Palmetto’s Mike Jackson is Miami-Dade Football 8A-6A Defensive Player of the Year
Mike Jackson readily admits he wasn’t even sure he wanted to play much defense for Palmetto this year. As a junior, he was on his way to becoming one of South Florida’s most deadly offensive weapons, using his elite speed to terrify opposing defenses. He wanted to haul in deep-ball touchdowns and turn screen passes into big gains. It was, after all, what he’d always done best and what had college coaches reaching out to offer him scholarships.
Mike Manasco knew the Panthers would need Jackson on defense, though, and the senior did what the team needed.
It worked out pretty well for everyone. Palmetto went to the Region 4-8A championship for the second straight year and Jackson is the Miami Herald’s Defensive Player of the Year for Classes 8A-6A.
“I started to really enjoy it,” Jackson said.
It became hard not to. The converted wide receiver racked up 10 interceptions while starting on both sides of the ball, leading the Panthers to a District 16-8A title and a pair of postseason wins
In the biggest moments, Jackson, who’s often the smallest player on the field, almost always found ways to deliver on one side of the ball or the other -- or, sometimes, both.
With the District 16-8A title effectively on the line against rival Columbus in the first month of the season, Jackson picked off Explorers quarterback Fernando Mendoza in the end zone on the final play of the game to give Palmetto a win despite scoring only seven points. In the final game of the regular season, Jackson grabbed three interceptions to help the Panthers beat Edison despite only scoring 14. In the Region 4-8A semifinals, he had two more interceptions and scored three times to lead Palmetto past Deerfield Beach, and then he scored the Panthers’ first touchdown in the region championship before Palmetto fell to Columbus in the rematch.
The same playmaking instincts that helped make Jackson one of the best receivers in Florida also helped make him one of its best cornerbacks.
“It comes from playing in the park,” said Jackson, who’s a three-star wide receiver, according to the 247Sports.com composite rankings for the Class of 2022, and is listed at 5-foot-8 and 150 pounds.
Jackson lives in the Richmond Heights neighborhood of southern Dade County and grew up playing with older, bigger kids, including brother Miquan Ford, who played linebacker at Homestead and then Division II Tusculum University in Greeneville, Tennessee.
His speed was always prodigious and everyone knew he could outrun most anyone, mimicking idols like legendary return specialist Devin Hester and Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Tavon Austin. His physicality was always underestimated.
As fun as it was to watch Jackson pile up interceptions, Manasco often said he just as much enjoyed watching his two-way star break up passes with perfectly timed hits. It’s also evidence he’s more than just a one-dimensional speedster or undersized playmaker.
“They don’t expect that from me,” Jackson said. “They expect just run the bomb, run the slant.”
He enjoys defying those expectations, too. Although Jackson claims more than 20 offers, most of those are uncommittable at this point and, because of his size, it was hard to get attention from college coaches later in his career once they were actually starting to fill up their recruiting classes.
Jackson did, however, go on an official visit with the FIU Panthers last weekend and he could be positioning himself to be one of the signature additions in FIU coach Mike McIntyre’s inaugural recruiting haul.
At this point, not much will surprise Jackson, though. He didn’t expect his recruitment to play out this way, just like he didn’t expect to play as much defense he did. He wasn’t even expecting the call he got from Manasco earlier this month when the coach let him know he was the Herald’s Defensive Player of the Year.
“I was surprised when Manasco called me and told me,” Jackson said. “It happened so fast that I wasn’t expecting it.”
