Polk County quarterback Alex Akins gets ready for a play during practiceTuesday at East Hamilton High School.Derrick Davis occasionally asks Alex Akins’ opinion, even during a football game.
It’s an unusual compliment for a high school football quarterback.
“He’s one of the few I’ll ask what he thinks, because we do things the way the coaches want,” said Davis, the highly successful coach at Polk County. “If he comes trotting over with a suggestion, I’m going to listen. I could probably turn him loose and let him call his own plays.”
It is an especially unusual scenario for a first-year quarterback who succeeded one of the school’s most accomplished football players.
“Don’t ask me to compare them,” Davis said of Akins and Jared Allen, the Wildcats quarterback from late in 2007 through 2010. “It’s hard to compare the two because of other team members that played with Jared. There were certain things we did with Jared and certain things we do with Al.