‘The total package’: Catawba Ridge QB is named nation’s top college football prospect
The town of Fort Mill is home to a football player who has risen above the rest.
Jadyn Davis, the Catawba Ridge High School starting quarterback who will begin his sophomore season on Friday, was announced as the nation’s top college prospect in the Class of 2024 by 247Sports. The media outlet and recruiting network posted its Top247 prospect ranking for the 2024 class Wednesday.
The 6-foot, 187-pound quarterback is a four-star recruit, according to the site, and earned the class’s highest initial player grade of 93. Davis threw for 839 yards and 11 touchdowns and ran for another 127 yards in his freshman season — a year that saw the Copperheads reach the Upper State title game.
This past year has included a lot of fanfare for Davis: The sophomore went on several high-profile recruiting visits this summer — at schools like Alabama and Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina. He currently has notched offers from Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, Ohio State, South Carolina, Clemson, Penn State and Oklahoma, among others.
The notoriety he’s gained has not appeared to change him, though.
“I mean, I’m a 15-year-old kid at the end of the day. I hang out with my teammates, and I know that I’m a young man first,” Davis told The Herald earlier this summer. “All that stuff happens, but I need to make sure I’m leading these guys to victory. Anything I do on the field, everything else will come. I put my teammates first before anything. I’ve turned down visits due to workouts. I’m just making sure I’m staying humble.
“I don’t really care what any outsiders think of me, just what these men in the locker room and my coaches think of me. Everything else will take care of itself.”
Davis changed the direction of the Catawba Ridge football program when he transferred out of Providence Day in Charlotte and into the Fort Mill School District in January 2020. The Copperheads were 2-8 in their inaugural year in 2019.
The quarterback currently lives in Fort Mill and will be on the field next on Friday at 7:30 p.m. when the Copperheads take on 5A crosstown rival Fort Mill at home.
Davis isn’t the only player from S.C. on 247Sports’ coveted prospect lists: Chapin quarterback Jayden Bradford is ranked No. 94 for the Class of 2024. Camden defensive lineman Xzavier McLeod is ranked No. 68 for the Class of 2023. And Mauldin’s Jeadyn Lukus (47) and Hilton Head’s Jaylen Sneed (99) are also featured in the recruiting service’s Top-100 for the Class of 2022.
‘A quarterback mind of a professional’
What makes Davis special, Tori Gurley told The Herald on Wednesday, is his mind.
The college football recruiting consultant and former Rock Hill High great and South Carolina Gamecock met the quarterbacking phenom last year, he said, and has helped him get the attention of some of the top coaching staffs in the country ever since.
“He has a quarterback mind of a professional,” Gurley said in a phone interview. “I’m not going to name a quarterback in particular, but his mindset is like a professional’s. His maturity is beyond his years.
“But that’s his superpower: He’s able to self-correct things, and he’s also able to anticipate certain throws or certain defenses that certain coordinators are going to run. That right there opens up the skills he’s already blessed with.”
Catawba Ridge head coach Zac Lendyak agrees with Gurley. The coach, who’s entering his third year at the school he helped open, laughed and shrugged during a Wednesday practice when a reporter asked him what makes Davis special: “Everything,” he said.
He added: “There’s the obvious natural talent — the arm strength, the fact that he can make any throw we want him to. He’s pushing 6-foot-2, so I mean he’s athletically there. He’s been voted a captain as a sophomore, so he has the leadership skills. I get email after email from teachers in the building about how great he is in class.
“So it sounds kinda ridiculous, but he’s just the total package. But at the same time, he’s still a sophomore, so we’re trying not to put too much of that on him and let him just enjoy the ride.”
“Enjoying the ride” is a concept Davis has appeared to take to heart. In an era when athletes are constantly reaching for greatest-of-all-time recognition and approval — or chasing the next goal, hoping it will fulfill them — the sophomore quarterback appears comfortable. Grounded.
He attributes a lot of that to his parents, Brandi and Jeremiah Davis, and particularly his father’s background as a military veteran. He also credits the fact that he’s the second-oldest of six Davis children: At home, no matter what football accolades he earns outside, Davis is still a 15-year-old brother who has to take out the trash and clean his room when his mother asks him to.
“It’s a blessing,” he said of his top ranking during Wednesday’s football practice. “I’ve been working hard, but this is when the work actually starts, just because there’s a way bigger target on my back now than there used to be.”
This story was originally published August 18, 2021 at 1:22 PM with the headline "‘The total package’: Catawba Ridge QB is named nation’s top college football prospect."
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