BACKSTORY 2 - SOPHOMORE YEAR -- MY FAVORITE YEAR

In Part 2 of the BACKSTORY series, Ellison Jordan reflects on his sophomore year at Gilman School — the season where he transitioned from #71 to #42 and began emerging as one of the top defensive linemen in the region.

From ESPN matchups and national powerhouse opponents to rivalry losses, breakout performances, and earning his first major Division I offer from Michigan State, this episode captures the pressure, growth, and confidence that defined sophomore year.

This is the story of identity, evolution, and becoming the player people finally started noticing.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

What's up, everybody? It's your boy Ellison Jordan, the host of the Unhunter Athlete Podcast. Welcome back. This is episode two. No, excuse me. This is part two of my high school journey sophomore year. So before we were talking about my freshman year, now we're going to go into my sophomore year. So get ready for the ride on this one. So my sophomore year was probably my favorite year. Not because of the year, not because of anything else, just specifically how I was as a football player. Going in, but I'm that's for later down the line on why it was my favorite year. Going down or going into my sophomore year before my freshman year, I was a nose guard. So basically, I was a head up on the center. I wore number 71. I was a little smaller back then, wasn't as strong. I was still strong, but I wasn't as strong as I was my sophomore year, wasn't doing a lot of other things, was trying other things out. So I was strictly a nose guard. I was kind of like one-dimensional. That all changed my sophomore year. When I got into my sophomore year, I had my number changed because I was playing fullback. So, you know, your boy played a little fullback. I was like a pretty hard-nosed fullback. I was used to block a lot, never ran the ball for real for all. Well, later down the line I did, but that comes later. I did a lot of blocking, never really, never caught the ball, but just really was there as an H-back, basically. So I'll play like off the line of scrimmage. I'll be in the backfield in the I formation, et cetera. You know, they wanted to use me more my sophomore year. You know, they saw what I could do my freshman year, they saw I could move, I was strong, etc. You know, they saw what things I could, you know, accomplish. So going to my sophomore year, I was I had more responsibility now. I was still on the younger side, I was 16 years old going to my sophomore year, still had no offers, was still trying to make a name for myself. Well, I already made a name for myself, but I was trying to make an even more bigger name for myself to the other colleges and stuff. So sophomore year was my favorite just because of the responsibility I had on the field, things I did on the field, and just I felt like that was prime Ellison Jordan as a high school football player. That was just a great time, you know, being there and playing and stuff like that. And I was able to show my talents for sure. So going to my sophomore year, well, I'm gonna keep saying going to my sophomore year. In my sophomore year, a lot of expectations were on us because we lost a lot of seniors. So it was really just a new group of guys who came in as freshmen, and then the older guys that were juniors, now seniors, and then the guys who were sophomores who are now juniors, and now my class who were freshmen last year, now being sophomores. So everybody was just trying to, you know, everybody was just trying to fill in that gap in terms of what they had to do for the responsibility on the team. For me, I wasn't like one of the leaders. I want to say I was, I led by example mainly. I was never like a vocal leader, but I was somebody who led by action. So I I wasn't like the head captain or nothing like that, but I was, you know, I was one of the returners for sure. I was one of the more experienced guys because I played freshman. I played as a, you know, I started as a freshman of varsity last year. I knew what things I had to do, and you know, I knew what was going to lead up to that going to my sophomore year. So sophomore year comes around, we played good council. So we played good council all four years, by the way. So this was like a head-up, straight rivalry we had with them during that tenure. And the council was on our was the first game of our season was the first game of our season. And we played them at Townsend. So that's a neutral site, you know. It's not at our home field, but it's not at their home field either. It was more of a neutral site. It was in Townsend, so Towston's like close, like 15, 20 minutes from going, maybe even less. So that's basically our home field. We had like home field events because it was like in our area, but it wasn't at our, you know, it wasn't at our stadium. It wasn't at our field. So we played at Townsend. It was also on ESVN. And that game, that's when I started playing fullback. Did I play football that game? I don't think I played fullback that game, but I was playing a new position called the three-technic spot. Now, for my football guys who know the difference between a nose guard and a three-technique, you know, a nose guard is basically someone who head up, who's straight up, head up on the center. And then the three-technique is basically someone who is, you know, splitting the offensive guard in half. So I'm playing half a shoulder. If you can see on YouTube, I'm playing half a shoulder on the guard. So that's where I was playing at. And with that, you get a little more freedom. You have a little more leeway, you know, in your pass rust, you have a little more leeway, you know, you can wiggle more, not wiggle more, but you those guys, those are guys who are a little more elusive, a little more quick twitch guys. Not saying that I wasn't a quick quick twitch guy last year. I was, but just guys who were quicker, I guess. And at the time that last year, or my freshman year, there's somebody who was older than me at that spot. So then when he left, he was a senior. And when he left, I took over that position. So that allowed me to kind of, you know, get more active and more make more plays and stuff like that. Because my freshman year, I made plays, but then I would also eat up a lot of double teams. I would also, you know, not get the glory all the time. I had to like, you know, wait, open up plays for other people as well. But now playing three technique, I have more opportunity to make more plays with that. So it was a good time, you know, playing three technique. And I played that spot for the next three years from sophomore to my senior year. So sophomore, junior, senior year, I played three tech, I played the three-technique spot. Going back to the first game we had versus good counsel. That game was on ESPN, like I said, another ESPN game. And it was pretty tough at first because you know, that's a very talent, that's a very talented team. That was a team who was still highly ranked in the country and one of the best teams, or at or at the time, the best team in the state. They were one of the best teams in the state that year. And that was a team we had to go up against. So that game went down to the wire a little bit because, you know, they were, they had some guys that left. We were both in the same spot. You know, we had guys, we had a lot of seniors that left in my freshman year, or after my freshman year. After that year. So it was kind of like an even matchup. So, you know, that game went back and forth. You know, they scored first, I believe. Then we scored later. I'm trying to look at the box score, excuse me. You know, at first, I remember not thinking about it, they actually went up two touchdowns. Looking back at it now, they actually went up two touchdowns in the first quarter. And then it's like, you know, we were struggling a little bit. You know, this is kind of like Desavu when we were playing against Arthur Semuller my freshman year, and we just got blown out. But with this game, we actually turned the tables a little bit, and we actually won that game, and the score was 20 to 14. You know, they only scored, they only scored in the first quarter. They didn't score in the rest of the game. They only scored two touchdowns in the first quarter, and then they scored the rest of the game. So it was actually, I remember the play, it was actually, you know, last play of the game. They were trying to score, and one of our players actually made the game-winning tackle versus the council. And he was a pretty and he was a good player back in the day. So that was a pretty great game, man. We started off the season with a with a victory. We started off the season with a win, with a dub. So that was nothing but you know, blessings on top of blessings, you know, making an impact, making, you know, a statement, start the season that we are still Gilman and we're still here, you know, as a program. And I'm personally, individually, I didn't have no sacks that game, and I didn't really do much that game. I had like a couple tackles, like two or three tackles, maybe four, between two and four tackles. I can't remember. It was around that, it was around that, you know, that amount of tackles, but I didn't do that much that game. So, but I was glad we got the win. You know, I wasn't, I wanted to get a stack, and like I've always been like this too. Like, I've always like, I want to win as a team, but I want to do well as well. I want to compete to the highest level. I want to, you know, show that I can compete with guys who are bigger than me, etc. And during that game, I was competing. I was competing with guys who were going to who were committing to like other D1 schools and who were bigger than me. I remember competing against a couple guys that I actually played youth football with. Uh, there's like two or three guys that I played for youth football that I played with in youth football back at KLM who were playing at good council. So that was just like, you know, uh real estate, come to real estate moments like, wow, you know, we used to play with each other, now playing against each other in high school. So that was just a pretty great moment as well. But we took the dub, we won the dub. Not won the dub, but we, you know, we got the dub versus good council, and that was a great moment then. During that season, we thought we were gonna run the table. We thought everything was in our hands, we thought we had all the tools, despite losing a whole bunch of seniors. That year, we thought we had everything. But we we weren't bad. We wasn't, we were never a bad team during my four years. We were never a bad team, but my sophomore year, that was a down year. And it started in the following in the next game versus the Manate. Many, for you those of you who don't know, I don't know how about them now, but Mansey and either any really any school from Florida, any school from Florida, you know, you're you're a football player from Florida, you know, you're a baller for sure. But high but in terms of high school, Mansey was one of the best teams of the country during the time. They had a whole bunch of you know, D1 athletes, and they were just beasters, man. They were just quick. And they actually came up to Maryland to play us at the University of Maryland. So initially, you know, we knew what we were going getting in, we knew what we were getting into, we knew what we were going up against, but we felt like we had the tools and stuff to win. And, you know, we thought this would be a easy, not an easy one, but we thought we can get the win. Mind you, first game or first play, they were so fast, like they ran like a zone. And I actually remember getting the first tackle, the first play of the game, and actually had a really great game individually. That game for me personally was a pretty good game for me. I had like seven or eight tackles, half of those tackles for losses, and I had two sacks that game. And so that was against a high, highly ranked team, a highly ranked team in Manatee, you know, had a great offensive line, great quarterback, great running back. They were all they were great all across the board, and actually gained respect from those guys from Manatee because they saw what I can do myself from a year. But that's individually. But as a team, we got smoked, we got obliterated. We lost like 44th and 14, 44 to 14. And that was just that was a bad day. I remember the next like the next day of practice. We had to run, we, we, we ran. I remember running like till the wheels fall off, really, until our tongues turned, till our tongues fell off, man, because we just got our butts whooped. We got we just got our butts whooped. I don't want to say the other word, but we got our butts kicked really, really bad by Man Team. And Man team was just, you know, they were the better team that day. They were the better team that day, and they they got to us really bad. Like it would, it was a bad, it was a bad day, you know, as a team. But for me personally, I don't want to go off the rails and talk about me as much, even though this is a podcast about me, but just about I know we lost as a team, and that was unfortunate that we lost such a team, but individually, you know, it kind of showed that I can still play at a high level and not just play at a high level, but play against like other talented teams who have like a whole bunch of D1 prospects and D1 commits, and just this is a team, this is a team from Florida, and Florida is one of the best, Florida is one of the best state, best states for football ever in the country. They're just that's that's like the hotbed for football. You know, them, Texas, Georgia, California, you know, they're one of the Mount Rushmores are like high school football states of in the country. So to play against a team like Manatee and to have a game like I did, you know, was good. And that's where people started to notice for sure. I remember being on TV a little bit. It wasn't ESPN, but it was kind of like this some type of Fox Network type TV, and people were like, started knows who Ellison Jordan was, you know. So that was good. So the next game we played against was Panamas. Now, for those of you who don't know who Panamas or what Panamas is or who Panamas is, Panama Catholic is Panama's Catholic School is in New Jersey, and that team, during that time in 2013, 2013, they had a guy named Jabril Peppers. Most of you who follow football know who Jabril Peppers is, knows who Jabril Pepper is and knows that he's an elite football player. So during that time, we had to play him. So that was somebody. So we had to play Manatee. We just got smoked by Manatey. Now we had to play Peramus and Jabril Peppers. So I wasn't gonna say that we knew we were gonna lose, but we knew it was gonna be a it was gonna be a tough day. It was gonna be a rough day. I I don't think we're I I knew we wasn't gonna lose. I didn't I didn't say like, oh, we're gonna lose this game. And I don't feel like we had that, you know, I may I was thinking for myself. I didn't I didn't I didn't feel like we're gonna lose, but I knew it was gonna be a ball game for sure. And that turned out being a another embarrassing loss for us. They beat us like 28 to 0. So at their place. We went up to New Jersey and we got our butts whooped again. So basically, like that season, the start of the season, we started off good. We started out with a win versus the council, another great team, but then when we played against Manatee and Paramus, we just got obliterated. And it was just kind of like, you know, that was just at the time how our season was going. We were losing a whole bunch of games. We were not a whole bunch of games, but we lost some games that kind of set the tone for our season. That we wasn't, it wasn't gonna be like an elite season. It wasn't gonna be like last year for sure. It wasn't gonna be like last year. But it was gonna be, you know, a rough season for sure, and it was. So, and then individually, you know, they scouted me really well that game. I remember like talking to one of the uh officer linemen. His name was Billy Ray. Officer lineman named Billy Ray. And I remember him after the game. He went to Virginia Tech and stuff like that. He uh I remember him telling me that they scouted me and they game planned for me that game because they saw what I did last game versus the Mad Steam, so they just scouted and game plan for me that game. They did, they did a really good job. I didn't do that much that game, I had no sacks, only had like three tackles. But, you know, it was a learning experience. And I was, you know, I was 16, you know, sophomore still, and I was still learning the game still, and you know, they they got us that day, for sure. Paranus is a great organization, they were a great program, and that still is. I don't know, I don't know a lot about them now, but at that time with Jabril Peppers and those guys, they had a whole bunch of, you know, great players. And I remember actually tackling Jabril Peppers in the tack in the backfield for a loss, I think. I remember tackling Jabril Peppers in the backfield for a loss. So it was a pretty good, you know, it was a pretty, you know, a good experience to play against a team like that at their place and play in that atmosphere, you know, play versus the team, play a team like that. You know, we were still a good team, but you know, unfortunately that day we weren't. You know, they had us, they had us, they had our number that day. So that was pretty embarrassing. But nonetheless, we started winning a little bit. You know, we started, we played this team called Anacasia. That team did we play Anacasia? You played somebody. I think it was I don't think it was Anacasia, it was somebody else. But we started playing, excuse me, we started playing, you know, conference play. We started getting the conference play. We started playing the teams like Mount St. Joe's, Loyola. Mount St. Joe's we beat pretty bad, 42-6. I'm looking at the box score as I'm talking over, so I'm just like trying to make sure I get the you know scores right. We beat Loyola 47-0. Spaulding was a close game. We nearly lost that game. And that would have been bad because, you know, at the time, that's nothing. Like last episode, you know, they took away playoffs. So we wasn't going based off of like, oh, one of the best teams. If you're one of the top four teams, you play in the playoffs the next week, you know, based off regular season. You play regular season and you were done. Which had me so mad because I don't know why they took away playoffs. You because you're taking away the competitive side of what football is, you know, and then it's like redemption games, like, you know, regular season, you may do bad in the regular season, but they could have redeemed yourself in the playoffs. And they took that away from us. And I never got that. I never I need to ask like a coach or somebody, somebody I know back in the day, ask like ask them like, why they take away playoffs from us? That was just, I didn't get that. That was silly to me, but it is what it is. But, you know, we got in the conference play, we were playing some of those teams, and we nearly lost to Spaulding, but it was 29 to 21. They nearly beat us. And Spaulding, they were they're a good program for sure, but I didn't know what you call, I didn't know that they had it to the point where they can compete with us. And maybe it was just like it was just a down year for us. Maybe, and it was. And I'll show you why, and I'll tell you why it was a down year. You know, it's just that we lost a lot of seniors, you know, a lot of that we had some seniors that came, we had some guys who were juniors that turned into seniors that came back, but we were a young team for sure. We had a lot of youth on our side. We had a lot of youth. We had a few seniors that were going D1. We had like, how many that was it? How many seniors we had go D1? We had like maybe, we had like guys who went to college, but then guys who went like D1. We only had like three or four. Yeah, we only had like three or four seniors that year that went D1, that were going D1. And then it's like everybody was just young. So I was young, other guys were young. We had earlier like mainly just builder freshmen and sophomores mainly, mainly guys from my class and stuff like that. So we were a young team. But that had that was no excuse as well, because just because you're younger, that doesn't mean you can still play ball and still be talented and still be very experienced and stuff like that. And we had, you know, we had talent, you know, we just wasn't as I don't want to say it wasn't as together, but it just wasn't a good year. And, you know, we were young, we lost a lot of experience, and it showed. So when we played against Spaulding, like we're really we're we're going into like games like last year, my freshman year, we were beating, we were beating everybody in the MIAA. We were beating, you know, Spaulding and Calvary, McDonald, Loyola, like by a lot. And even this year, the games that we won, it was still felt like, it still felt like it was closer than it needed to be. You know, and Spaulding was one of those games that it was closer where it needed to be. So it's one of those games. Now, that was our special spaulding. When we played against Calvar Hall, we beat the breaks off him. We beat them like 37 to 9. And that game was a good game for me personally. I had like two sacks that game, or two and a half sacks, some TFLs and stuff like that. I was being active for sure. And, you know, that was a game like Calver Hall. Calvin Hall is a rival of ours, but McDonald was the main rival. But Calver Hall was like one of our biggest rivalries, rivalries during that, during that um conference in that conference. I mean, if it wasn't McDonald, it was Calvar Hall. So every time we beat, every time we beat Calvar Hall was always like a like a great win because. It's like we never really cared for those guys and stuff like that for sure during that time. You know, great ball, great competitiveness from both sides of the ball. But, you know, we always love to give Calvert Hall the business, and we always did. And I just wanted to say that. And then there's this new team called St. Francis. And I like to talk about this game. This is probably my favorite game. And this is probably why. That was probably the reason why it was my favorite year because of that game versus St. Francis. St. Francis was a new team that came to the MIAA. I mean, they were in the MIAA, but during that time, yeah, MIAA. A, B, and C. St. Francis, before who, before who, before they became who they are today, like they're just a national powerhouse. They wasn't like that back in the day. St. Francis was not that good back in the day. They weren't. They were like MIAA, they were MIWAC. And then once they moved to MIAA, they weren't, they weren't like in the top nothing. They were in the bottom. They're always in the bottom tier team. They were one of the worst teams in the MIAA. They were. That's that during that time. Now, one of the best teams ever in high school football, in my opinion. One of the best teams ever in high school football. But during that time, they had a lot of, I mean, they had a lot of stuff going on. But, you know, when we played against them at their at Patterson Park, you know, that game for me was just like a it was like a video game. It's like video game numbers. I had, you know, multiple sacks. I had like probably three sacks, a lot of tackles, and I really just took over the game versus St. Francis. You know, I remember like looking at the film, they just kept like doing this, they kept like doing these pulls. And for me, that's like easy money. Because if you're gonna pull the guard and not have and not slam the and not slam the center down or have the tackle cut me, you're leaving me wide open. So every time they they they kept pulling the guard, I was pulling the guard, or they kept pulling the guard, I was in the backfield making a tackle. So that was just like, you know, that was just easy money for me. So I had a that was like multiple times I kept pulling the guard, and I just kept making an attack in the backfield. And then it was like, in terms of as a team, they weren't, like I said, they weren't that good. So it was easy to kind of like man get manhandle them. And it was funny too because I actually got into a couple fights, not like fist fights, but we got like into scuffles with St. Francis because they were losing pretty bad. That was because I was giving them the business my sophomore year in 2013, and I remember just kind of like giving them so much work. They were trying to fight me, and I'll I I I'm competitive, so I was trying to go back at them, so I'm like having my teammates kind of calm me down and hold me back and stuff like that. And that was a good game, and I was like talking trash that game. I go, Hold it. I was talking real trash, like real big time trash. I don't even like talking trash, but at some point when I get competitive, you know, I'll do some I'll do some trash talking, you know. But it got to the point where I said, you know, because obviously St. Francis, they are they're in the heart of the city too. They're like deep in the heart of the city. They are next to a jail or a prison. No, they're next to a prison and all that. So St. Francis, you know, is one of the oldest schools in Baltimore, I believe. And I might be one of the oldest schools in the country. And that team, you know, have a lot they have a lot of resilience for sure. But during that time, they just didn't have the resources, so they weren't that good. But I remember, you know, when we were playing against St. Francis that day, and I remember just talking trash, saying, like, this is my city. And my teammates don't want to chill, like, you can't be saying that because you're in Baltimore, so you don't know what's gonna happen. So I got so hyped, I was like, this is my city, I run this city. You know, I was just like just hype that day. So, you know, that was a big, big game for me. And that's why, and I had a lot of games like that. I had that versus St. Francis, obviously. I had that versus Manatee, I had that versus Calver Hall, I had that versus Loyola a little bit. I had that Mount St. Joe's, and then there's a time we we scrimmaged Friends and Collegiate. Friends of Collegiate was another is another school that's a really great school. And my sophomore year, we played them, we didn't play them in a regular game, but we scrimmaged them. And that was a pretty good scrimmage for us because we won that game. We won that scrimmage by a lot. And you know, that scrimmage, I remember just flying around. I remember making a whole bunch of plays. I remember just using my pass rush moves to work on my pass rush moves and just being so offistic with my pass rush moves and stuff like that, and getting the backfield, making plays in the backfield and stuff. So, you know, I was like those, those games, like the Franciscalis scrimmage, the Mancy scrimmage, the St. Francis game, the Calvary Hall game, Loyola, where I had a pretty good game as well, Mount St. Joe's, like that year, that was becoming my favorite year because I felt like I was in my prime. I felt like, you know, I felt like that was the best version of Ellison Jordan my my high school year for sure. And that's how I felt like, and that's what I felt like until we played McDonough, and that's where our season ended up being pretty bad. So McDonough was we beat McDonough since this last year, like 40 to nothing, I believe. I had to go back and look, but it was like 40 to nothing. They held that, they held they held a grudge about that, and they gave us the business at their place, like pretty bad. So I remember, you know, going into the into the game, we thought we were gonna beat these guys like senseless. We were we were cocky. We thought we were gonna beat them senseless because we just beat St. Francis. I'm thinking I was gonna have a big game and stuff like that. I'm thinking it was gonna be a pretty good game, but it turned out to be a little bit of a nightmare. It was kind of like a like a real nightmare. Like this is actually happening. They were running around us, they were running through us. I remember, I ain't gonna hold you. I remember getting put in my butt, I remember getting pancaked because it was it was a kick out block. So I was coming up the field. They had me playing DN that game. So they had me playing DN that game. So, because they wanted to use my quickness and stuff like that to see what I can do. So there was a time where I was coming up the field and I didn't look inside, and one of the guards, his name was Wyatt Cook, great player, he came and knocked me on my butt for sure on a kick out on a kick out block. So that was pretty pretty embarrassing. I didn't like that. I didn't like that. I still have I still have a grudge about that, but Wyatt Cook is a great player, and he was a he's a cool guy. He's a cool guy too. But long story short, that game was so bad that they beat us senseless, that they McDonald beat us senseless 37-6, and that was just a bad game. And I remember like their fans, like the McDonald's school section, running onto the field and doing all that type of stuff, and what else? I remember them like just cheering and stuff like that, and then we're on the sidelines of sad, and I was kind of like, Dag. That's how it feels to lose a rivalry game. So this is like, you know, and we lost. That was the 98th McGilman McDonough game in 2013, and we lost big time. And that was pretty pretty big eye-opener because that was just that year was just wasn't our year. You know, we and it showed in both of the games. It showed in Paramus game, it sold in versus Man's team when we got smoked by Manisteen. It showed a little bit versus Spaulding because we nearly lost versus Spaulding again. It showed in whatchamacallit, versus McDonough. So it just wasn't our day, it just wasn't our day, and it wasn't our season. And we lost pretty bad. And, you know, you need some of those lessons to know, like some points in life, you gotta take some L's to get some wins. You gotta take some L's to get some W's. You know, that makes sense. You gotta you gotta learn some lessons. You gotta take some L's so you can get W's later on in life. And for me individually and for us as a team, that was a big L. That season was the big L. You know, we we finished the seasons, we we finished the season seven to four, but it felt like we finished like four and seven, like two and seven, or two and nine. Because we were just, we wasn't, we underachieved that year for sure. And for me personally, I feel like individually I had a decent season. I mean, obviously that game, I did not have a good game at all. That was not a good game for me. I only had like I had four tackles, I believe. Three or four tackles, but three or four tackles, but like you know, it just felt like I didn't make an impact at all. I didn't make no type of impact. I was not in the zone, my mind was not on the game. Uh it was just a bad day. It's a bad day. So however, individually, I started racking up some more accolades. I remember getting an M all first team MIAA. I remember making All Metro for Baltimore, first team all-metro for Baltimore. I remember making All-State, first team all-state. I was like one of the only sophomores on the All-State team, on the first team all-state team. Then I also got named Max Preps All-American again, second team for the second time in a row. So I'll be back-to-back, max preps all max all-American. Sorry, I remember making back-to-back max preps all-american twice. You know, back to back. So I started racking up awards. And at the time, schools started to notice. Colleges started to notice. I remember, you know, you know, I remember like back at Gilman, there are just there's this room where like college coaches were coming and visit the visit the school, visit the school where they would meet the uh kids and stuff like that, meet the students and stuff like that, who they were looking at. And I remember one day Michigan State was in there. And I don't remember, I don't remember seeing them or nothing like that, but because I had to do something, but I remember like it was yesterday, I was on Twitter, and one of my teammates was congratulating me for something. I was like, what are you talking about? And I didn't know what everybody was talking about. So then I got a call, or my dad got a call from one of my coaches. My dad came in the room, and then my I remember my dad was telling me that you know a school just offered you a scholarship. This is this is after my software, by the way. This is like in January. I remember I remember my dad was got off the phone with one of the coaches saying that one of the schools just offered you a scholarship, and that school was Michigan State. And I tell you, I remember we was in the dining room upstairs, upstairs in my room, upstairs in my house. We were in the dining room. I remember yelling and shouting so much. I remember running around the uh dining room just jumping for joy because I was so excited because Michigan State just offered me. And that that was a big offer at the time because Michigan State, they were one of the best teams in the country. I think they finished in the top three or top or they were number two that year. They beat Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship, and they beat Stanford in a Rose Bowl. And then after that, they just offered me. So I was just so ecstatic. I was excited, I was happy, I was blessed. I was like, wow, I finally got my beat my big D1 offer. Despite being an undersized lineman, you know, I still was racking up accolades, all-state, all-metro, all-American, and I made a big impact to the point where I got an offer from a big-time D1 school. Not just a small D1 school, like a Big Ten, like a Power Five from a Big Ten. The Big Ten was one of the best conferences, if not the best conferences at the time. So having Michigan State offer me and being my first offer after my sophomore year was just a big blessing. I was so ecstatic. And after the Michigan State offer, that's when more offers start to build up. So but that will be it for now. That's ball game. We'll talk about more about the all the offers I got next episode for part three. That will be junior year. I appreciate you guys for tuning in. I appreciate you guys for listening, and I hope you had a good time listening to my sophomore year, and hopefully junior year will be a lot better. So thank you. Have a blessed one.