STARKVILLE — Emmanuel Forbes Jr. isn’t a crier, at least not to Kendrick Conley.
Conley, Forbes’ cousin and cornerbacks coach at Grenada High School, only remembers two instances where Forbes got emotional. One was at Conley’s wedding and the other was on a football field in a game against Christian Brothers High School in Memphis.
“He got a concussion and we told him he couldn’t go back in,” Conley said laughing on a recent phone call. “And he cried.”
This week Forbes, a former Mississippi State cornerback, will see his football dreams come true when he is selected in the 2023 NFL Draft. Does Conley expect a third emotional moment from his younger cousin?
“No, he won’t,” Conley said. “I think it is just going to be like, let’s go to work. He is that type of person.”
Forbes is expected to be selected in either Thursday’s first round or Friday’s second round of the draft. If selected on Thursday, it would be the second consecutive draft MSU had a first-round selection (Charles Cross, ninth overall to Seattle).
That wouldn’t shock those who watched Forbes tie a college football record with six career pick-sixes, and watch him break onto the high school football scene as a dominant underclassmen.
“He got to play early,” Forbes’ high school head coach Ashley Kuhn said. “And once he got to play, there was no way to get him off the field.”
‘You knew this kid could play’
By the time Forbes arrived in high school, Grenada’s football program had a foundation of NFL players the incoming prospects could look at as role models.
Under Kuhn, now retired, the likes of Genard Avery (currently with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers), Tyre Phillips (New York Giants) and J.J. Russell (Tampa Bay), showed signs early that they could be future Sunday players.
Forbes did, too. But Kuhn said he was different.
“Emmanuel was probably one of the most talented kids I have ever coached,” Kuhn said. “He had elite ball skills and an ability — the ball just found him in key situations.”
Kuhn realized that from Forbes’ very first start during his sophomore years. Kuhn admitted he was concerned about starting a skinny, slight of build, lean, slender, “didn’t look the part” undersized underclassmen at the Class 6A level. Those concerns were wiped away in a matter of hours.
“He made so many tackles and plays (that game) it was very eye-opening for a 10th grader, in his first high-school game against a high-level opponent (in Christian Brothers) ,” Kuhn said. “You knew this kid could play.”
Forbes, who ended up as a four-star, and the No. 186th overall prospect in the 2020 recruiting class, finished his Grenada career with 141 tackles and 16 interceptions. In those three seasons, he was everything his team needed, just as he was for MSU.
“There were games where we needed a kick blocked, he blocked the kick,” Kuhn said. “We needed a punt return, he returned the punt. We needed an interception, he intercepted a pass. He just had this unbelievable ability to make plays and rise to the occasion.
‘He’s not (just) a cornerback’
When Forbes ended up committing, and signing, to MSU, Kuhn felt it was a perfect fit at the perfect time because he fit that “work ethic, take care of your business, play the game” kind of attitude.
In three years in Starkville, Forbes established himself as one of the best ball-hawking cornerbacks in college football history, finishing his career with 14 interceptions. Last season, his final in Starkville, he was named an AP Second-Team All-America.
Again, no surprise to those who saw his early potential.
“He’s not (just) a cornerback,” Conley said. “He is a route-jumper. He watches film, studies the game and is just the ultimate route-jumper.”
Conley recalled Forbes’ ability to diagnose plays in real-time as a sophomore – things Grenada’s upperclassmen weren’t doing. On Friday nights, Conley would give Forbes the assignment of shadowing the opponents’ best offensive weapon. Slot, wide, running back — it didn’t matter.
“He made it so much easier for us defensively,” Conley said. “We could put him somewhere and he would just shut down the whole field.”
It didn’t take long until the Southeastern Conference found that out, too.
The national criticism of Forbes heading into the draft has been about his size. He checked in at the NFL combine at 6-foot-1, 166 pounds. Not the build typically looked for in pro cornerbacks.
But that has never seemed to matter. Not in high school and not against some of college football’s top wide receivers in the SEC. Those who first noticed Forbes’ potential don’t think it will matter in the NFL, either.
“Small town in Mississippi, just another example that if you do the right things and work hard at it, you could make it,” Kuhn said. “I think he has a chance to have a really good career.”
Justin Frommer is the Mississippi State sports reporter for The Dispatch.
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