AUGUSTA — “I just want to play football,” Augusta junior running back Devin Taylor said. “I don’t care where.”
Taylor, who through six games this season has 931 yards and 12 touchdowns, has dreams of playing college football once he graduates from high school.
“I am so glad he said that,” Augusta head coach Chad Floyd said. “So many kids, their attitude is, ‘I want to go play for the Razorbacks, and everybody should want to play for the Razorbacks.
“But for him to have the mindset, where he just wants to play somewhere, he is going to play ball somewhere. That is great.”
Taylor’s breakout game this season was against Carlisle on Sept. 16 when he rushed for 321 yards on 33 carries and three touchdowns in the Red Devils’ 50-32 win.
“We wanted it more,” Taylor said. “We played our hearts out in that first quarter. We caught two picks and ran both back.”
According to a statewide publication, Taylor earned all-conference honors last fall, rushing for nearly 1,300 yards and 12 scores.
He also plays defense for Augusta as an inside linebacker, but he prefers playing offense.
“I like running the ball,” Taylor said.
Taylor nearly missed out on playing for the Red Devils after he and his sister, Fadaijah Green, moved to Mississippi when he was in junior high to live with his grandma.
“I used to stay in the projects down here with my mom,” Taylor said. “I had to move to Mississippi with my grandma, and I was getting into trouble.
“She was talking [bad] about my parents, and I didn’t like it.”
After moving, Taylor and his family came back to Augusta to visit, and at first he didn’t think he would be able to make the trip because he had gotten into trouble as a result of his grades.
“I didn’t pack no clothes,” Taylor said. “When we got down here, we stayed for two days. I stayed at my daddy’s house the second night, and my dad and grandma don’t get along.”
Taylor’s dad, Raysharron Green, dropped him off the next day, but his grandma got mad because Green didn’t come in to say hi, Taylor said.
“We were leaving, heading back to Mississippi, and she said something about my dad, and I got mad,” Taylor said. “She dropped me off at a gas station in McCrory.”
Taylor said he walked from there to a bank in McCrory before his cousin picked him up and dropped him off at his grandpa’s house.
“I went for like a week or two with my old clothes till my dad bought me some clothes,” Taylor said. “I had like one pair of shoes and one pair of slides.”
Floyd, who came on at Augusta around the same time, thought this kid “had a chance to be special.”
“When he first came back, he was supposed to be an eighth-grader, gradewise,” Floyd said. “And by looking at him, I knew football would be one of his ways out.”
Floyd told the administration at the time that if they kept him as an eighth-grader, then by his senior year, he wouldn’t be eligible to play.
“So they let him take some recovery classes and bumped him up to the ninth grade, where he was supposed to be,” Floyd said. “That summer, he did the online classes and the recovery classes.
“I have watched him grow the past few years, not only as a football player, but I have seen the kind of man he has become, too.”
Taylor, who also participates in track and field at Augusta, has high aspirations for after he graduates from high school, as he plans to major in mechanical engineering. He said he is doing well in school right now but said there is always room for improvement.
“I’m doing good,” Taylor said. “I’ve got to work harder in some classes and study harder.”
Taylor has already received some college attention. During the game against Carlisle, Harding University quarterback coach Matt Underwood came down halfway through the first quarter and asked Floyd, “Is that the guy you were telling me about?”
“He said, ‘We need to get him on campus,’” said Floyd, who went to Harding.
Taylor said he is trying not to let the attention go to his head, but instead, it motivates him to work harder.
“Football keeps me out of trouble,” Taylor said. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t care. Everything I’ve been through, I just look at football [as my way out.]”
Taylor now lives with his sister and dad in Augusta. His dad, who is also known as Ray Ray, played football for Augusta and won a state championship with the Red Devils. Ray Ray often visits with the team to motivate the players and remind them of what Augusta has accomplished in the past.
“Ray has been good to these kids, too,” Floyd said. “A bunch of these kids don’t know about that. They don’t know how successful Augusta has been.
“When I came in here, my goal was to get back to War Memorial and to play for a state championship. Some of those kids looked at me like I had three heads because they don’t know.”
The last time Augusta won a state championship was in 1992, and they haven’t made a playoff appearance in six seasons.
“These kids have been told so many times: They can’t do this; they can’t do that,” Floyd said. “They are never going to win; it doesn’t matter who the coach is. And there for a while, they started to believe it.”
Floyd said that when he came in, he and his coaches saw the talent and knew it was possible to put Augusta back on the map.
“The biggest thing is, they have to believe in themselves, believe they can do it,” Floyd said. “This group, no doubt they believe they can do it. Are we there yet? No.
“But we are working toward it and going toward the right direction.”
Staff writer Sam Pierce can be reached at (501) 244-4314 or spierce@arkansasonline.com.