Mary Persons' Malik Herring relishes Georgia Junior Bowl opportunity

Malik Herring has had a pretty interesting junior year of high school.

The defensive end from Mary Persons recently named his top eight schools that are recruiting him, and the list reads like a who's who of college football. In no specific order, Herring mentioned Tennessee, Clemson, Florida State, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, LSU and Mississippi as his final eight.

This week, Herring took part in the Chick-fil-A Georgia Junior Bowl, a game featuring the top junior football players in the state. Herring is the first player from Mary Persons to participate in the game. After some practices in Atlanta, the game was played Thursday at Mercer.

"I found out it May, and I was very excited about being selected," Herring said leading into Thursday's game. "This week is more than just football, though. We have group activities every day, and we talk about life lessons and everything we need to know to be successful in the future. But we are all excited about playing against such great competition and even though the game will be fun, it will still be a heated football game."

The Rising Seniors Foundation, the game's sponsor, conducts character and life skills sessions to go in part with the game. Some of the speakers this week included one from the NCAA Clearinghouse and another who talked about the dangers of social media.

Herring had a stellar junior year and helped lead Mary Persons into the second round of the GHSA Class AAAA playoffs. The 6-foot-4, 245-pound defensive end had 74 tackles and 21 tackles for loss to go along with seven sacks.

Head coach Brian Nelson said he was happy to hear that Herring was getting a chance to play in the Georgia Junior Bowl.

"Malik has turned into a pretty good football player over the last two years, and I think that playing in this game against quality competition will be very good for him," Nelson said leading into the game. "But it is really a lot more than football, because they are talking about the importance of education and much more. I know that he has been offered by a bunch of people and he is going to have a great chance to play college football pretty much wherever he wants, so this game should just be another positive experience for him."

Others from Middle Georgia who were taking part this week were Markaviest Bryant from Crisp County, Clark Daniel from Upson-Lee and Omar Cervantes of Peach County, K'hari Lane of Macon County

This story was originally published December 31, 2015 at 3:23 PM.