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Nov. 19—It’s not unusual for Cordell Jones to get a text message from Sean Green, his football coach at Portland High. The message he got last offseason though, made Jones even more excited about the upcoming season, and this is a kid who was already excited about the upcoming season.
We have a new assistant coach, Green told Jones. His name is Saquan Hampton, and he played safety in the NFL. Your position.
It’s been everything Jones, a junior, hoped it could be.
“As a free safety, you can learn a lot from that guy. I mean, he played it in the NFL. He played it in college, he played it at a really high level. He’s just a great mentor,” Jones said before Monday’s practice. “Every last little detail, everything matters. He’s been tremendously hard on me. He’s been a great coach. He’s all I could ask for. If he wasn’t hard on me, he wouldn’t be coaching me.”
Hampton played with the New Orleans Saints and New York Jets before joining the Edmonton Elks in the Canadian Football League. If he were the only coach on Green’s staff who played at a high level, it would be an incredible get for the Bulldogs. But there’s also Chris Ferguson, a three-year starting quarterback at the University of Maine who was under center when the Black Bears made their heralded run to the Football Championship Subdivision semifinals in 2018.
The Bulldogs are a talented team coached up by guys who have been on the field for a lot of big-time football. It’s no wonder Portland is back in the Class A championship game, where it will face Thornton Academy at 11 a.m. Saturday at Fitzpatrick Stadium. It is a rematch of last season’s title game.
Maine is many wonderful things. A hotbed of NFL and Division I football alumni is not one of them. The Bulldogs know what they are experiencing is rare. Green knows it, too, and when he explains to his team that…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/travis-lazarczyk-portland-high-football-235600471.html
Author : Portland Press Herald, Maine
Publish date : 2024-11-19 23:56:00
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