South Pointe’s Currence, Northwestern’s Watkins win Herald’s top prep football honor
South Pointe senior athlete J’Zavien Currence and Northwestern senior defensive back Tamarion Watkins have been named The Herald’s co-players of the 2025 high school football season.
Both Currence and Watkins and led their teams to SCHSL state championships (Currence in 4A and Watkins in 5A Division II) on their way to winning the award.
j’Zavien Currence
Currence was the unicorn/do-it-all player for South Pointe throughout the year. From the second half of the season opener, the senior has been the main quarterback for the Stallions while also playing defensive back and receiver from time-to-time. Currence recorded 2782 passing yards and 24 passing touchdowns during the season. He also added 20 rushing touchdowns and 1621 yards on the ground.
“He is a true competitor,” Stallions coach Bobby Collins said of Currence. “He is a humble, hard-working leader. I think what he did for us this season is he set a standard of what we want in our program moving forward. As far as a standard of leadership and accountability, J’Zavien set the standard. He is everything you could want as a coach. He leads by example and is the hardest working player every day.”
Currence is a 4-star recruit committed to South Carolina.
“I believe that I have grown as a leader at South Pointe,” Currence said. “Through my career I have been put through a lot of tough situations where I have had to rise up as a leader and keep the team together.”
Collins said that Currence’s work ethic is next to none. Currence concurred.
“My work ethic is amongst the top in the country,” he said. “I wouldn’t be in the place or position I am without all of the early mornings and late nights.”
Collins mentioned that it can be difficult to get Currence to take credit for much of anything. His humility is something Collins said is one of his most admirable traits.
“Even with all of the awards he wins and the recognition he gets, the first thing he does after every game is thank his teammates and his parents,” Collins said. “I don’t think it is ever about him, rather the people around him, and he just tries to lift other people up as he has climbed.”
In addition to The Herald’s honor, Currence was named the Gatorade player of the year for South Carolina.
“It means a lot to be named The Herald’s co-player of the year,” he said. “It is a true fruit of the labor for me and my family. The work we’ve put into this journey; I just give all thanks to God.”
Tamarion Watkins
Watkins is headed to Texas A&M to play at the next level. In 2025, he tallied 80 total tackles with an average of 6.7 per game. He had three interceptions with two coming in the Trojans’ final two games. Even as a defensive back, Watkins recorded two sacks during the season as well. He recorded a season-high 14 tackles against Gaffney in the SCHSL playoffs.
“Tamarion is a really great player and a really good person too,” Northwestern coach Page Wofford said. “We’re spoiled to have kids like Tamarion. And, we’ve got guys like that all over the program; good people and good families. He is the type of guy that you want to coach and he is the kind of player that makes it rewarding when you look back over the course of his career.”
Watkins said personal accolades aside, he was just happy to cap his career off by helping his team win back-to-back state championships.
“It was a pretty productive year,” Watkins said. “It was productive from the defensive side for me and my team. It didn’t start off the way we wanted it to earlier in the season. We were showing signs, and we just became a little inconsistent during the middle of the season. Towards the end we really started to pick things up and peaked at the right time like our coaches always say.”
Watkins, a 3-star recruit, joins a Texas A&M Aggies team that has the 9th overall recruiting class in the country based on 247 Sports recruiting rankings. Many predicted Watkins would stay in-state and go to South Carolina but Texas A&M started to feel like home.
“Coach (Mike) Elko and just the whole staff there are like a big family,” Watkins said. “I love that a bunch, and my family loves them just as much as I do. So, I think that was the biggest deciding factor of them all.”
Watkins, who said that coming into the year he didn’t expect to win personal awards, also was named Mr. Football in South Carolina.
“Coming into the season it wasn’t like I was expecting to receive a ton of accolades or anything like that,” he said. “I just wanted to play ball. But, to see how my hard work is paying off, it is really great. It is an honor for me.”