704 Junior Bowl Athlete Candidates

The Queen City Senior Bowl honors 80 of the top seniors in the Charlotte Metro Area. Prep Redzone North Carolina takes a look at a hypothetical "704 Junior Bowl" - players that had a strong junior season that would be considered for a selection if such a game existed in the Charlotte Metro Area. In Year 1 of this series, I went ahead and selected who would be on my Junior Bowl team. This year, I am going to give you a list of candidates for consideration, then we'll do a final release of the full team once all position candidates have been released. So, let's take a look at our athlete candidates for selection. For this athlete category, I selected players that I have seen make plays on both sides of the ball, live or on film.   **For full transparency, the 704 Junior Bowl will consider players from the following counties: Cleveland, Gaston, Mecklenburg, Iredell, Cabarrus, and Union counties.**    Keland has shown some electric ability in his past at the wide receiver spot and as a returner on special teams, but this season, Keland really turned it up on the defensive side of the ball. Keland has played a couple of different positions, but he really excelled this past season at the EDGE position. His standout performances were repeated dominant games against Ardrey Kell - one to win the conference championship, the second to win in the 1st round of the playoffs. Since the end of the season, Keland has received offers from Missouri and Nebraska, and he has started setting official visits with Wake Forest and Clemson, respectively.     Davion has changed schools for his senior year, going from West Charlotte to Hough. Davion has played some wide receiver in the past and has looked smooth doing so, but a lot of the recruiting attention and offers have been for his future over on the defensive side of the ball as a safety. Davion's speed and range as a defensive back are very impressive, and obviously, he exhibits the ball skills to be a full package player at the position. Since the end of the season, Davion has received offers from Oklahoma, Missouri, Miami, Auburn & West Virginia since the end of the season. A special talent who is a strong contender to make this 704 Junior Bowl team.     Kenyan has done a lot of work in his career on the defensive side of the ball, but last season Kenyan stepped up on offense at wide receiver and caught a game-winning touchdown pass against Central Cabarrus for the Trojans, so he's got some ATH abilities in him for sure. I always feel like Kenyan gets overshadowed by all of the talent in Charlotte, but he's a really special player. Last season on defense, he totaled 102 tackles, 4 interceptions, and 3 sacks - literally affecting every level of the defense for Olympic. From a recruiting perspective, Kenyan has offers from Charlotte, Coastal Carolina, and East Carolina - with the Charlotte offer coming in last month.     With offers from Old Dominion, Charlotte, Gardner-Webb, Liberty, Georgia Southern, Delaware, Miami (OH), East Carolina, and Troy, Nick certainly is on the radar of a number of college football programs. Nick made some contributions on offense last season with 8 total touchdowns and 360 total yards of offense, putting him in this ATH category. Defensively, Nick had a very productive year with 76 tackles, 3 interceptions, and 5 pass breakups from his safety position. I saw him live against Chambers this past season, where he showed excellent run fits from the safety position in particular. I talked with him after that game, and by all accounts, he is a great young man off the field. He's a strong contender for this 704 Junior Bowl team.   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/pepman704/status/1966701022958489814?s=20 </div></figure>     While Caleb's work this season was heavy on the defensive side of things, I have seen him look strong with the ball in his hands as a running back in the past, so much so that I thought he could have a future on offense if that's something he wanted to pursue. That being said, he's doing pretty well as a defensive back. This past season, Caleb had 97 tackles, 6 pass deflections, 5 tackles for loss, and an interception for the state champion Chargers. Caleb was named 1st team All-Conference and All-State, along with a number of well-deserved accolades. Given all that success, Caleb has been on fire on the recruiting trail recently, picking up offers from Kentucky, Virginia Tech, Charlotte, Tennessee, Ohio State, Florida, and Old Dominion since early January! Out of all the things to like about Caleb's game, it's how well he tackles in space that really impresses me the most.     Now, in the truest sense of the word, Amario is a big-time ATH prospect on both sides of the ball. Unlike most of these previous players, Amario did more production on offense overall. However, defensively, Amario had 46 tackles, 13 tackles for loss, and 4 sacks, so he's not a slouch defensively at all! Offensively, Amario racked up 1225 rushing yards, 222 receiving yards, with 19 total touchdowns on the season for a West Iredell team that took a jump into the playoffs. Amario averaged 8.6 yards per rush and 10.6 yards per catch, reflective of his explosive ability with the football in his hands. Amario has a lot of recruiting interest from schools, and offers are going to be coming sooner than later for sure.   <figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper"> https://twitter.com/pepman704/status/1931493800255357128?s=20 </div></figure>     Quincy had some really impressive games for the Huskies as a running back and cornerback this past season. Most notably, against North Gaston, Quincy rushed for over 100 yards, caught over 100 yards receiving, 4 total touchdowns, and then turned around and had 3 interceptions on defense! That game alone almost got him on this 704 Junior Bowl candidate list! For the season, Quincy was one of the top defensive backs in the area with 6 interceptions on the year. Offensively, Quincy finished with 486 rushing yards and 7 touchdowns, while having 400 receiving yards and 6 touchdowns in the air. Adding in his return yardage on special teams, Quincy nearly accounted for 1300 total yards of offense. On top of the 6 interceptions on defense, Quincy also had 52 tackles - this is some impressive production that merits 704 Junior Bowl consideration!

The Queen City Senior Bowl honors 80 of the top seniors in the Charlotte Metro Area. Prep Redzone North Carolina takes a look at a hypothetical "704 Junior Bowl" - players that had a strong junior season that would be considered for a selection if such a game existed in the Charlotte Metro Area. In Year 1 of this series, I went ahead and selected who would be on my Junior Bowl team. This year, I am going to give you a list of candidates for consideration, then we'll do a final release of the full team once all position candidates have been released. So, let's take a look at our athlete candidates for selection. For this athlete category, I selected players that I have seen make plays on both sides of the ball, live or on film.