STARKVILLE — Josh Aka’s daily post-practice routine was simple.
After concluding the day with his teammates in the early evenings at Starkville High School, Aka would ask Yellow Jackets coach Chris Jones to throw him an extra 50 passes.
“Any type of extra work we did or wanted to do, he was first in line because he wanted to show us he wanted to get better, he was willing to do what it took to get better,” Jones said.
Now nearing the end of his senior season, Aka has become a mainstay in the Starkville offense after nearly two years of preparation.
“It’s been one heck of a ride,” he conceded Tuesday.
Looking back, Aka is the first to admit he needed the time to develop. While classmate and fellow receiver Rufus Harvey took significant snaps as a sophomore, he was relegated to the scout team.
Despite that, Aka took his opportunities in stride, both on the field and in the weight room — where he estimates he’s put on between 20 and 25 pounds of muscle.
“With me, I just wanted to play my role,” he said. “Anything I could do to help the team at the time I made sure I did it at 100 percent, and I made sure that I put my best effort forward. And now actually contributing on Friday nights when it matters, that I’m really glad to have such a role.”
Entering his junior season, Aka had reason to believe he’d step into a more prominent role. Senior receivers Cam Gardner and Cameron Hines had both departed. That said, a nagging hamstring injury hampered Aka’s ascent into an offensive fixture, leaving him with 251 yards and three touchdowns on 23 receptions last season.
Despite that, Aka refocused. With the injury behind him and an offseason to prepare, there was a noticeable shift in his game during spring ball.
“He’s always been a hard worker, he’s always been a playmaker, so he’s had a chance to step up and show it,” Harvey said.
Through nine games, that ability has persisted. A complement to Harvey’s field-stretching ability, Aka has found a niche as an interior/slot receiver in Jones’ offense. In this role, he’s totaled 467 yards and seven touchdowns on 30 catches.
Of his seven scores, perhaps none was more important or meaningful than his 12-yard fourth-quarter reception against then-No. 1 Madison Central.
Racing from the right side of the formation to the left upon the snap, Aka crossed into Altmyer’s view. Seeing the late-developing crossing route, Altmyer took an extra step and tossed the ball toward his receiver.
Making the catch around the Madison Central 3-yard line, Aka fought, turned and willed his way through a Jaguar defender for the game’s decisive score.
“You work so hard for those moments, and it seems like it may happen or it may never happen.” he said. “But I just can’t stress enough — I put in so much time, so much effort, countless hours on the field, countless hours at home doing stuff around the house and visualizing myself doing it. And for it to become real, at first it seemed like it was a fantasy.”
“He’s that kind of player,” Altmyer said of Aka’s ability to break the extra tackle. “He’s strong, and he’s such a good asset for this team.”
While three regular-season games and the Mississippi High School Activities Association 6A playoffs are ahead, Aka’s football future should extend far beyond this fall. With offers from Austin Peay, East Mississippi Community College and Mississippi Valley State, he’ll make his collegiate decision come spring.
And like Memphis’ Rodrigues Clark and Mississippi State’s Kobe Jones and Willie Gay, it will be Aka who joins the long lineage of collegiate football players to come out of the Yellow Jacket program — a thought that just two years ago seemed improbable at best.
“I don’t have anything bad to say about Josh,” Jones said. “He’s the guy who went from not being ‘the guy’ to being one of ‘the guys’ through persevering, hard work and busting his butt.”
Ben Portnoy reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @bportnoy15.
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