601 Elite Quarterback and Skills Academy: Local QB pays it forward to the next generation

If we’re gonna take the glass half-full approach the start of high school football season is exactly 100 days away.

College football won’t be far behind and this week preparation for those two worlds are on a crash course over at Hancock High School where the coronavirus pandemic isn’t stopping one former high school standout from passing it on to the next generation.

Former PRC Quarterback Wyatt Davis said, “I had the opportunity to learn under Bo Wallace. I mean former quarterback at Ole Miss, and he had a big impact on what I wanted to do as far as developing these guys out here. There’s a lot of unnoticed talent that comes from the Coast at the position of the quarterback and I feel like it’s my job to sit there and help those guys get ready for whenever their time comes.” An under recruited quarterback out of Pearl River Central High School, Wyatt Davis speaks from experience as the founder of 601 Elite Quarterback and Skills Academy.

His eventual college football career ended at East Mississippi Community with a 2017 National Championship.  “For those guys, it’s all about showing them the way. I’ve been there and done that, and kind of passing on what they can do better than what I did and what decisions that can lead up to and what greatness they can accomplish cause every one of these kids, great people on the field and off the field.”

Of the more than 25 players that got work in Monday and Tuesday are some household names from our News 25 Friday Night Showcase. Those being future Division I signee Deuce Lee II OUT OF Moss Point plus graduating seniors Max Favre from St. Stanislaus and Dustin Allison from Pass Christian both of which finished the regular season top 5 in the state in passing yards. “Once you start something you can’t just lay down. Like you just have to keep going and get better and better at your position every day,” said Allison.

Favre said, “It’s pretty unique. It’s like a showcase camp, except it’s not. Everybody is just out here to do the same thing and just work.”

Even the underclassmen are working just the same given the chance to soak up some QB life hacks from the veteran guys with the added benefit of throwing to Division I receivers like Gulfport alum Jonathan Nance who made SEC stops at Arkansas and most recently Missouri. St. Stanislaus QB Gage Peterson said, “Very, very, very important. I need it a lot, just to get out here and throw every day to keep it just like anything else.”

Hancock QB (8th) Dylan Moran “Well, you get to throw with bigger and faster guys that you might not get to throw with in ninth grade and eighth grade and stuff, so you get to adjust to different speeds.”

But the coronavirus pandemic has everyone at 601 Elite moving at the same speed mentally to make up for lost time and lost reps. Responding to adversity in life, the same way they do in the pocket. “Oh yeah, this is going to show who was putting in work and who wasn’t during this whole time. Like when you get back to the campus or when you come back to the high school level, you should be one step ahead of everybody if you were actually putting in work.”

“You’ve got to be able to play this position tough, man. I mean that’s why I tell these guys, too, you can look pretty throughout the drills and stuff. But when you get live bullets thrown at you and guys hit you in the mouth, that’s where it shows what you’re made of.”

601 Elite is in its third year of operation and will continue every Monday and Tuesday throughout the summer for quarterbacks age middle school through college.