Long before he arrived at USC , a couple days shy of his 17th birthday, Ethan "Boobie" Feaster had always been in a hurry to grow up.
He was the baby of the Feaster family, seven years younger than his next youngest sibling. But nothing about his behavior, even as a kid, suggested as much. He was always quiet, calm, determined, seemingly from birth, according to his father, Lee. When Lee Feaster encouraged Boobie at age 8 to write down his goals, and "make 'em plain," Boobie took the advice literally. He went straight to his bathroom mirror and copied them down. They're still written on the bathroom mirror, to this day.
When he was 9, Boobie asked his father to buy him a football poster. Lee came in later to find it attached to the ceiling, above his bed. He asked Boobie why.
"I need it to be the first thing I see when I wake up," Lee recalled him saying, "and the last thing I see when I go to bed."
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This, needless to say, was not exactly normal behavior for a 9-year-old. But nothing about Boobie Feaster has ever been normal. Least of all the relentless drive that would one day have everyone at USC raving and others around the nation whispering about one of the most anticipated freshman in college football.
Neither is it normal exactly for USC's offensive-minded coach, Lincoln Riley, to enter into a season so unproven at the receiver position.. With the status of No. 1 receiver Tanook Hines still unclear less than a week out from the season opener, USC will almost certainly have to rely on a group of talented freshman receivers to hit the ground running.
That includes Boobie, who at just 17 years and three months, will be the youngest among them by a wide margin. In fact, he may be the youngest ever to suit up at USC. Feaster is the school's youngest player dating back to when USC started recording player birth dates.
But talk to those who know Boobie best, and they'll tell you that age, in his case, is merely a number.
"He's always been an old soul," said Kerry Sweeney, the receivers coach at DeSoto High in Texas.
Sweeney met Boobie when he was in the seventh grade. He'd heard about the kid's stellar football IQ, so he tried to stump him. He asked Feaster, then barely 12, to explain the difference between cover-2 and cover-3 defenses.
"He knew exactly what it was," Sweeney said.
What Sweeney didn't know was that when Lee Feaster, a football coach himself, was studying game film, Boobie was right there with him. He knew a lot more than coverage schemes.
Boobie had also been playing up one — or two even — age levels. In the seventh grade, he started working with a personal receivers coach, David Robinson of D-Rob Sports & Fitness Training. A year later, Robinson had Boobie, as an eighth grader, training with former NFL receivers, such as Dez Bryant , or college receivers on their way to the NFL.
"There was no polish or anything," Robinson said. "But he was just a natural. Natural speed, natural length, naturally tall."
But it was his mind that continued to mystify coaches most. Even at a young age, he made sure to concern himself with the minor nuances of the playbook and the receiver position. By the time he debuted as a freshman at DeSoto, coaches already trusted him to run choice routes, which gives the receiver multiple different options based on the defensive alignment.
By the state playoffs that season, Sweeney said that Boobie was already the best receiver on a team that would produce three Division 1 wideouts.
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"He was dominating," Sweeney said, "as a freaking freshman. "
It seemed clear to everyone around him, at that point, that Boobie could handle skipping a season of high school football. So after his sophomore season, Boobie reclassified from the Class of 2027, in which he was recognized as a top-five prospect in the nation, to 2026.
His relationship with USC receivers coach Dennis Simmons was solidified by that point. They'd been introduced when Boobie was in the seventh or eighth grade — and just beginning to blow up on social media. Simmons said he was impressed by Boobie's maturity.
"He recruited Boobie really hard," Robinson said. "That relationship is what really kind of jump-started USC as a front-runner."
USC never relinquished that spot. But Feaster had to wait until he enrolled at USC this summer while the other talented pass-catchers in his class got a head start.
That's not to say he wasn't trying to get ahead in other ways.
Lee Feaster said that before his son's arrival at USC, Boobie was obsessing for months over USC's playbook. He worked flashcards with Robinson and sometimes made his father line up in the street in front of their house just to commit certain plays and alignments to memory.
"Oh, he knew the playbook," Lee Feaster said. "He knew it before he got there."
He's opening eyes at USC practice. During a preseason scrimmage at the Coliseum last week, Boobie burst through a sliver in USC's defense and took a tunnel screen to the house, reminding in one play exactly why USC's coaches thought he was ready to contribute at 17.
"He was game-ready," wideout Terrell Anderson said, "as soon as he came in."
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How quickly he'll actually influence a game at USC remains to be seen. The Trojans are expected to play several freshmen against San José State on Saturday, and anyone who knows Boobie will tell you it's only a matter of time before he contributes. After all, after starting in the slot, Feaster took it upon himself to start learning the outside receiver spot.
When Boobie moved to L.A. in May, his father tagged along, just to make sure he got acclimated. His mother came shortly after that.
And they're reminded sometimes that Feaster is still just a teenager. That he's still got a lot of growing to do. His goals are still written on his bathroom mirror, to remind him of that every day.
But if the past is any indication, it shouldn't be long.
"I believe, like three games in, everyone is going to be saying, 'Who's this freshman?" Sweeney said. "Who's this Boobie Feaster?'"
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .
