After his impressive Week 2 game against American Heritage in the Broward County Showcase, TJ Lester has quickly become a favorite among high school football fans across the state. Well, he followed up that great 135-yard performance with another great one against Alpharetta where Lester had 163 yards and 4 touchdowns on just 11 carries.
His utter dominance earned him a spot as a Week 3 Standout, and shortly after, he was voted Player of the Week. We caught up with Lester, who talked about the awesome start to his senior season.
“I feel our season is going great. We have been putting long and countless hours of hard work in since January from weight lifting to spring ball, and heavy conditioning in the summer. It feels great to see all our hard work paying off,” he said.
Lester has improved impressively over the last year, adding a more explosive first step and becoming a more complete athlete. Couple that with his great running instincts and low center of gravity, and you have a player who can gash defenses for big plays. His run style is so similar to former Grayson star Jamal Haynes, and you can see what Haynes is doing to ACC defenses with Georgia Tech.
Even though Lester is playing so great, he gives most of the credit to his coaches and the big guys up-front blocking.
“Thanks to my offensive line and my coaches believing in me my stats so far for the first 3 games of the season are 393 rushing yards and 7 Touchdowns,” he said.
After winning a state title in 2023, Milton returns most starters on top of a few transfers, making them a vaunted program to see on your schedule. For Lester, it’s business as usual, and the urge to bring home another state championship is paramount.
“One of my goals for this season is to make history at Milton by winning back-to-back state championships.”
Individually, Lester also explained what else he would like to achieve this season and more.
“Another goal is to reach that 1k+ rushing mark that I was not able to reach last year because of missed games due to injury.”
He continued, “I want to show people that I am a back who can get it done in all phases of the game by running the ball, receiving out the backfield, and blocking.”
With every high school guaranteed 10 games to play, and Milton almost certainly will contend for 14-15, then Lester will have ample opportunity to prove what he can do.
On the recruiting front, Lester says he is still firmly committed to EKU. Maybe that’s a political answer of sorts, as we have to imagine college coaches have taken notice to his great start to the year.
Over here at Recruit Georgia, we have continued to beat the TJ Lester drum for a while now, so be sure to follow @RecruitGeorgia on Twitter/X to hear the latest on the senior and everything else involving Georgia high school football.
