LSU offer for JUCO OT Jarmaine Mitchell a meaningful milestone on journey of maturation

Jarmaine Mitchell couldn’t contain his big smile even as he recounted the story of his LSU offer this week.

The Copiah-Lincoln Community College offensive tackle’s conversation with Brad Davis was the latest in a relationship nearly four years in the making.

And few, if any, Division-I recruiters around the country are as familiar with the former St. James standout, his potential and the ups-and-downs of his journey thus far than the home-state Tigers’ offensive line coach.

“(Davis) was like, ‘I told you I was gonna get you and bring you back home,'” Mitchell recounted. “And then when he told me I officially had the offer, I was like, ‘Yeeeaaahhh! Yes, sssirrrr!!’ It just put a big ole smile on my face. Because me and him, we’ve been together for a little minute, so it’s just crazy. That’s all I can say. That’s crazy. I really don’t know what to say about the situation, but it just hit different — I ain’t gonna lie.”

Mitchell, nicknamed “Big Baby,” stood out physically early, already well on his way to his current 6-foot-9, 320-pound build when he arrived at St. James and with the mobility to also be a promising member of the school’s basketball team.

As he hit the college camp circuit in 2021, the summer following his freshman year, he was already firmly on the radars of the Tigers and Davis, the Baton Rouge native newly hired away from Arkansas.

“I was the youngest out of everybody,” Mitchell remembered. “So they say, ‘Jarmaine, go to Tiger Group,’ and I’m like, ‘Where’s that at?’ and looking around. I’m lost. This is my first time here, so I really don’t know about it. But they said, ‘Coach Davis is down there,’ so I just took off running down there.’ And he said, ‘What’s up, Big Baby?!’ And we started chopping it up before doing the skill drills and stuff. And something clicked, just like everything we were doing, he was just on me, ‘Jarmaine this, Jarmaine that, Jarmaine this.’ He was just on me.

“And after the camp, he was like, ‘You’re something special, and I’m gonna stick you. Through your whole recruitment, I’m gonna be here. I’m gonna (keep) you home.’ And I’m like, ‘All right, yeah, he sees something in me.’ And ever since I went to their camps throughout the following years, he’s just been like a father figure to me. He always treated me like I was one of his players there. He was really building this up with me before anybody.”

Even in settings competing against college prospects two years older, Mitchell already had elite size and notable potential that were eye-catching.

He earned a starting role as a sophomore, but he admittedly wasn’t always as focused and consistent as necessary, particularly in the classroom, even as coaches tried to warn him of the risk he was running.

“Maturity has a big role in this,” he explained. “When I was in high school my freshman and sophomore year, my mind was in the gutter. I didn’t really know what I was capable of doing for my family. I knew it, but my mind was just all over the place, and my maturity level was just low. So I was just going with the flow my freshman and sophomore year and messing up in school. I’m not gonna lie.

“I got ineligible after my sophomore year, and my junior year I couldn’t play football. And I just sat in my room and started thinking, ‘If I can’t play football, what can I do for my family and what can I do for myself as a man?’ Because I knew God didn’t just make me in this frame for no reason. So I just set there in my room, and I got closer with God and stuff, started praying more. And I got my eligibility back my senior year, and I said, ‘I’ve got to make this a big run for me and my family,’ because the path I was going, people were saying I wouldn’t make it.”

Mitchell had been active in football, basketball, baseball and track from an early age and struggled being sidelined.

“It hurt so bad to see my teammates on the field and I’m not out there able to help them,” he said.

Mitchell was losing hope he might ever get to rejoin his fellow Wildcats or play organized football again, and he was gaining weight as he coped with the mental and emotional challenges and the loss of his primary physical outlet.

His mother and St. James coach Lavanta Davis were his biggest supporters and motivators to shake him out of that funk and back on track.

“I feel like (Lavanta Davis) always knew I had something in me, so he just stuck with me through the whole time,” Mitchell said. “He’s just been like a big father figure in my life, and he just kept pushing me. Like every time he’d see me in the hallway, ‘This ain’t over, Big Baby,’ ‘You’re still going, Big Baby,’ ‘This upcoming season, get to work.'”

Mitchell picked up his grades, started getting back into shape and was back on the field as a senior in 2023.

He earned all-district and LFCA second-team all-state recognition as a key player on the Wildcats’ return to their first state championship game since 2019.

Co-Lin landed his signature over a slew of other notable JUCO options late, including Butler, Coffeyville and Hutchinson.

And a few Division-I programs, including LSU, remained in contact down the stretch of his high school recruiting process and monitored his performance for the Wolves during the fall.

Mitchell felt he showed his continued maturation on the field as well with a second-team all-conference campaign in the Mississippi Association of Community Colleges Conference as a freshman.

“I came in kinda raw,” he said. “I knew some stuff, but I didn’t really understand the game of football until I got here and I sat down in the film room with (offensive line) coach (Jacob) Fleming and him breaking down the steps and everything. He plays a big part, and I really feel like he developed me into a better man than I was coming out of high school, like 10 times better.”

He will have another season at Co-Lin this fall before signing with his next program in December, but his first offers of his second recruiting process have started to arrive.

Mississippi State offered Mitchell on Jan. 15, and Brad Davis extended the home-state LSU offer Monday — following through on the promise the Tigers would be there when he was ready.

“He was like, ‘I told you I was gonna come back and get you,'” Mitchell said. “I was like, ‘I believed in you, coach. I knew you were coming to get me.’ And he just started telling me how much I matured as a player on and off the field, because he knows how I was in school, so he sees that I’ve matured and that my grades are way different from back then. So he sees that I’ve been building up.”

Mitchell is cherishing each milestone after realizing how nearly the opportunities had gotten away from him.

And he said celebrating the moments with his mother Is particularly significant.

“It’s real special, because like I was saying earlier, people were saying, ‘Big Baby’s not gonna be nothing. He’s not gonna make it nowhere,'” he said. “And I just had to show ’em that I could beat the odds, that there is no way that I can’t do this. And I really do it for my mother, because she’s really been there through everything, from Day One, and I feel like I owe this all to her. So it’s real special to me, just for her, just to make it out.”