Taking advantage of his opportunity: Baylor's Kobe Prentice playing to remember late brother

In the days leading up to Baylor’s game at SMU earlier this season, Kobe Prentice couldn’t help but notice all the red birds seemingly following him wherever he went.

“The way my mom instilled the Lord in us growing up, whenever you see a red bird, it means a loved one is thinking about you in heaven,” Prentice said.

His older brother, Tyler Olds, was watching.

When Prentice was a sophomore just beginning to break out on the football field at Calera High School, Olds was the victim of a fatal shooting at an apartment complex in Montevallo, Alabama. He was 19 years old.

Olds was the reason Prentice played football in the first place.

As a five-year-old, Prentice would watch his older brother play youth league football from beyond a fence at the local park. Eventually, Prentice would pick up a ball and mimic his brother, juking our imaginary defenses and sprinting past his friends.

“My brother used to always tell me that I was different and to go out there and show it,” Prentice said. “Some plays, he’d see me out there messing around and not giving him my all; he was the one who told me to lock in.

“He knew I was better than that, and that’s when the best will came out of me.”

Olds was an all-state linebacker as a sophomore at Montevallo High in 2016 and was a second-team all-state selection in a larger classification when he transferred to Calera for his senior year, the only year he and Prentice were teammates. He planned to play football at Miles College.

Prentice has a tattoo on his left arm that reads ‘LLTO 33’ and stands for ‘Long Live Tyler Olds’ and his brother’s high school jersey number to remind him of Olds every day.

Olds’ death flipped Prentice’s world on its head. He no longer had the constant encouragement or motivation from the person he trusted more than almost anyone.

But he also vividly understood that when he had an opportunity, he had better do everything he could to make the most of it.

So he kept working.

“We would have conversations with him and his parents that he had an opportunity to make a name for himself and represent his brother,” said Robert Albritton, the offensive coordinator during the four seasons Prentice was at Calera. “Once he dealt with that grief, there was a different level of commitment.”

The drive from Prentice’s house in Calera to Mike McCoy’s gym in Bessemer is about 45 minutes.

Prentice would get up at 4 a.m. five days a week, drive his mom to work, and get to McCoy’s gym by 4:30 for a high-intensity workout before driving back another 45 minutes for the school day.

“He never missed a day,” said McCoy, a former Alabama receiver who won a national championship with the Crimson Tide in 2009.

Prentice quickly rose from an undersized and under-the-radar speedster to a four-star prospect and one of the top 100 players in the country. He paid to go to an Alabama camp and eventually ended up outshining several recruits.

He not only started as a true freshman at Alabama, but also finished fifth on the team in receiving and caught a pair of touchdowns. He followed that with another 300-yard, two-touchdown season as a sophomore.

Since coming to Baylor, he’s been a touchdown machine. Through three games, the senior leads the Bears with four touchdown grabs, despite making just 10 catches so far this season.

“We needed someone who could be a very productive player, someone who could command a double team,” Baylor head coach Dave Aranda said. “We’ve been able to get that with him. Off the field, Kobe’s really doing great. It is probably the happiest and most engaged I’ve seen him. It’s funny how those things work together.”

Prentice had his best game for Baylor so far against the Mustangs, when he caught four passes for two touchdowns, including a 21-yard score with under a minute left to send the game to overtime.

After all, the red birds were watching.

“I didn’t use it as a testament to know that I might have a good game, but it brought me peace and a kind of joy throughout the week,” Prentice said. “It helped me take advantage of the opportunity.”

Blazing trails in Calera

Jason Hamlin had no idea what he was walking into when he took over as Calera head coach ahead of the 2022 season.

The Eagles had won just three games over the last two seasons, and everybody on the roster was hungry for some wins. Everybody around the school kept mentioning one kid who could absolutely fly: Kobe.

“He came in on a day we didn’t have workouts and introduced himself,” Hamlin said. “He told me, ‘Whatever it takes to win, that’s what I want to do.’”

And win the Eagles did.

Prentice finished his senior season with 1,086 yards and 18 touchdowns, and Calera won seven games and advanced to the playoffs for the first time in three seasons.

“If we wanted to, we probably could’ve dropped back and thrown go balls to him whenever we wanted to, and he would just outrun everybody,” Hamlin said. “He was the first one there and the last one to leave. He was all about going the extra mile.”

It didn’t always come that easily for Prentice.

When he first got to high school, he was immediately elevated to the varsity roster, where he spent time as a running back and a defensive back.

“I was kind of getting the ropes of it and just happy to be out there,” Prentice said.

As he started to have more success, he started to believe in himself more.

He officially broke out as a junior when he caught 41 passes for 711 yards and nine touchdowns.

“Early on, he was athletic and quick, but he didn’t have the confidence,” Albritton said. “His junior year, we would tell him to stick his foot in the ground and go, and it clicked for him early in that season.

“From that point on, it was like video games.”

Albritton said that a lot of the plays he called targeting Prentice were lifted from the Alabama playbook and the plays the Crimson Tide drew up for future first-round receivers DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle.

When Prentice went to Alabama, the entire city got behind him.

Calera sits nearly midway between Tuscaloosa and Auburn, but the entire community was decked out in special Prentice jerseys, whether they wanted to say ‘Roll Tide’ or ‘War Eagle.’

“You don’t get many kids like him that often with that ability and the type of character and person he is,” Albritton said.

Both Hamlin and Albritton single out one play above the rest from Prentice’s senior season.

Calera and nearby Pelham were in a back-and-forth game, and the Eagles were looking to respond after giving up a touchdown. Prentice caught short screen on one sideline and looked dead in the water, surrounded by defenders.

“He made two guys miss, broke a tackle and reversed all the way across the field and scored from about 45 yards away,” Albritton said. “We threw the ball to him on a terrible look and he made me look like a genius.”

The Saban way

The name of the play was ‘Panther.’

Facing 3rd-and-short from near midfield on the road against No. 20 Arkansas, Prentice lined up in the slot and relayed the play call from quarterback Bryce Young to his teammate Ja’Corey Brooks on the outside.

Prentice ran a slant and caught the pass with nothing but green grass in front of him and sprinted 47 yards for the first touchdown of his college career.

All of the most explosive, hard hitting, and game changing plays from the Alabama Crimson Tide’s 2022 road matchup with the Arkansas Razorbacks.

For someone who hadn’t missed an Alabama game since he was seven years old, it had to be a moment that made him feel like he’d arrived, right?

“Nah,” Prentice said. “Because that play is expected. If I hadn’t made that play, Isaiah Bond would have made that play. Or Jojo Earle would have made that play. That’s a play that you’re supposed to you’re supposed to make with the look that they gave.”

Just being good isn’t good enough for Nick Saban. That’s why, with nine national championships, he’s arguably the greatest college football coach of all time.

“We were brainwashed in a sense,” McCoy said. “Yeah, you had a great game. What’s next? We don’t really know how to celebrate. I can’t say whether it’s a good or bad thing, but it keeps that foot on the gas.”

Playing for the Crimson Tide was always the goal for Prentice.

He first committed to Mike Locksley, a former Alabama offensive coordinator, at Maryland. But he still paid to attend a football camp at Alabama to get in front of the Crimson Tide coaching staff.

One of the fastest sprinters in the state, he ran a blazing 40-yard dash. The coaches put him with the high-level recruits, and he did it again.

The coaching staff wanted to make sure, so they called McCoy.

“They told me they think they’ve got a gem and told me to take him through a receiver session and see what I thought,” McCoy said. “I had him working out with another (DI recruit), and they were going tit-for-tat.

“I called the coach back and I told him, ‘If you don’t offer this kid, y’all crazy.’”

Over three seasons with the Crimson Tide, Prentice had 780 yards and five touchdowns, including catching 49 passes for 651 yards and four scores over his first two seasons in Tuscaloosa.

He’s continued to have his never-satisfied attitude as he transitioned from Alabama to Baylor this offseason.

Of the things he learned from his time with Saban and the Crimson Tide, the importance of staying positive in the face of adversity and being mentally strong, no matter how much of a physical freak you may be, stands out.

But perhaps the most important lesson he learned was the one he picked up from watching his brother play all those years ago.

“It really comes down to just taking advantage of your opportunity,” Prentice said. “I’m focused on being grateful for every pass I get, whether it’s 10 or two. I’m just going to try to take advantage and give it my all in those opportunities.”