FAYETTEVILLE — With a senior defensive end like Arkansas 2020 pledge Jashaud Stewart and an up-and-coming junior quarterback like Cross Jumper, Jonesboro football coach Randy Coleman feels good about the leadership on his football team.
Stewart (6-2, 216), Jumper (6-2, 200) and the rest of the Golden Hurricane will open their season Friday night when they host Little Rock Catholic.
Stewart is coming off a junior season in which he finished with 89 tackles, including six sacks among a whopping 24 stops for lost yardage.
“Based on what he did last year, the expectations are very, very high,” Coleman said. “There is not very often that you get a defensive lineman that can change the way the game is played like he does.
“Without a doubt, teams know where he lines up every down, but he is just explosive and he still makes plays. He can beat you with speed, he can beat you with power and the great thing is that, maybe the greatest thing other than being a great football player, is that he only knows how to play one way and that’s all out.”
Coleman has needed to dial Stewart back a notch during practices.
“He’s had a good summer, he’s had a great fall camp,” Coleman said. “We just can’t wait to turn him loose because, I will be honest with you, we always take care of the quarterbacks, but we really have scaled it back with our own guys just because of the way he plays.”
That dialing back was necessary because of the way Stewart plays, according to Coleman.
“He plays with so much intensity and football violence,” Coleman said.
Stewart committed to Arkansas on March 9 over Oklahoma State, Kansas, Houston, SMU, Memphis and others.
“He is a great kid, has great folks and they raised him the right way,” Coleman said. “They are tough on him, are going to make him do right and because of that we don’t really have to worry about him.”
Jumper, who is also an outstanding baseball player, became Jonesboro’s starting quarterback as a sophomore and ended up passing for 2,413 yards and 28 touchdowns, rushing for 707 yards and seven more scores last season.
He wonders if Jumper’s baseball commitment to Tennessee has kept the football offers from rolling in similar to what happened with former Greenwood standout and former Arkansas quarterback Connor Noland, who has since decided to concentrate on baseball.
“I am shocked that he hasn’t gotten any football offers yet,” Coleman said, “but I don’t know if what I call the Connor Noland effect has anything to do with it or not because he is a football guy that could make that choice in baseball.”
Coleman is sure that Jumper could play quarterback with the college elite.
“He is a Power 5 quarterback in my mind,” Coleman said. “He is big and strong, 6-2, 200, he runs well and can make every throw. We don’t mind throwing from the far hash outside of the numbers because he can make that throw, which not a lot of high school quarterbacks can.
“It really took us to Week 4-5 with him as a sophomore last year to determine what all he can do before we really cut him loose. It is going to be fun with him knowing everything from the get-go this year.”
Jumper’s grandfather was a wide receiver for Arkansas State from 1964-67.
“His grandpa was Gerald Jumper and he is really Gerald Jumper IV,” Coleman said. “Before offenses got all pass-happy, his grandfather was Arkansas State’s leading receiver and is on the All-Centennial team out there at Arkansas State. He comes from good lineage.”
Jonesboro was dominant in its scrimmage with Forrest City last week.
“We scrimmaged Forrest City and the scoreboard said 55-14 and we played well like the score suggests,” Coleman said. “We did make our share of mistakes, but all of them were correctible and we got a chance to work on them this week. Hopefully we will see a little bit better football team Friday night.”
Coleman noted that his team is at a bit of a disadvantage against Catholic, which beat Jonesboro 34-17 in Week 3 of the 2017 season.
“We really don’t know because Catholic did not have a scrimmage game, so really all we have got to go off of is the knowledge of who is back and Hooten’s Football and MaxPreps rosters and things like that and watching some of last year’s film,” Coleman said.
“It is kind of a different feel than we have had in the past because we are really unsure what we are getting.”
Coleman, whose program returns seven starters on offense and six on defense, believes that his team can finish better than last year’s mark of 7-5.
“Each week, it is all about winning the turnover battle and about getting explosive plays and keeping the other team from getting explosive plays,” Coleman said. “If you can win those two categories, I don’t care what level of football you are at, you are going to win a large majority of the games.
“That is always the focus, and we also lost Garrett Childers, who is now at Ole Miss kicking and punting, so special teams is going to be big for us, just figuring that out quickly in these nonconference games.”
Coleman was sad to hear about the season-ending injury suffered by former Jonesboro and current Arkansas redshirt freshman offensive llneman Noah Gatlin.
"I hate it for him," Coleman said. "We were so ready to throw on our Razorback shirts and root him on during Saturday games. But I know he will come back better than ever and we are very proud of him."