KPGFootball was pleased to learn Jonah Adkins, Class of 2024, will enter camp with the Kentucky Future Stars when it convenes later this month. We have been really high on Belfry’s Adkins since his performance at our All-State Mountain Combine and have featured him several times before today.
He works really hard on his game and flat-out wants-it. It has been KPGFootball’s experience guys like that are hard to stop.
A year ago, this month, we published an article detailing what we thought was just an incredible performance at our All-State Mountain Combine. We wrote in that article…Jonah Adkins, at 5-7 and 150 pounds…ran both his 40 yard dashes under 6 seconds, 5.9 seconds and 5.8 seconds respectively. Both times are elite for someone primarily deployed defensively as a DE and secondarily as a TE on offense. Couple that with his running a pro-agility shuttle (5-10-5) of 4.81 seconds and this is a kid likely to scream around end next year before a…tackle is able to get out of his stance…Adkins is moving with a speed, quickness, and coordination of a much older athlete.
The Buccaneer coaches had to agree with KPGFootball about Adkins’ extraordinary athleticism and mobility as they elected to move him to linebacker defensively and deploy him at fullback on offense.
Jonah both tried out for and gained selection for Team Kentucky’s FBU Elite squad but, owing to other time constraints, couldn’t play. However, Adkins did play for the other Team Kentucky, in the East vs. West All-State game, representing Eastern Kentucky in the annual classic. Now when we said he played in that game we really mean he freaking played in that game!
The game was held at Frederick Douglass High School in Lexington, Kentucky. We had predicted before hand, with Adkins’ athleticism, quick-twitch burst, and spacial quickness, he would be a problem screaming around end for a middle school offensive tackle.
From the performance he turned in, one could change the adjectives from problem to monster problem. Jonah Adkins invaded the West Kentucky backfield, regardless of where the East deployed him, for 8 tackles, 3 QB sacks, and a defensive safety.
This past season, in addition to what he contributed on defense, Adkins averaged nearly 8 yards per carry and rushed for approximately 600 yards from his deployment in the backfield at fullback for the Belfry 7th grade Buccaneers. Adkins also led the Buccaneers in tackles.
If you are wondering just from where all this football playing ability is coming, particularly the leading the team in tackles penchant, it might well be genetic. Jonah’s first cousin is Belfry High School’s Brett Coleman.
Coleman, we know first-hand, is turning heads all over Kentucky as one of the commonwealth’s highest regarded Class of 2021 prospects. Coleman proved, this season, our previous evaluations of him were money and he was very deserving of being considered amongst the best players across Kentucky in his graduating class. Coleman, for the HS defense, exceeded 120 tackles, and threw in 4 QB sacks, playing safety for the Pirates in 2018.
We were able to hear from the Adkins family about Jonah’s inclusion on the active roster of the Kentucky Future Stars’ team. We were told Jonah had been working and training hard in case an opportunity, like this, were to become available.
We also heard he has every intention of taking full advantage of this chance. The Adkins family indicated to KPGFootball their pleasure in becoming enrolled in the #Brotherhood and promised Kentucky would be mighty glad Jonah was on the roster come June 15.
In our experience with this particular prospect, we would have to say that his rising to the occasion would comport with what we have seen from Jonah in the past. We have never known him to sleep on any opportunity. Go ask the East-Kentucky All-State staff or the one at Belfry Middle School, for that matter.
This is Coach HB Lyon, reporting for KPGFootball, and we’re JUST CALLING IT LIKE WE SEE IT!
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