By LARRY VAUGHT
Not sure what Frederick Douglas High School football coaches are doing but whatever it is, it is obviously something special.
Senior offensive lineman Walker Parks, a four-star recruit, has been a Clemson commit for quite some time.
Now Frederick Douglas junior 6-4, 280-pound offensive lineman Jager Burton, a three-star recruit, has a bevy of scholarship offers including Clemson, Ohio State, Kentucky, Purdue, Penn State, Oregon and West Virginia. He will be attending camp at Alabama June 22 — his final camp for the summer. He got his Clemson offer after attending camp there earlier this month but has made it known for months he has a big interest in Clemson.
If that is not enough, 5-10, 160-pound junior receiver Dekel Crowdus has offers from Kentucky, Cincinnati, Louisville, Penn State, Purdue, Tennessee, West Virginia and others. He also just landed an offer from Ohio State — and Burton was one of the first to congratulate him.
No wonder Frederick Douglas will prepare for this season by scrimmaging Louisville Trinity, annually one of Kentucky’s top three teams.
Burton understands the significance of high level programs nationally offering more and more Kentucky high school football players scholarships each year. He says Kentucky’s top players talk “pretty frequently about paving the way for kids coming up” to get even more attention from national recruiters.
“The more they (coaches) see us and see others will just expand Kentucky football’s prestige,” Burton said. “I think Kentucky could be one of the biggest football states out there.”
Burton believes Frederick Douglas is “going” to win the Class 5-A state championship this season — and who is going to argue — after being dropped from 6-A to 5-A.
“We are kind of confused and upset over dropping down a class. We were No. 1 in the state most of last year and still got dropped (due to enrollment size),” Burton said. “I guess we just have to play whatever is given to us.”
Burton once played on a Little League team with Virginia Tech freshman offensive lineman Bryan Hudson, a Scott County graduate; Lexington Catholic quarterback Beau Allen, a UK commit; Parks; and junior college All-American cornerback Devin Neal, a former high school teammate.
“I think we lost like two games in five years,” Burton said. “We went everywhere for tournaments. We played games in Kentucky and Tennessee for the national championship. We won it once and got runner-up a couple of times. But it was great playing with so many great players like that.”
Sort of like what he’s going to be doing again this year at Frederick Douglas with teammates like Parks and Crowdus.
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