JACKSONVILLE - Oakleaf High first year football coach Chris Foy had just had a conversation about his offensive line has been training for explosiveness and power off the ball prior to their invite to the Jacksonville Jaguars Offensive line challenge on Tues., June 27 at Everbank Field, home to the NFL Jacksonville Jaguars.

“I always tell them it’s not how much weight you can lift, but how much you can move,” said Foy. “We want athletes; big, strong and fast up front, then the football will come.”

For Oakleaf High football squad that joined Fleming Island High and a handful of northeast Florida programs for the Nike 11-On 7 v 7 invitational, the battle was won with challenges like the disc pull, tug of war, weight carry sprints and a linemen read and react drill that featured garbage cans acting as defensive positions in one of the more unique ideas in recent history.

The Knights competing in the big man competition were Chase Johnson, Chris Jules, JJ Marsh-Mensie, Muykel Mayo and Quory Ambrose; all near the 300-pounds plus range.

For Fleming Island, the heft came from Braden Cunningham, Joey “Shark” Couch, Khalil Matthews, state weightlift champion Kevin Reyes, Nate Van Hof

“This is a four day event that has, I believe, been the biggest for NFL cities and the biggest for my three years here in Jacksonville,” said Adriel Rocha, vice president of community impact for Jacksonville Jaguars.”Because we had 26 teams sign up, we had a 10-team field on Monday, a huge FHSAA 7 v 7 state championship event in The Villages over the weekend, a girls tournament (250 athletes) here on Saturday and we go to the Panhandle later this week.”

Rocha’s enthusiasm for the flag football event and it’s auxillary challenges is by way of keeping football on the front burner in anticipation of the upcoming fall season.

“All the kids come in and want to look their best and have great performances because there is a lot of media here and every bit of film will help in the recruitment process later for some of the athletes here,” said Rocha, noting Georgia high school powerhouse Lowndes County High won the Tuesday event. “Our content, the competition and also the gear we give out, let alone being able to play inside an NFL stadium is huge. The level of competition in general just in Florida has always been impressive.”

In the 7 v 7 lineups, Oakleaf opened up with St. Augustine and Baldwin while Fleming Island faced off against two-time Class 1A champion Hawthorne in the searing heat of the day.

Oakleaf, though tagged with a third pass interception, got good possession behind quarterback Brandon Wallace, Jr., with soccer player turned wide receiver Keinde May Parker a prime target while Fleming Island got a 21-6 win over Hawthorne behind some threading-the-needle passes from quarterback Cibastian Broughton to wideouts Calvin Johnson and newcomer Aiden Postemski, a former Middleburg High standout. Fleming Island finished against St. Augustine.

On the defense, Fleming Island got a nifty deflect and interception from Sebastian Cruz off a tip from Kaylib Singleton.

Oakleaf got some tips from freshman Denereo Jacobs against St. Augustine, who got downfield and scored on seam passes after a Final Four finish at the state championship event at The Villages.

Teams will relax for the the first week of July then gear up against for the August push and the start of the 2023 season.