2023 Post-season interview with Columbus Africentric Early College High School Head Coach Jamell Davis

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LICKING COUNTY FAN
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2023 Post-season interview with Columbus Africentric Early College High School Head Coach Jamell Davis

Post by LICKING COUNTY FAN »

Name
Jamell Davis

School
Columbus Africentric Early College K-12

Position
Head Coach

Can you give the readers a little background on your coaching career? Where have you coached, and what positions have you held at each stop?

2009-2013
OL coach Columbus Brookhaven

2014
OL Coach Columbus Beechcroft

2015 -2016
OL Coach Hocking College

2017-2019
OC Columbus East

2020
TE Coach Gahanna Lincoln

2021-Present
HC Columbus Africentric

Entering the 2022 season, what were some of the obstacles facing the Nubians?

We were a very young team in 2022. The year before was my first year, and we had a nice senior class. We won the most games in school history and finished second in the league. 3 of our seniors went on to play college ball and we had big shoes to fill. In 2022, we had a team with only 1 senior and 2 juniors, so we played a lot of freshmen and sophomores. We took our lumps and lost a bunch of close games, but it was a great learning experience. For us


After all the two-a-day practices were over, what were your goals for the team, and did they achieve those goals?


Where I am from, the goal is always to win the league. We were not able to achieve that but we got quality reps for our young team and that prepared us for the future. Only losing 1 letterman from the 2022 team we are now a veteran squad

After all, two-a-day practices were over. Which player or players stuck out? Explain.

We had a good number of freshmen and sophomores playing, and their physicality surprised us. We lost some games but none of them where we were physically dominated. Honestly, in more games than not, we were the ones imposing our will, but being young and making mental mistakes were more of the problem.

We had a good amount of standouts, and most of them returned, but some of our top guys were Chase Johnson (2025) at OLB, Talil Spikes (2025) at DL, Mekhi Johnson (2024) at all-state LB, and Caleb Anthony (2026) at all-state DB.

During the 2022 season, who was the best team that Africentric faced? What made them so good?

The most talented team we played was Columbus East. I knew a lot of the seniors; I had coached them when they were freshmen, and we had won six games with them. Coach Bell came in and did a great job, and by the time they were seniors, they were locked in and had won 10 games.

Another team we played that was tough is Columbus Independence. Coach Douglass is one of the best coaches in the area. He gets the most out of his guys year in and year out, no matter who is on the roster. They will run the ball right at you for 4 quarters and test your will.


Who was the best player Africentric squared off against last season, and which team did he play for?


Taizaun Burns from the East had his coming-out party on us. Great kid with big-play potential

What was the toughest part of the 2022 season?

The toughest part was keeping the young guys spirits up after so many tough Ls. We lost 3 games where we were within a score of winning with under 3 minutes left with basically a JV team. So the talent was there even though we were young, but it was a challenge getting over that mental hump.


What was the best part of the 2022 season?

The best part of the season was seeing our young guys perform at a high level physically. We have some big-name young guys that got postseason accolades, but the whole group was great. Having a 20+ freshman class in the city league is a huge deal. Especially for us, a D5 team. If we keep them together and locked in, we can make history.

What will you miss most about the seniors from the 2023 season?

We only had one senior on the roster. Deangelo Fuller. He is going on to play D2 ball at Alderson Broaddus. We will miss his big play ability but luckily we had some freshman backs share carries with him so there should be little to no drop-off at the RB spot.

Do you think online ticket sales have hurt or helped attendance?

I don't think it hurt us. In 2021 we had a sold-out game vs south. I hadn't seen a sold-out HS football game in a while that's not a normal thing they sell out.

What are your feelings about 16 teams from each region making the playoffs?

I was more of a fan of 12, but 16 is not bad. If you are the best, you will advance. It is a little weird, though, in Division 1, where there are only 18 teams in a region but 16 make it in. But overall it's not much of a difference to me. I've played in and coached in a lot of playoff games, and it always felt the same to me.


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Re: 2023 Post-season interview with Columbus Africentric Early College High School Head Coach Jamell Davis

Post by VetteMan »

I'm not really sure, but Coach Davis may very well have to change the culture at Columbus Africentric. If you are a Division-5 school in football, and you only have one Senior on the roster this past season, there may be numerous reasons why, ( Numbers ) and very few of the reasons are good. They never have any problems with kids wanting to play basketball, boys or girls. Being that it's only his second season their as Head Coach, I'm sure that he knows better than anyone else as to what needs to be done. Good interview.


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