Jack Stevens is smart.
If you know the North Augusta senior kicker personally, I’m probably not telling you anything you haven’t already discovered for yourself.
But for me, I had my first in-depth interaction with the young man a couple of weeks ago when we discussed his commitment to South Dakota State University — the same South Dakota State that will take on Montana for a chance to repeat as national champions in college football’s Division I landscape otherwise known as the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS).
Back in the day, they called it Division I-AA, just a shade below the “big boys” of college football who played Division I-A ball. I personally like to refer to FCS college football as the brand of college football that actually gets its playoff system right. But that’s another gripe for another column.
Again, I say, Mr. Stevens is a smart guy. And I don’t say that because of his grade point average or because of his football IQ — both of which are more than satisfactory.
I say it primarily because of a comment he made during our Q&A session for the Athlete Spotlight article that highlighted his pledge to SDSU.
I asked Stevens why this was the right time for him to make his college choice. He had offers from the likes of Troy, UNC-Charlotte and Limestone, among others that showed interest. He could’ve done as many college-bound prep prospects do nowadays and played to the social media crowd, creating a sense of intrigue as to where he’d go.
Instead, he decided to be no-nonsense with his college decision. With the Wednesday Dec. 20 early signing period looming, he committed to the Jackrabbits a whole month before any signing day drama was set to begin.
Here’s why.
“I decided to take the scholarship to SDSU now because I knew the D-1 transfer portal was opening up, and if me as a high school kid had an offer, I knew I’d better take it before the offer goes away,” Stevens said.
But then, this next comment really struck me and showed me the young man’s maturity and awareness.
“Once the portal opens, most schools will recruit the portal and forget about high school kids. So I knew that the time was right.”
Kudos to you, Jack Stevens. Not only are you one of the best kickers in the CSRA, but you’re also one of the most savvy college prospects in our area as well.
Thanks to early signing periods, a completely unsupervised Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) process that lacks much-needed guardrails and a transfer portal that has given big time college football a NFL free agency feel, there’s tons of smoke and mirrors out here that can easily confuse and distract coaches, parents and student-athletes alike — not to mention all of the bad information generated from these fairly new phenomenons.
It’s definitely not your dad’s or grandfather’s college football landscape anymore. Heck, this thing has changed so much that what it is now has become almost unrecognizable to the college football I fell in love with some 25, 30 years ago as a teenager rooting for my Nebraska Cornhuskers.
But here’s one thing that hasn’t changed — schools do not have unlimited roster spaces for athletes. No matter how much NIL money there is to throw at a blue chip (do we still even use that term anymore?) type prospect, and no matter how many stars they have affixed to their name, each program has a set amount of roster slots to fill. And when they’re gone, they’re gone.
Throw in the incessant 24-hour sports news cycle, complete with an inundation of so-called recruiting insider’s predictive “crystal balls,” and social media being a convenient and easy tool to make sure we get way more of this information than we need, and you have college football overstimulation.
That’s bad because it can trick many of these athletes into believing they’ve got way more options than they really do. And armed with such misinformation, if a kid isn’t really on his or her P’s and Q’s when it comes to their recruiting process, they can easily get left behind.
Stevens said, “not me,” and I applaud him for that.
It probably helps that he had a first-hand preview of what college football recruiting was like as he watched his brother Drew Stevens navigate the recruiting waters en route to becoming the Iowa Hawkeyes’ go-to kicker. And what a weapon the elder Stevens was.
The Iowa sophomore drilled 18 of his 26 field goal attempts and 19 of his 20 extra point tries. As a field goal kicker, he booted four tries of 40-plus yards, including a 53-yarder in a 26-16 win against Michigan State and a 52-yarder that was the difference in a 10-7 victory over Northwestern.
While Jack was having his own productive senior campaign at North Augusta, he was keeping a close eye on his brother’s success while also using his process to inform his own approach.
Jack said he wasn’t looking for prestige as much as fit. That’s why he wasn’t going to just sit back and wait around for the Alabamas and Georgias or even the Iowas of the world to come calling.
Not that he didn’t think he had that kind of talent. But Jack realized that a college scholarship to a perennial national championship contender is worth jumping on — whether it comes from a school in SEC country or not.
He underscored another thing that hasn’t changed in college football — the fact that a college scholarship is, indeed, a valuable prize. And if using football to further your education and extend your career is the goal, don’t allow visions of Power 5 grandeur to cheat you out of solid opportunities in other places.
On Monday, Jack Stevens had his official signing day ceremony at North Augusta. It was a celebration of his solid high school career as a Yellow Jacket, both on the field and in the classroom. It was a celebration — and reward — of his diligence and savvy on the recruiting trail. But it was also a celebration of his self awareness and his ability to properly read and interpret the tea leaves in college football’s ever-evolving, ever-shifting landscape.
It’s a celebration of him not allowing the noise to cause him to be left behind in his college football-playing dreams.
I hope other high school prospects across all sports — but especially big ticket sports like college football and basketball — are taking notes. It’s noisy out here in these college recruiting streets. And if you’re not careful, the noise can distract you into making some bad decisions that could keep you on the outside looking in come signing day.
In this era of collegiate athletics where change is all the rage, ironically, it’ll be the student-athlete’s ability to stay focused on the things about collegiate athletics that have remained, and likely will remain, the same that nets them the highest level of recruiting success and satisfaction.
Your window of opportunity isn’t as large as you’re being seduced to believe it is, and it definitely isn’t going to stay open very long anymore, either. College-bound athlete, be vigilant, be coachable and teachable. Don’t be naive. Instead, when it comes to your recruiting process, be smart.
Be like Jack.
Gabriel Stovall is the sports editor at The Augusta Press. He can be reached at gabriel@theaugustapress.com. Follow his sports coverage on X @GabrielCStovall & @AugPressSports.
