CUMBERLAND — Following one of the greatest offensive seasons in scholastic area football history, Fort Hill back Jabril Daniels was awarded Co-Offensive Player of the Year along with Mountain Ridge’s Will Patterson by the area’s head coaches.
Daniels scored more touchdowns and points in one season than anybody in Fort Hill’s storied history, tied the city touchdown record and was one score short of the area mark.
More importantly, the junior helped Fort Hill to a second consecutive state championship with him in the backfield and third in a row overall.
Daniels will receive the award at the 75th Dick Sterne Memorial Dapper Dan Sports Banquet on Sunday, April 28, at 4 p.m. in the Ali Ghan Shrine Club Ballroom.
“He’s a great combination of thunder and lightning,” his head coach Zack Alkire said. “Once he figured out that North-South is better than East-West, and running through tackles is better than juking people, it was over.
“You might not break one at first, but after a while people are starting to not want to hit you. They’re coming in with their head down, eyes closed, not as hard as when you ran them over in the first quarter. He has a great feel for the game and a great nose for the end zone.”
Daniels picked up five votes for the award, the same number as Patterson.
The junior led the area in just about every rushing category. He carried the ball 190 times for 1,826 yards (9.6 yards per carry) and scored 34 total touchdowns and 208 points.
Daniels’ touchdown total bested that of Ty Johnson, who scored 33 times in 2014. His scoring total topped Steve Trimble’s previous school high mark.
That’s not bad company to be in, as both Fort Hill standouts went on to National Football League careers. Johnson is entering his sixth season in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills, New York Jets and Detroit Lions, and Trimble played three years with the Denver Broncos and another with the Chicago Bears in the 1980s.
His 34 touchdowns were one off the area record set by Travis Lynch of Frankfort in 1997.
It wasn’t a fast start for Daniels by his standards, but beginning in Week 4 at Briar Woods, the junior put the Fort Hill offense on his shoulders.
Daniels was a workhorse at the Northern Virginia school with more than twice the enrollment of Fort Hill, carrying the ball 27 times for 190 yards and two touchdowns.
He rushed for 214 yards and three TDs against Mountain Ridge, 177 yards and two scores against Wadsworth, 223 yards and five touchdowns versus New Oxford, and 146 yards and a Homecoming record five touchdowns against Allegany.
Daniels scarcely played second halves throughout the playoffs, a trend he continued into the state championship game — one of the all-time great individual performances in Maryland’s history.
He rushed for 304 yards and five touchdowns against Mountain Ridge in Annapolis, doing so almost entirely during the first half in a blowout win.
Daniels’ 292 yards before halftime were the most ever in Maryland state championship history for a single half.
“He even had one more called back,” Alkire said. “It would’ve been even more. It was a brilliant performance by him. … The line opened up holes, and on the rare occasion when they didn’t, he did things on his own.”
That line that Alkire referenced will go down as one of the greatest in Fort Hill’s 88-year history.
It was anchored by Brayden Sines and Carter Hess at the tackles, Cam Banks and Logan Vanmeter at guard, Riley Williams at center and Bryson Metz at tight end — all seniors — and it was instrumental in Daniels’ historic campaign.
Daniels was also patient with the experienced unit, waiting for running lanes to open up and using his blockers downfield, sometimes throwing them into linebackers and defensive backs at the second level.
His 74-yard touchdown run against Wadsworth exemplified that patience and intelligence, as Daniels juked and weaved his way through a half-dozen defenders on his way to the end zone.
“One of the great things about an all senior line up front was their communication with each other,” Alkire said. “There were many times that a blocking scheme called for one thing, but because of their experience, they talked among each other and hot routed our offensive line from time to time.
“Bril is smart enough to understand that it’s what they should do, trust them. It resulted in big games and lots of scores.”
Daniels came into the 2023 season as the lone returning back after rushing for 555 yards and 11 touchdowns on 72 carries as a sophomore, most of which was gained during Fort Hill’s playoff run.
One of Alkire’s keys for last season was Daniels’ durability, as he would be tasked with a heavy workload and expected to play a significant role both ways.
Daniels worked to put himself in the best shape of his life, and it showed, allowing him to set records and capture a share of the area Offensive Player of the Year honor.
“We lost three 1,000-yard rushers from the year before,” Alkire said. “You now have to take over this team. It’s yours. Both from an offensive and defensive perspective. You can’t be tapping yourself out for breaks every other drive.
“He put in the work over the offseason. You can see it this offseason too. His results in the weight room are at a higher level. Basketball is at higher level. He’s out running track, he did 12-16 short-distance sprints, and he won every one of them. He’s really pushing himself.”