In His Own Words: Jake Funk

With the NFL Draft here, Maryland’s Jake Funk reflects on his long and winding road to the moment when his life will change forever … potentially hearing his name announced as the newest member of an NFL franchise.

Most kids dream of playing in the NFL, but it wasn’t always that way for me. 

It all started when I was seven years old, playing for the Damascus Cougars. I've grown up in Damascus my whole life. I played for the DSA, the Damascus Sports Association. I went through my elementary school years and then middle school years going up through the youth program and then went onto Damascus High School. 

I never really looked at the NFL as my dream. My goal was always to be like my dad and play at the highest level of college football, like he did at Penn State. I looked up to my dad my whole life. He was a guy who introduced me to the game and helped me develop a love for the game. For me, it was how can I play at the highest level of college football? That was my initial goal. 

In high school, I was a late bloomer, coming in at about 5-5, 5-6 and weighing 140 pounds, playing on the JV team as a freshman. I had a growth spurt at the end of my sophomore year and I was up to 5-10 and 185 pounds heading into my junior year. My high school career was a lot of work and I always had the personal goal of playing at the highest level, major college football. But to be honest, my goal was a team goal: to win a state title. 

That was something my high school hadn't done in a decade. We got close my junior year and going into my senior year, it was all about just winning a championship. That was the motivation.

We beat Dundalk to win the title, I had a pretty good game, you might recall (Funk scored seven touchdowns and ran for 270 yards). 

We built a winning program in my high school to where it got to a point where everybody who really wanted to take football seriously got looked at by the bigger schools.

I was always overlooked. In this area (the DMV) the public schools get overlooked in terms of high school recruiting. A lot of the big name schools, the Power 5 schools recruit from the private schools. For a guy like me, I’m from a public school and we might as well have been in Frederick County even though we were in Montgomery County. Recruiting was never big at our school, we weren’t getting all of the experts from 247 or Rivals coming out, they could just get off the airplane and get right into recruiting in the Beltway. They didn’t want to travel out to Western Maryland. 

That’s why when I saw what happened with Ty Johnson, who didn’t get heavily recruited coming out of Cumberland County, and seeing him go to Maryland -- that was significant. I related to Ty coming from a small town and playing the same position, running back. I looked at myself as a raw talent coming out of high school, similar to Ty. 

I was a two-star recruit and it's something that always motivates me because I've always thought of myself as more than that. Even with all the production I had my senior year, schools told me they would have to take ‘a chance’ on me to give me a scholarship. That’s something that continued to motivate me. I had a chip on my shoulder every time I stepped on the field.

As I think back on my recruiting process, during my junior year, one of Maryland’s former coaches told me that I wasn’t a Big Ten running back. He told me I wasn’t big enough to be a linebacker at Maryland and there wasn’t enough film of me playing safety. I got feedback like that from a lot of coaches.  

Going into my senior year, I had written off Maryland. I was like, “they don't want me” so I travelled across the country trying to get recruited as a running back. I went to Stanford, Northwestern, Wake Forest and North Carolina trying to get offers from those schools. None of those panned out.

Halfway through the year, Coach Locksley reached out to me and said their offensive staff loved my tape. He told me: ‘You've improved so much from your junior year to your senior year. We want to recruit you as a running back at Maryland and we want to offer you, but we can't get it by the head coach. The head coach doesn't want to take a chance on you.’ We went back and forth for a couple of weeks as they kept telling me they would offer me, but in the back of my head, I was like, ‘just like everything else, this is going to fall through.’

Then, Randy Edsall gets fired and Locks steps in as interim and offers me. He sent the running backs coach out to my practice two days after he got hired as the interim and later that week I committed.

I was so sick of the recruiting process and everything that went into it, but Coach Locks had one of the most honest conversations that I've ever had with a college coach about my recruiting process. I just respect so much about Coach Locks. He’s a no B.S. kind of coach and that’s why so many athletes gravitate towards him and why he’s so highly regarded in the recruiting world.

Once I got to Maryland, I always had the thought of playing in the NFL, that was the next goal, but I never really thought it would happen if I’m being honest. I looked at all the older guys who were ahead of me, getting love from the NFL. You see guys like DJ Moore getting drafted and I was like ‘could that be me one day?’ But when you are a young guy, you don’t know. You doubt yourself. For me, the most pivotal point where I started to believe I could be an NFL running back was when Ty Johnson got drafted. 

Ty is my best friend and he continued to tell me through all the injuries, ‘Jake, you’re an NFL back.’ He would tell me, ‘I’ve been with you and I’m on an NFL team now, you’re good enough.’ 

Having Ty telling me that kept me motivated. He was also giving me advice about the whole draft process. I kept training and doing work behind-the-scenes to get to the point where I could be a starting running back this past year.

When they announced the season was going to be cancelled in the Fall due to COVID, that was a blow, but I was numbed to the pain. I've been through a lot in my years at Maryland. From position battles, to the death of Jordan McNair, to the injuries and then the season was cancelled. What’s next? How do we solve this? I just kept pushing forward, I fully anticipated coming back for a sixth year and getting my opportunity next year. It sucked, but at the end of the day, it was just another bump in the road. I’ve been through a lot worse than getting a season cancelled. 

Once they announced the season was going to happen, I was excited, just to be able to get an opportunity to play, not really for my opportunity to play in the NFL, but to live out my childhood dream of being a starting Division I running back. This past season opened the opportunity for me to play at the highest level.

After the first week at Northwestern when I had six touches, I went into Coach Brooks’ office and I told him I needed to get the ball more. We were a better offense when I was on the field. I’m able to make plays. So they gave me that opportunity the following week. 

The Minnesota game, that game changed the course of my career. That game was when the coaching staff started to fully believe in me. I delivered in that game. It was amazing from a personal perspective and a team perspective. That game was a pivotal game for the University of Maryland as the whole country watched on a Friday night on ESPN. 

That game showed we are a team that has more fight than we used to. We were down 17 points going to the fourth quarter - and since I’ve been at Maryland, up until that game, everyone was thinking the game’s over, we aren’t coming back. That game showed how the program has changed. 

That game was the first game where I truly had the opportunity to be the guy, be the starting running back at Maryland, my hometown school. To play the way I did, was what I have known for years now -- if I just got the opportunity -- I could produce. I am so thankful for that.

As I played through the season and had more big games, it still wasn’t really on my mind that I would get a chance to play in the NFL. Honestly, it was never on my mind. I never looked at myself as being that guy, because of everything that I had been through. I might have thought about the NFL in the back of my head, but I always doubted if that dream would ever come true. 

The opportunity to play in the NFL started to go through my head after the Rutgers game. I thought if I could get one more good game on tape and play well, then there would be a decision to be made. Coach Locks started talking to me at that point, he asked me what I was thinking. We had an honest conversation about declaring for the draft. After our season officially ended, that was a big week of discussion for our family. 

We continued to go over the pros and cons of coming back. There were a lot of factors that went into the decision to declare for the draft. It was a very calculated decision.

I have bet on myself for my entire life.

I was a two-star recruit. 

I came to a Power 5 school as a running back. 

I just continued to bet on myself to play here. 

I didn’t transfer, I didn’t quit. I knew my day was going to come. 

I just had to wait and work for my time. 

I have bet on myself every step of the way. 

I am betting on myself again. 

In my conscious, the first thing I thought was if I had an opportunity presented to me, I had to take it. 

I was given a priority free agent grade coming out of this year, but I bet on myself that I could perform so well in this process, I knew I could put myself in a position to get drafted, because I believed in myself. I've known for years now, the product I could put on the field and present to these NFL teams through interviews, through my pro day results. I believe that I knew this process would benefit me.

Another component was the class coming out this year. It is a lighter class in terms of sheer numbers. In a normal year, there are 1800-2000 guys who are draft eligible. This year there are 650. So your chances, if you are making a calculated decision, the percentages of being drafted are through the roof. It has gone from about 10 percent to about a third.

But, the hardest thing about me leaving Maryland -- and I technically had two more years of eligibility, I could have come back for a sixth and even seventh year -- was the time and effort that has gone into the change of culture with this program. You saw it changing this year with Coach Locks. You felt it this year, and even though this year was cut short with COVID, you can feel this program is headed for great things.

It makes you want to come back, to be around the guys. But, for the first time in my life I put myself, my career and my dreams in front of the team. That was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

If I am fortunate enough to hear my name called by an NFL team this weekend - or sign with a team after the draft - it would be a culmination of everything that I have worked for and everything I have sacrificed. It all comes down to one weekend. If I get that call, I would have such an appreciation for everything I have been through. It will be an emotional time. I have been through a lot, and having my family and close friends around me, who have supported me through the good, the bad and the ugly, that is going to mean the most to me. 

Being able to live out my dream, and looking in the mirror and being proud of that guy who was able to go through every obstacle and not let anything stop him from chasing his dream. 

Jake