‘Anywhere he goes, he thrives’: McConkey started his rise to likely NFL Draft pick in youth leagues of Chatsworth

Published 8:00 am Wednesday, April 24, 2024

CHATSWORTH — North Murray High School graduate Chaisen Buckner knew his high school teammate Ladd McConkey was a special talent in football.

But, even seeing McConkey torch defenses up close for a few years, Buckner never imagined the heights McConkey would reach when they shared a field for the last time during the pair’s senior season in 2019.

Just under four years after McConkey and Buckner graduated from North Murray together in May 2020, McConkey is preparing for another big life step.

The former Mountaineer and University of Georgia wide receiver is projected to be picked in the opening rounds of this week’s NFL Draft.

“I never would have thought it just due to the nature of where we’re from and the lack of opportunities for big exposure,” Buckner, who played college football too as a linebacker at Navy, said. “I should have known better, because anywhere he goes, he thrives. His work ethic is just unmatched.”

After a college career that saw McConkey grow from unheralded recruit to scout team member to two-time national champion to NFL prospect, McConkey will likely learn his NFL destination later this week. The NFL Draft begins Thursday night at 8 p.m. with the first round televised on ESPN, while rounds two and three will be held Friday starting at 7 p.m. Rounds four through seven will be held Saturday starting at noon, but, according to the projections by most major media outlets, the Chatsworth native is likely to hear his name called either in Thursday’s first round or Friday’s second.

NBC Sports, NFL.com and CBS Sports all predict the small but shifty and speedy wide receiver to be picked in the late first round, while ESPN’s latest mock draft by NFL analyst Mel Kiper Jr. has McConkey as an early second round pick. Kiper rates McConkey as the ninth-best wide receiver in the draft class, a group loaded with stars like Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison Jr. and LSU’s Malik Nabers, who are projected to be picked in the top 10.

“I never thought he would be this highly-touted of a prospect, but it’s really neat to see,” Buckner said.

A team that selects McConkey earns the exclusive rights to sign the former North Murray Mountaineer to a rookie contract.

Preston Poag, the head coach at North Murray High, said that he thinks McConkey will be a good addition to whatever NFL team picks him up.

“There’s no doubt that he’ll have success,” Poag said. “Whoever gets him will love him, and the fanbase will love him. Whoever gets him will get a really good player, but a good person too.”

When McConkey is picked, he’ll have completed a rise through the football ranks that Poag and Buckner both say started on the youth football rec-league fields in Chatsworth.

Poag first coached McConkey as part of a youth league all-star team that also included Poag’s son, Preston Poag Jr., who is a year older than McConkey and was eventually the North Murray High quarterback who would throw McConkey passes.

“Man that guy was tiny, but he could just make it happen,” Poag remembers. “As he got older, it just went to another level.”

“When we were younger, I was never his teammate and I hated playing against him, because they would always blow the doors off of everybody,” Buckner said. “It was nice when we were finally teammates and blowing the doors off of everyone together.”

Buckner shared the basketball floor with McConkey too.

“One thing I always appreciated about him, especially during our days playing basketball together, was just his unselfishness,” Buckner said. “He was the best player on the floor most of the time, and he wasn’t shy to share the ball and make the right pass. His humility even while having obviously incredible talent always stuck out to me.”

As McConkey entered high school, he played all over the football field for the Mountaineers.

“He could do a little bit of everything,” Poag said. “You couldn’t cover him. You couldn’t kick to him. He could cover. He was just a guy that you couldn’t stop him. No matter what his size was, he was always an electric player.”

With Preston Poag Jr. graduating after the 2018 season and a hole left at the quarterback position, McConkey vacated his former and future position of wide receiver to line up behind center for the Mountaineers. McConkey led the offensive attack during his senior season in 2019 as the Mountaineers went 11-2 and won the only region title in program history. McConkey rushed for 924 yards and 10 touchdowns, passed for 1,771 yards and 20 touchdowns, took back a kickoff return and two punts for touchdowns and returned three interceptions for scores in his final high school season.

It was during McConkey’s final game in a Mountaineer uniform, a 41-14 loss at Jenkins County in the state quarterfinals, that Buckner saw a play that he said was emblematic of the type of dynamism McConkey showed regularly on the football field at North Murray.

“It was a busted play,” Buckner recalls. “It was supposed to be a pass, and he just kind of does his thing and squirts down the sideline for a touchdown. We couldn’t get much offense going against a really good team, but he made 11 guys look silly on that play. He did that pretty frequently in his four years of high school.”

As his play during his senior season began to turn the heads of the coaches of a few college programs, they all had the same question for Poag: How would McConkey fare at the next level with his size? McConkey was listed at 6-feet and 175 pounds coming out of North Murray in 2020.

“They were all worried about his size and wondered what would happen if a big SEC defensive back got in front of him,” Poag said. “I told them. They won’t touch him. People found out I was right on that one.”

Georgia became the first Power 5 program to offer McConkey a scholarship after head coach Kirby Smart visited Chatsworth and watched a North Murray basketball game in early 2020.

“I knew wherever he ended up, he’d make a big impact and be one of the best players on that team,” Buckner said. “I didn’t know it would have been at the University of Georgia, but I’m really glad it was. It’s been really nice to watch them win a few national titles with him contributing.”

After a season spent redshirting on the scout team in 2020, McConkey, despite any misgivings about his size, began to prove Poag and Buckner right.

McConkey broke into a regular role in 2021, playing in all 15 of Georgia’s games on the way to the national championship, finishing second on the Bulldogs with 447 receiving yards and five touchdowns. McConkey shined even brighter in the 2022 season, leading Georgia wide receivers in yards (762) and touchdowns (seven) in the Bulldogs’ second straight championship season.

Injuries limited McConkey to just nine games in 2023, but the production was still there when he took the field, and McConkey decided to enter this year’s NFL Draft.

Poag, like Buckner, didn’t exactly see “future NFL first-round pick” in McConkey back in high school, but said his success in college was never a shock.

“It was never a surprise,” Poag said. “I saw that all the time in high school.”

Now, with plenty of talented tape from his time at Georgia on display, Poag said questions about whether McConkey can succeed at his size have fallen off.

In the lead-up to the draft, a few teams reached out to Poag to talk about McConkey’s time in high school. One of those was an assistant general manager from the Los Angeles Rams.

“He didn’t mention anything about his size.”