Jared Barber didn’t think he would leave the state of North Carolina to play college football. And for a while it appeared as if that assumption would be proven correct.

In-state programs North Carolina State and Wake Forest had prioritized the Mocksville Davie County tackling machine, who burst onto the scene with 151 stops during his freshman season.

An all-conference selection through his first three years of high school, Barber earned conference defensive player of the year and all-region honors as a junior garnering the attention of college programs especially the two that had offered.