Ladd McConkey has positioned himself to Have a Prolonged NFL Career
Ladd McConkey has positioned himself to Have a Prolonged NFL Career
Folks who follow high school football in Georgia knew Ladd McConkey had a special career in front of him since he was a senior playing quarterback for North Murray High School back in 2019. The (maybe) 6’0 jitterbug at quarterback for the Mountaineers also played defensive back, punted, and returned kicks for a team that went 11-2 and won two playoff games in Georgia’s Class AAA, before falling to a Jenkins (Savannah) team that had about 10 future FBS players on its team.
Nov 11, 2023; Athens, Georgia, USA; Georgia Bulldogs wide receiver Ladd McConkey (84) on the field against the Mississippi Rebels in the fourth quarter at Sanford Stadium. Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports But even with all the success and incredible output, McConkey failed to garner much attention from Power 5 schools. He was ranked as the 169th receiver in the country according to 247’s composite rankings, and just the 121st overall player in Georgia. He had one Power 5 offer, from Vanderbilt, and was considering walking on or accepting a scholarship to a G5 program. Then Georgia and Kirby Smart came along. Smart is an incredible program builder, an elite football mind, and a wonderful recruiter, but perhaps his most underrated attribute is talent evaluator. Sure, McConkey probably wasn’t going to play quarterback at Georgia, but any athlete that can terrorize defenses in Georgia high school football is at least going to get a look from Smart, and what he saw in the 175 lb McConkey was a playmaker.
Now, nearly five years later, Ladd McConkey is preparing for the NFL Draft and just got done dominating for a week down in Mobile at the Senior Bowl. He’s not just an athlete anymore, he’s an elite route runner with game-breaking speed that will fit in any NFL offense. He’ll get more chances to show off as the NFL Combine and Georgia’s Pro Day are still to come.
All an NFL scout has to do is turn on his tape and they’ll see a guy that wins reps and makes plays, but if that’s too much work, you could always just ask Kirby Smart how a 6-foot-nothin’ three-star beat out a bunch of four and five-stars for playing time the past few years. Either way, one team is going to get a heckuva football player come draft time in April.
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‘Very Sharp Guy!’: Ex-Georgia Coach Praises Seahawks’ Macdonald
There may be no prouder feeling for a coach than seeing their pupils become head coaches as well some day, and new Seattle Seahawks head man Mike Macdonald did just that for his mentor earlier this week. Macdonald, now the youngest coach in the NFL at just 36 years old, began his coaching career not too long ago, coaching at Cedar Shoals High School while attending the University of Georgia. It was there that he caught the eye of then-Georgia Bulldogs coach Mark Richt, who brought MacDonald on as an assistant coach from 2010 to 2013. Macdonald then continued to work his way up the coaching ladder, culminating in him earning the Seahawks’ head-coaching job. With his former pupil ascending to the highest rank a coach can hold, Richt looked back on his earliest days with Macdonald during an appearance on Seattle Sports’ Wyman and Bob.
“Very sharp guy, great communicator, hard worker,” Richt said. “Just a intelligent, eloquent guy that has a mental toughness and physical toughness when it comes to football. You could tell good things were gonna happen to Mike.”
Richt, who spent 15 years at Georgia before and tree with the Miami Hurricanes, also praised Macdonald for his work ethic, noting how he went above and beyond as a graduate assistant. “Mike was the kind of guy that you knew if you gave him an assignment, it was gonna get done, it’s gonna get done well and get done in a timely manner,” Richt said. “And then you could just see him relate to players, a guy that is genuine. A lot of coaches try to be somebody they’re not, and players kind of sniff that out pretty quick, especially, I would think, at the NFL level, it’s even more so. You’d better be genuine, you’d better be who you are so you don’t have to sit there and act like somebody else, which is exhausting to begin with. And Mike’s just a real genuine human being, a guy that can relate to all kinds of people, and he’s very, very good at what he does.” Macdonald has risen through the coaching ranks very quickly, as his first defensive coordinator job came just last year with the Baltimore Ravens. After his unit led the league in many important categories, he became one of the hottest coaching candidates on the market, and the Seahawks were the lucky team to land his services.
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