Greatest high school football players by decade

Picking the greatest high school football players of all time can be a difficult task. Due to changes in football strategy, physical training and the integration of high schools, it's hard to judge the best players from the first half of the 1900s with the best players in the 21st century.

But one thing we can do is try to judge the top players against their contemporaries. Thus MaxPreps has selected the best high school football players by deacade. We start with the 1900s, which is about when many high schools across the country first started to field teams, and we conclude with the 2010s. Players were selected based mostly on their complete body of work, however it was important that each player excelled at the high school level.


1900s
Jim Thorpe, Carlisle (Pa.)
Playing for legendary coach Glenn "Pop" Warner, Thorpe began his high school career mainly as a track athlete in 1907. However, he did play football for the Indians during the 1900s before quitting school following his father's death. Thorpe gained his greatest football fame several years later in 1911 as a collegiate when he scored all of his team's points and led the Indians to an 18-15 win over powerful Harvard. Thorpe later went on to compete in the 1912 Olympics, winning gold medals in the decathlon and the pentathlon. He was also a member of the fledgling National Football League during the 1920s and is a member of the NFL Hall of Fame.

1910s
Harold "Brick" Muller, San Diego and Oakland Tech (Calif.)
Like Thorpe, Muller participated in the Olympics, taking the silver medal in Antwerp, Belgium, in the 1920 Olympics. However he was also a standout on the gridiron, leading San Diego and later Oakland Tech to championships. He went on to play at Cal and is considered the greatest player in the history of Cal-Berkeley football. He led the Bears to a Rose Bowl victory in 1921 against Ohio State and was a two-time All-American. He was selected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951.

1920s
Harold "Red" Grange, Wheaton (Ill.)
Grange's running ability and his barnstorming games with the Chicago Bears in the 1920s helped establish the NFL as a viable professional sport. However, Grange got his start as a star running back at Wheaton (Ill.), where he scored 75 touchdowns in his career and racked up 532 points. He scored 36 of those touchdowns his senior year, averaging more than five touchdowns per game. An all-around athlete, Grange also won four events at the state track meet over the course of three years and he reportedly earned 16 varsity letters in four sports. He went on to a brilliant career at Illinois, where he earned the nickname "The Galloping Ghost." He was a three-time All-American and rushed for 3,362 yards. He played in the NFL for eight seasons and was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the original induction class of 1963.

1930s
Tom Harmon, Horace Mann (Gary, Ind.)
A Heisman Trophy winner at the University of Michigan in 1940, Harmon got his start at Horace Mann (Gary, Ind.), where he earned 14 varsity letters and led his school to the state's mythical championship in 1936. Also a track athlete, Harmon won a pair of state championships in the sprints and low hurdles. He also was a standout in basketball and baseball. Following graduation, 54 schools reportedly recruited Harmon, but he chose Michigan. There, he led the nation in scoring for two seasons. He served in World War II and later played for the Los Angeles Rams, but war injuries reportedly kept him from establishing an NFL career.

1940s
Glenn Davis, Bonita (La Verne, Calif.)
The first Heisman Trophy winner from the Southern Section of California, Davis excelled in high school at Bonita where he led the team to the CIF championship with a five-touchdown performance in the title game. He scored 236 points as a senior and even reportedly earned a spot in "Ripley's Believe it or Not." He went to Army where coach Red Blaik reportedly said that Davis was the "best player I have seen anywhere, anytime." He led the nation in scoring in 1945 and finished second in the Heisman voting. He won the Heisman a year later in 1946. He still holds the NCAA record for yards gained per carry at 11.7. He scored 59 touchdowns for Army in just 38 games and he was considered the fastest player in college football. Although he played on two NFL championship teams with the Los Angeles Rams, an injury sustained while filming a movie in 1946 is said to have robbed him of the blazing speed he had in college.

1950s
Ken Hall, Sugarland (Texas)



When it comes to accomplishments strictly at the high school level, they don't come more accomplished than Ken Hall. Until last year, when Derrick Henry of Yulee (Fla.) broke the record, Hall held the national career rushing yardage mark of 11,232 yards. He rushed for more than 3,160 yards as a sophomore in 1951, 3,458 as a junior and 4,045 as a senior. He held multiple national records for close to 60 years and he earned All-American honors from Scholastic Coach and Wigwam Wiseman in 1953 while leading his team to a three-year mark of 35-1. While he had a spotty college career under Paul "Bear" Bryant at Texas A&M, Bryant himself admitted that he didn't use Hall correctly during his time there.

"I don't think anything went wrong with him. It was me. I was stupid," Bryant told Sports Illustrated in 1982. "You're a fool to think, as I did as a young coach, that you can treat them all alike. He should have been an All-American for me. With him, we'd have won the national championship in 1957. Without him, we lost it."

Hall played briefly in the Canadian Football League and the NFL before giving up football in 1962. While it would be easy to select a player from the 1950s who went on to NFL greatness, such as Jim Brown of Manhassett (N.Y.), Bart Starr of Lanier (Ala.) or Mel Renfro of Jefferson (Portland, Ore.), the magnitude of Hall's records, and their sustainability over the last 60 years, make him the choice. Not surprisingly, an award given to the top high school football player in the nation each year is called The Ken Hall Trophy.

1960s
Joe Ferguson, Woodlawn (Shreveport, La.)
Woodlawn is home to a No. 1 NFL draft pick, a four-time NFL champion and a member of the NFL Hall of Fame, but that player is not the player of the 1960s. Former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw starred at Woodlawn in the mid 1960s, but his successor, Joe Ferguson, had the better high school career. He set national records with 3,452 yards an 40 touchdowns in 1968 while leading Woodlawn to an undefeated season and a state championship. He ended his high school career with more than 6,000 yards passing. After a standout career at Arkansas, where he was named the conference player of the year, Ferguson was selected in the third round of the NFL draft by the Buffalo Bills. He went on to a 17-year career in the NFL.

1970s
Herschel Walker, Johnson County (Wrightsville, Ga.)
The fact that Walker almost won the Heisman Trophy as a true freshman at Georgia shows how outstanding he was at the high school level. Blessed with natural strength and speed, Walker ran for 3,167 yards as a senior while leading his team to a state championship. That total ranked seventh in national history at the time. He finished his career with 86 touchdowns and 6,137 yards. He went on to lead Georgia to a national championship as a freshman and later won the Heisman Trophy as a junior in 1982. He played three years in the USFL before moving on to a 13-year career in the NFL. He gained close to 14,000 yards rushing in the two leagues combined.

See Herschel Walker and nine other of the Top 10 most hyped high school football players

1980s
Emmitt Smith, Escambia (Pensacola, Fla.)



Longtime high school football historian Doug Huff named Emmitt Smith the greatest high school football player ever in his National High School Football Record Book in 2001, and for good reason. When he concluded his career at Escambia in 1986, his 8,804 yards rushing were the third-highest total in national history. He also set a national record with 45 games of more than 100 yards rushing. He played college football at Florida, rushing for 3,928 career yards, and then went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals, finishing his career as the NFL's all-time leading rusher.

1990s
Peyton Manning, Newman (New Orleans)
The Gatorade National Player of the Year in 1993, Manning led Newman to a 34-5 record in three seasons and threw for 7,190 yards in his high school career. He went on to become the all-time leading passer at the University of Tennessee and he ranks as one of the all-time great NFL quarterbacks with 12 Pro Bowl selections and four MVP trophies.

See Peyton Manning discuss the importance of practice with Tony Dungy

2000s
Adrian Peterson, Palestine (Texas)



As a senior at Palestine, Peterson earned the Ken Hall Trophy, marking him as the best high school player in the country in 2003. He rushed for 2,960 yards and 32 touchdowns as a senior and had 5,011 yards rushing in his two-year varsity career. In college at Oklahoma, Peterson finished second in the Heisman Trophy voting as a freshman, finishing the season with 1,925 yards rushing. He entered the NFL Draft following his junior season and was drafted No. 7 overall in 2007. He has since rushed for 8,942 yards in his career, including 2,097 in 2012 when he was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player.

See Adrian Peterson "Way Back When"

2010s
Johnathan Gray, Aledo (Texas)
Gray earned National Player of the Year honors from Gatorade after he finished his career with 10,889 yards rushing and set a national record with 205 touchdowns. He also had 1,232 career points, which ranks second all-time. He also led Aledo to three straight state championships before moving on to play at Texas. He earned All-Big 12 honors as a freshman and is expected to be the feature back for the Longhorns in 2013.