Free Press sports writer Dave Birkett breaks down everything he knows about how the Detroit Lions fared in the 2020 NFL draft. Detroit Free Press
The move was unprecedented, and it hasn’t been made since.
Sure, freshmen have been promoted to the varsity team at South Grand Prairie, the suburban Dallas high school that sits along the I-20 corridor in one of high school football’s hot zones. But coach Brent Whitson had never called up a ninth-grader this early, before Zero Week, before his team had sniffed a game.
It was August 2013 and preseason practices had just begun in the scorching Texas heat.