SAN ANTONIO — Richard Torres is tapping into his potential on the football field and turning heads while he's at it.

The senior is the most highly touted quarterback in San Antonio this year. A born-and-raised Southsider who doesn't go to one of the city's traditional powerhouses, instead playing for the Southside Cardinals until a leg injury in Week 4 prematurely ended his season.

"I'm not from a Northside School, or maybe a school that I got recruited to," Torres said. "I'm representing where I'm from. I’ve always come to this district and have attended the schools and I loved it. I wouldn't really want to go anywhere else.”

Torres was focused on his basketball career until the COVID-19 pandemic shifted his thinking at the end of his sophomore year. Unable to play AAU basketball or work out inside local gyms, he dove more into the mental side of football. 

"I was never really educated [in football] going up. I was just good at throwing the ball," Torres said. "I used to think it was just find the open guy, hit him and then he's gonna go for however much he can.”

A breakout junior season, coupled with his prototypical size, 6-foot-6 and 210 pounds, he raised his profile on the recruiting circuit. 

“I just thought it was unique. It was different, you know, I never really been through anything like that," Torres said. "It was pretty cool just to get some attention. My parents were really shocked by it.”

Torres received eight Division I scholarship offers this spring. He committed to the University of Nebraska in June. 

"I feel like they're just waiting on like the next big thing," said Torres about the Huskers program. "I see myself filling that role in.”

"I have to hold myself to a higher standard and carry myself as a good human being," Torres said. “Everything I'm representing at Southside, I’m gonna take that all up there with me. I don't want to let them down."