Franklin Football Standout in Stellar Shape for Senior Season

As he completed his set on the incline bench press and dropped the weights he was lifting, Ian Thomas couldn’t help but smile.

Although he had spent last season establishing himself as one of the state’s top wide receivers, Thomas, now entering his senior season at Franklin High School, was a lanky and relatively raw physical specimen when he walked into Sweat Performance in Timonium.

He had hopes of one day being strong enough to pump out repetitions with 100-pound dumbbells in each hand on the incline bench press. That goal, however, seemed relatively lofty at the time, considering Thomas struggled with even the 45-pound dumbbells that first day of working out at Sweat.

Yet a little more than four months later, Thomas sits back on the incline bench press, confidently grasping 95-pound dumbbells in each hand and, relatively easily, throws up the weight six times before setting the dumbbells down and thinking for a moment about just how much progress he has made since that first day.

“The difference, where he is now from when he first came in, is ridiculous,” said Sweat Performance owner Kyle Jakobe, who has spent the past four months training Thomas as part of Sweat’s Elite Football Training group.

Since that first week of March, Thomas, who posted 50 catches for 953 yards and 15 touchdowns as a junior with the Indians last season, has consistently spent four days each week training with Jakobe. With them are several other top high school football players from around the area, all working on improving everything from strength to speed as well as agility.

The progress Thomas has made is immense, Jakobe said.

The 6-foot-1 Thomas has put on 15 pounds of muscle during the last four months, going from 180 pounds to a solid, defined and imposing 195. He has also noticed tremendous improvements in his strength, speed, hand-eye coordination, balance and agility.

Jakobe’s Elite Football Training group spend Mondays and Wednesdays each week focusing on upper body lifts and speed work, while spending each Tuesday and Thursday working on lower body lifts, agility and footwork. Jakobe, who also trains many college and professional athletes, including NFL players Ray Rice, Lardarious Webb, Ben Grubbs, Darrius Heyward-Bey and Mark Clayton, among others, incorporates many of the same exercises and drills with his high school athletes that he uses with his college and professional clients.

“I feel stronger and faster,” Thomas said. “Coach Kyle has done a great job working on my balance, my coordination, my deceleration, my acceleration, my agility, basically everything. Everything is just increasing and getting better.”

Now, Thomas is looking forward to seeing it carry over to the field, during a senior season that should attract even more attention from college scouts. Franklin coach Anthony Burgos estimates that Thomas has already received between 20-25 NCAA Division 1 FBS scholarship offers.

Thomas had originally planned to attend at least 2-3 camps/combines during the summer at different colleges, further showcasing his skills to college recruiters, but, instead, decided to spend the entire summer training in preparation for the season.

He had also originally hoped to verbally commit to a college prior to the start of the season, but now says he will do that after the season is over. He has, though, limited his college choices to a top seven: Boston College, Iowa, Maryland, Notre Dame, Rutgers, Stanford and Vanderbilt.

His main focus right now, however, is doing whatever he can to help Franklin offset the loss of last year’s senior class—a group that included 26 players, including several key players—and work its way back to the Class 3A playoffs.

“I’m ready,” Thomas said. “If the season started tomorrow, I’d be out there bright and early. I’m ready to go. All this work I’ve put in, all this sweat, all this hard work, I’m ready to put it on the field and get back to work.”

Burgos and Jakobe are both also eager to see Thomas’s hard work translate to the field.

“Kyle has done a fabulous job with Ian,” Burgos said. “He looks better than ever, and we’re going to be depending on him quite a bit. He’s a very explosive player, and we’re going to find different ways to get him the ball and let him do what he does best. We’re looking for him to have a big year.”

Jakobe added, “If Franklin is able to run its offense smoothly, Ian’s going to be unstoppable. There’s no one in high school football that’s going to be able to stop him. I’ve worked with some of the top defensive players in the state, and seen the level of guys that he’s going to be going up against, and he won’t be stopped. That’s just a flat out fact.”