Colorado commit Jake Wray emerged victorious with the Marietta Blue Devils this past Saturday, as they captured a Georgia Class 7A state championship, defeating Lowndes, 17-9. It was Marietta's first state championship since 1967.
The last time Marietta won a state championship in '67, the school was only one year removed from being desegregated, as from 1892-1966, Lemon Street High School had served the African American students of Marietta.
1967 saw Lemon Street High absorbed under the roof of Marietta High, which had been the whites only school prior to that year.
On the gridiron, Marietta had not advanced to the state semi-finals since 1994, but the Blue Devils in 2019 went 13-2 on the year and ending the postseason with a eight-game win streak.
At this point, Wray is three weeks and some change away from getting to Boulder (he arrives Jan. 9). Even a few days removed from winning a state title, the euphoria has yet to rub off.
“It’s the greatest feeling I’ve had in short time I've lived on this planet," he said. "The reality of nobody ever being able to take it away from this team and great staff, that we’re state champions, that has set in but the reality of being a state champion in my opinion has not set in. There’s been a lot of stuff I and this whole team has gone through to get to this moment. You know that you’ve won, but you don’t really understand that you’ve won. I just walk around in a daze right now not too sure how to really take it in.”
As Alvin Williams recently said (he's another early enrollee to CU and will be in Boulder in January, too), winning a state championship as a senior in high school is an accomplishment that in terms of knowing how to win — what it takes, how to do it, what it feels like — that will be good to have on the table given the high aspirations of this incoming class, Mel Tucker's first.
“Certain coaches will say ‘I know the plan or the blueprint’ because they’ve coached championship games," Wray said. "(As players), knowing what it feels like and what it is in that moment, and how to get there, that obviously translates. I’ve talked to a bunch of guys at Colorado and that is the mindset — it always was — so we're going in there with everyone having a chance to give everything they’ve got for the university and their brothers that they (play) next to."
"The mindset is instilled there (now)," he said. "...Being able to say that I’m one of four guys that won states that are committed to Colorado — it’s super cool, but regardless, I want to go in there and give everything I’ve got to the guy next to me. That’s what football is about. That’s the only way you can win a championship.”
Wray had said that he and Williams were FaceTime chatting with each other constantly through the playoffs and heading into the two players' title gameday preparations.
Colorado's Class of 2020 has a giant group chat where the recruits have gotten to know each other steadily, and according to Wray the messages and well-wishes to he and Williams were plentiful in terms of support from the rest of the class.
Now, with his college career literally on the horizon, Wray will relish in his high school successes while envisioning doing the same in college and at Colorado.
“It’s been an unreal experience in every way possible. Growing up as a football player when still a kid, you dream of this very moment and the entire time you’re in high school — every high school football team’s goal is to win state...(now) we’re going to try to take the Pac-12."
Wray is expected to sing his NLI to Colorado tomorrow on the morning of Wednesday, Dec. 18.
