Four-Time Illinois State Champion Jake Miller Commits to Louisville

Jake Miller of University High and the Redbird Swim Club in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois has verbally committed to swim for the Louisville Cardinals.

Miller is coming off of a junior campaign where he went a perfect four-for-four at the Illinois High School State Championship meet as he led his team to a three-point victory.

Individually, that included a 1:48.08 in the 200 IM and a 4:28.36 in the 500 free; Miller also anchored the boys’ 200 and 400 free relays to titles.

Miller’s best yards events, most of which came at NCSA’s in March are:

• 200 IM – 1:47.47
• 400 IM – 3:50.36
• 500 free – 4:25.38
• 100 free – 45.03
• 200 free – 1:40.94

Where exactly he’ll project in college once he gets to Louisville is hard to tell. It’s clear that he’s a great swimmer, but it’s not really clear where his career might shake out. He’s a very good IM’er, but outside of the freestyles doesn’t have a stroke that he’s put up spectacular times in by itself. He seems to be a very good middle-distance guy, but he also has that 45.0 in the 100 yard free, plus a 24.3 in the long course 50 free when he was 15, to fall back on.

Given how well Louisville did with developing three-time NCAA Champion Joao de Lucca in the 100 and 200 freestyles, Miller could go down that same path. The Cardinals are a young team with some very good talent, but they need another guy to fill up big relay spots in the long-term, so Miller’s future could be 100/200/500 or 100/200/200 IM, either of which would work well with the NCAA schedule.

His rapid clip of improvement should be exciting for Louisville as well. As a junior, he dropped four seconds in his 200 IM and nine seconds in his 500 free. If he can replicate time drops even half as much as those during his senior year, he’ll enter Louisville with a chance at being a freshman qualifier, or freshman scorer, for the 2014 NCAA Championships.