Top recruit spurns Florida St to play for Jackson St.

The No. 1 high school football recruit in the country pulled a signing day shocker Wednesday, deciding to attend Jackson State and play for coach Deion Sanders after being verbally committed to Florida State for months.

Travis Hunter, a cornerback from Suwanee, Georgia, made the unprecedented announcement during a ceremony at Collins Hill High School. Hunter was the top prospect in the country in 247 Sports’ composite rankings.

Top 100 players rarely sign outside the traditional college football power programs that play in the strongest conferences such as the Southeastern Conference and Big Ten.

Jackson State competes at a level several rungs below those conferences
in the second tier of
NCAA Division I football, the Championship Subdivision. Schools like Jackson State rarely if ever sign three-star players. Hunter is one of several dozen five-star prospects in the 2022 recruiting class.

A longtime member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, Jackson State won its first SWAC title since 2007 last month.

‘We’re going to shock
the country,” Sanders
said Tuesday, the eve of the opening of the early signing period, on Barstool Sports’ “Unnecessary Roughness” podcast.