Nate Edwards/BYU Photo

Canutillo High School’s Scott Brooks has been coaching football for 34 years.

He says BYU freshman running back LJ Martin is the best football player he’s ever coached.

Note he didn’t say “best running back.”

Best. Football. Player.

Martin had a terrific debut for the Cougars in Saturday’s 14-0 shutout of Sam Houston, rushing 16 times for 91 yards in the second half and breathing life into a previously lifeless offense. His 21-yard run in the fourth quarter was the longest play of the game for BYU.

Jaren Wilkey/BYU Photo

“His first carry was a counter, a play he ran hundreds of times for us,” Brooks said. “He looked pretty comfortable out there.”

Martin is pretty much a legend in El Paso, Texas, rushing for 6,150 yards and 60 touchdowns in his career at Canutillo while averaging 9.6 yards per carry. Originally, Martin committed to Stanford, a testament to his commitment to excellence off the field. When that school changed coaches, Martin found his way to BYU through running backs coach Harvey Unga and offensive analyst Tyson McDaniel.

“Coach Unga and LJ hit it off very quickly,” Brooks said. “He asked me, ‘How do we approach LJ?’ And I told him LJ is one of those guys who’s a straight shooter. LJ came back from his official visit to BYU and said, ‘Coach, I loved it up there.'”

From the beginning

Martin is named after his father, John, who played college basketball for Division II Western New Mexico, so “LJ” stands for “Little John.”

Brooks became aware of LJ Martin when he was an eighth grader.

Jaren Wilkey/BYU Photo

“I saw him play, and when he was a freshman we put him on JV,” Brooks said. “In his second or third game on JV he scored six touchdowns and I called his dad to tell him we were thinking about moving LJ up to varsity. He was the first freshman we’ve ever had play varsity for us. His sophomore year (2020) got cut short because we had some very strict COVID restrictions.”

Even with an abbreviated season, Martin ran for 897 yards and nine touchdowns in just five games as a sophomore.

Martin totaled 2,737 yards and 29 touchdowns his junior season, an average of 210.5 yards per game. He also caught 15 passes for 376 yards and six scores, completed two passes for 31 yards and a touchdown and returned a kickoff to the house. Canutillo reached the 5A Division II regional semifinals.

As a senior, Martin rushed for 2,137 yards and 23 touchdowns (178.2 yards per game per game), threw one touchdown pass and caught passes for three more scores. Canutillo just missed out on the fourth round of the playoffs.

Martin was a three-star prospect recruited by Stanford, Texas Tech, Baylor, Kansas State, Kansas, Colorado State, New Mexico, UNLV, UTEP and UTSA, among others.

An expert’s view

Nate Edwards/BYU Photo

Felix F. Chavez has covered high school football for the El Paso Times for 14 years.

“El Paso has produced some pretty good running backs recently,” Chavez said. “Deion Hankins (Parkland High School) is starting at UTEP, and Aaron Dumas (Americas High School) was at New Mexico then transferred a couple of times. He’s now back at UTEP. LJ is just as good if not better that those guys. He played four years of varsity and going into his freshman year at BYU I think he’s ready to play physically, emotionally and mentally. He’s a very focused person and definitely one of the best to come out of El Paso, maybe with the potential of being the best.

“As a running back, LJ has maturity and patience. If you watch him run, he waits for things to develop. If he has a couple of tough series it doesn’t matter, he’s still patient and waits for that big moment or big moments. He always acted older than he was. When he was 14 it was like he was 18 or 19. He definitely left his mark around here.”

El Paso is situated in West Texas, far from the hub of that state’s high school football. That may be part of why Martin could have been underrecruited.

“College coaches just don’t always take the time to get to know the kids here or follow them,” Chavez said. “Our high schools aren’t playing against teams from the Metro Plex, San Antonio or Houston, so it’s sometimes hard for recruiters to get a gage of how good they are. I think it’s gotten better, but it’s still a struggle.”

Game by game

As a junior, Martin ran for 377 yards and five touchdowns on just 18 carries against Hanks and totaled another 300+ game against Jefferson (303 yards, 21 carries, three touchdowns).

As a senior, Martin ran for 200+ yards six times in 11 games against defenses stacked to stop him, including 201 yards on 21 carries and a touchdown in a 22-18 playoff loss to Wylie.

Brooks has plenty of stories about Martin from his days at Canutillo, a Class 5A school of just under 1,500 students.

“During LJ’s junior year, I had COVID and missed the second round playoff game so I was listening on the radio,” Brooks said. “He took over the game.”

Martin finished with 259 yards rushing and two touchdowns on 28 carries while also catching a scoring pass and throwing for another.

“Last year in a regular season game, he broke ten tackles on a 70-yard run. One game we were on the one-yard line and we ran LJ on a trap play just trying to get out of our own end zone. He turned that into a 99-yard run.”

As impressive as Martin was with his physical gifts, he was just as valuable as a teammate and a leader.

BYU coaches learned very quickly that Martin was the real deal.

“We knew we were going to play him,” offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick said. “I’ve been saying all along he’s one of the best players on our team. We had a plan to play him in the second quarter to see how he does and if he played well we were going to get him more touches in the second half. He made good on his opportunity. Once he got the hot hand we decided to keep giving him the ball and he did a great job. He had 5.7 yards per carry in a game that we were struggling to get yards. I thought he gave us a spark.”

Roderick was also impressed Martin’s approach in his first college game.

“Some of the guys went haywire and made some silly mistakes they haven’t been making in practice, LJ went into the game and did things the way we do in practice, the way we’re supposed to do them. That takes a lot of poise for a freshman to do that in his first game.

“He has great instincts, he runs behind his pads, he has a good forward lean and he’s a physical runner,” Roderick said. “He breaks tackles and he just sees the game. He has great vision. Some guys can see it and feel it.”

Martin has just played one game for BYU, but his teammates are counting on him to continue to grow and become a key component of the offense.”

“He’s the man,” Cougar linebacker Ben Bywater said. “He has made an impact since the very first scrimmage he was in at BYU. He’s going to be special. I’m really excited to see what he does in the future.”

Newsletter