FRANKLIN — You’d be hard pressed to find a college football program not recruiting Maddox Porter.
The Battle Ground Academy sophomore is widely regarded as the Class of 2029’s No. 1 WR recruit, and he’s building quite the highlight reel this season.
In Week 2 it was a leaping one-handed catch in the end zone over a Columbia Academy defensive back which made the rounds on social media.
This week, take your pick.
Porter caught six passes for 109 yards and three touchdowns as the Wildcats (3-0) dismantled Pearl-Cohn 49-6 in Week 3 of the TSSAA football season. BGA QB Bo Bryan completed 19-of-29 passes for 298 yards and five touchdowns, while Fletcher Fields added two more TDs on the ground.
Pearl-Cohn fell to 1-2 on the season.
Curry, Maddox Porter are no package deal. But Tennessee football is trying
“I saw him as an eighth grader at a camp here on campus,” BGA coach Bobby Bentley said of Porter. “I knew he was an All-American the second time he ran a route … he’s special.”
Porter has 17 catches for 299 yards and five touchdowns through three games, following up a freshman season which saw him become the first WR to be named MaxPreps National Freshman of the Year. Last season he recorded 78 receptions for 1,547 yards and 27 TDs in the Wildcats 13-1 season, which included a TSSAA Division II-AA state championship.
His immediate impact came as no surprise to Porter’s parents, Ryan and Chandra, who remember Maddox at just 5 years old pouring over NFL highlights, rather than Sunday cartoons. With his success has come interest from countless college programs, including the likes of Ohio State, Oregon, Georgia, Tennessee and over two dozen more.
But Porter is eyeing a future beyond college football, and he’s already began picking the brains of numerous NFL stars to help him along that path. Porter has trained alongside the Tennessee Titans’ Jeffrey Simmons and Tyjae Spears, and this past summer was the youngest participant in Justin Jefferson’s JJets Flight School, a camp for top high school receivers.
“Just getting information from the GOAT and working with the four and five-star receivers, I feel like I definitely got better from it,” Porter said.
Porter may spend time fraternizing with NFL Pro Bowlers in the offseason, but back at BGA, little has changed. The countless eyes now laser focused on him on Friday nights haven’t shifted his hard-working demeanor, which has made him a favorite among his teammates.
“The thing we’re most proud about is, he’s a regular kid,” Ryan Porter said. “If you go to the school, we hear teachers say all the time, ‘You wouldn’t know Maddox is the No. 1 (WR) in the country, if you didn’t know.’ Because he interacts with everybody, everybody likes him. He’s just the same.”
Harrison Campbell covers high school sports for The Daily Herald and The Tennessean. Email him at hcampbell@usatodayco.com and follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @hccamp.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How BGA WR Maddox Porter is adding to highlight reel in sophomore season
