Michigan QB commit Brady Hart is a winning wonder boy with the 'aura of a special, special player'

Brady Hart just wrapped up his daily 45-minute commute from his home in Indialantic to Cocoa (Fla.) High.

It’s the first week of high school football practice in the state of Florida, and Hart, Michigan’s Top 100 quarterback commit, is fresh off a trip up to the Midwest for the annual BBQ at The Big House.

Hart was the talk of the summer after he committed to U-M over Clemson, Ohio State, Texas A&M and others. Some pundits believe he is Michigan’s most important recruiting win since JJ McCarthy, and with the current quarterback conundrum, fans are impatiently awaiting his arrival in Ann Arbor.

On this hot and humid summer day, Hart isn’t looking ahead. The BBQ and the verbal pledge are behind him. He’s all smiles as he gets ready to put the pads on and get to work with his high school teammates.

Hart has one goal on his mind — another state championship.

“The job’s not finished,” Hart said. “We have to win two more. As a competitor, nothing is ever enough. We all have that drive to win another one this year. We’re not just satisfied with one.”

Hart is coming off a prolific sophomore season that saw him pass for 3,759 yards and 41 touchdowns en route to leading Cocoa to a 14-1 record and a state title.

That lone loss came to national powerhouse Fort Lauderdale (Fla.) St. Thomas Aquinas. Cocoa punched above its weight class as St. Thomas Aquinas in the much larger school. Many expected Hart and Cocoa to lay down and take a beating.

Instead, a 15-year-old Hart had his breakout performance in just his third varsity start, throwing for 493 yards and five touchdowns in a heartbreaking 37-36 loss marred by controversy — multiple referees were suspended after ‘not following proper procedure in the final minutes of the game.’

“As a team, we rose to the competition,” Hart said. “When the spotlight was on us, we came out and did our job. I wasn’t nervous. It was the opposite. Nobody expected us to beat them. Having the underdog mentality is a pretty cool thing.”

Cocoa will once again have that underdog mentality this week.

While Cocoa is nationally ranked and coming off two wins by a combined score of 93-10, Hart and his team have to travel to Bradenton, Florida for a matchup with a different national powerhouse — the vaunted IMG Academy Ascenders.

IMG Academy attracts top talent from around the country and boasts a pair of Michigan commits in running back Donovan Johnson and offensive lineman Kaden Strayhorn. Is it a fair fight? That’s not for this writer to decide. But it should be one hell of a Friday night.

“All of us are antsy for that game,” Hart said. “Every guy on this team can’t wait to get on the field. It’s going to be exciting to play against some other Michigan commits. Hopefully, I can show them what kind of quarterback I am and what Michigan’s future is going to look like….  I think we’re going to beat them.

That’s quite the prediction from Hart, especially after On3’s Massey Ratings forecasted a 41-14 blowout win for IMG Academy earlier today. But that’s just Brady Hart.

Hart makes the 45-minute commute to Cocoa for football practice every day but not necessarily for school. He’s already done with the majority of his high school courses and is taking college classes. By the time he enrolls early at Michigan, Hart should already have his associate degree. He’s intelligent, has a five-star smile, a rocket arm, and the dude just knows how to win.

He has every right to be confident.

“He’s a great kid,” said Cocoa head coach Ryan Schneider. “He’s a leader off the field. He’s a good person that the kids love and rally behind. He has God given talent. He’s smart. He understands everything we’re trying to do. We run complex stuff with him, and he does a great job. But he’s also a humble young man, which is an important part of being a quarterback.

“Brady is who he is. He’s a person of great faith and has a great belief in himself. He has that aura of a special, special player.”

But Hart wasn’t always the Space Coast’s Wonder Boy. He had to work hard and commit himself to being a quarterback.

The son of former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Alex Hart, Brady followed in his father’s footsteps and was a talented player on the diamond all the way up to his freshman year. That’s when Brady gave up baseball.

A career in the MLB could have been a possibility. But Brady didn’t want that. He wanted to play the sport he loved.

“I loved football more, but I was always better at baseball,” Hart said. “Once I made the decision to go to Cocoa, I gave baseball up. Football was my passion. I knew football was the sport I wanted to pursue, so it wasn’t a difficult decision.”

Hart put in relentless work with private quarterback trainer Baylin Trujillo and listened carefully to Schneider and Adam Franco, who is widely considered one of the best offensive coordinators in the state of Florida.

With their guidance, Hart became one of the country’s top signal-callers. Don’t mistake Hart’s confidence for cockiness. He’s driven but humble.

And he takes that approach on the field every day.

“I don’t have individual goals,” Hart said. “I go into it one week at a time. If you work each day to win and have winning habits, everything else will fall in line. Get that win on Friday night, and everything else will take care of itself.”

IMG is as advertised, so this Friday night may prove to be more difficult than others.

But you can bet against Hart at your own risk.