>\n
The Enquirer spoke to both Alston and Higgins to help readers get to know a pair of Cincinnati’s rising star football players:<\/p>\n
Confidence, physicality headline future restaurateur Ace Alston’s game<\/p>\n
In fall 2023, then-freshman Alston showed up to Anderson’s preseason camp weighing 145 pounds. Still, even at that weight, he could make a tackle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more mental than anything else,\u201d Alston said. \u201cYou have to want to go make that tackle every single time. If you let them bring it to you, you\u2019re not going to make the tackle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alston hasn\u2019t faced too many major challenges through his high school career, but his lack of weight as a freshman was one of them. It isn\u2019t easy for a skinny kid to gain weight, especially one who\u2019s burning calories like a train engine playing high-level sports every day. It\u2019s taken a lot of discipline, meal-prepping and protein shakes, but Alston is up around 180 about two years later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That’s the first thing he mentions when talking about his game is his ability to make open-field tackles. That\u2019s a premium skill for a cornerback. Plenty who play in college and even the NFL struggle with it.<\/p>\n
Alston describes himself as an aggressive but disciplined corner. He likes to get hands on his opponent at the line of scrimmage, but he isn\u2019t afraid to bait a quarterback, and he\u2019s been working hard this offseason on being even more patient and trusting his smarts and athleticism.<\/p>\n
Dreyer said one of Alston\u2019s best traits is his football IQ. It\u2019s somewhat innate in him, according to Dreyer. He showed up as a freshman with better instincts and more field awareness than most. But over the past two years, through hard work, Alston has learned to think the game, from his assignment to his teammates\u2019 and how they all fit in real time.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Cincinnati high school sports video highlights, 2024-2025<\/p>\n
Media partner Fox19 Sports provided a sizzle reel of top high school sports moments for the 2024-2025 Enquirer High School Sports Awards.<\/p>\n
Fox19 Sports<\/p>\n
Alston showed that last season in the state championship game, when he intercepted a pass at the Anderson 3-yard line with 4:28 left to give the Raptors a chance at the end.<\/p>\n
According to Dreyer, Alston likes to say he\u2019s going to be the next Travis Hunter. He hasn’t yet caught a pass in his high school career, but he hopes to get a chance to do so in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I\u2019ve been bugging him a lot,\u201d Alston said. \u201cThe competitor I am, I want to help the team as much as I can. I think I could be a good fit on offense too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alston also believes that playing a bit of receiver could help him play corner at the next level, too. He mentioned Dallas Cowboys\u2019 star Trevon Diggs as one of his favorite defensive backs to emulate. Diggs started his college career at Alabama as a receiver, catching 31 passes with the Crimson Tide. Alston believes that\u2019s part of the reason Diggs is such a ballhawk, with 20 interceptions in 58 career games<\/p>\n
Alston also models his cornerback game after former Cincinnati Bearcat Coby Bryant, along with NFL stars Sauce Gardner and Patrick Surtain. He loves the way Bryant plays, aggressive and confident, unafraid of hitting a ball carrier regardless of his size. He sees himself playing a similar game to Gardner in that Gardner is so long and athletic that he\u2019s rarely caught out of position. He tries to match Surtain\u2019s fearless physicality.<\/p>\n
Dreyer mentioned Alston\u2019s unshakable confidence as another one of his biggest assets. That’s a mindset that most of the world’s best defensive backs share.\u201cI\u2019m trying to be the best player on the field,\u201d Alston said. \u201cYou have to go out there with the mindset that \u2018I\u2019m going to kill everything. I\u2019m going to lock down everything.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Alston, started playing football when he was 4 years old. He said he loved it from his first game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At age 4, he was playing with 6-year-olds. In one of his first games, he remembered playing running back and taking a long run up the sideline. He thought he was free, but a defender two years bigger and faster came out of nowhere and popped him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI popped right back up and said, ‘I want to do it again.\u2019\u201d Alston said.<\/p>\n
Alston is being heavily recruited, with 38 offers already from schools including LSU, Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oregon and Tennessee. In a college program, he\u2019s looking for the same things any young athlete would: A good environment for him to succeed, a strong brotherhood in the locker room, experienced coaches who can make him better. He is also looking for an education that can help him live a dream that doesn\u2019t involve football.<\/p>\n
\u201cI pray to God football lasts a very long time for me,\u201d Alston said. \u201cBut I know it\u2019s not forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alston said for a long time, he has dreamed of opening a steakhouse. He hopes to find a degree that can help him do that and a school that will help him make the connections he needs as well.<\/p>\n
Antwoine Higgins: Middle school All-American quarterback turned star linebacker<\/p>\n
“(Higgins) loves to say that he was a middle school All-American quarterback,” Dreyer said. \u201cAfter a few reps at quarterback, I just thought he was going to be a top-tier linebacker.”<\/p>\n
Higgins has given up the quarterback dream, and he’s doing just fine. One of the most fearsome players in Cincinnati, 247Sports rates him as the No. 22 edge rusher in the country for the class of 2027. He currently holds 31 offers from schools including Alabama, Michigan, Notre Dame, Oregon and Tennessee.<\/p>\n
In his recruiting, Higgins is looking for somewhere he can go and get on the field quickly without redshirting. He\u2019s also hoping for good relationships with coaches, a strong locker room culture and a meaningful degree in either business or sports management.<\/p>\n
Higgins, like Alston, has been on the football field since he was just 4 years old. He said he wasn\u2019t great at first, a \u201cbench player” for his first year or so of playing the sport.<\/p>\n
Around middle school, Higgins realized he had a chance to be an excellent football player. Back then, he was a decorated quarterback, the position he played at Anderson for all of about half a practice before Dreyer realized his potential on the other side of the ball.<\/p>\n
Higgins has always had to work on his speed. For a while, it was the main thing that held him back, as he was slower than top players at his position. Between resistance running, lower-body strength training, plyometric and even old-fashioned hill running, Higgins has greatly improved his speed and plans to continue.<\/p>\n
He often does two or three workouts a day. That doesn\u2019t even count the ones he puts himself through before he jumps in bed, which usually involve body-weight exercises like push-ups.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou definitely have to overwork yourself,\u201d Higgins said. \u201cYou have to push your body to new limits.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first thing Dreyer mentioned when talking about Higgins was his “big heart.” If you go to an Anderson-sponsored youth sports camp, chances are you’ll see Higgins somewhere on the field and the kids surrounding him having an absolute blast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anderson High School football was one score away from a season for the ages in 2024. Under head…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":37617,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[691,8015,8019,17192,30500,9858,2605,30497,2977,2488,1318,17353,2487,30498,425,728,1571,5382,1317,30502,1315,1316,50,1232,15746,1573,30499,450,1457,1451,11645,62,1458,645,2490,30496,30501,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-37616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-american","10":"tag-american-football","11":"tag-anderson","12":"tag-anderson-high-school-oh","13":"tag-association","14":"tag-athletic","15":"tag-diggs","16":"tag-division","17":"tag-enabled","18":"tag-football","19":"tag-high","20":"tag-highlights","21":"tag-ii","22":"tag-local","23":"tag-local-news","24":"tag-national","25":"tag-national-sports","26":"tag-ncaa","27":"tag-ncaa-division-ii","28":"tag-ncaa-football","29":"tag-ncaafootball","30":"tag-news","31":"tag-nfl","32":"tag-oh","33":"tag-ohio","34":"tag-ohio-high-school-athletic-association","35":"tag-overall","36":"tag-overall-positive","37":"tag-positive","38":"tag-school","39":"tag-sports","40":"tag-sports-news","41":"tag-story","42":"tag-story-highlights-ai-enabled","43":"tag-trevon","44":"tag-trevon-diggs","45":"tag-united-states","46":"tag-unitedstates","47":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}