Michael Lunz II is one of several North Hardin prospects who has seen his recruitment start to take off over the past year.

He recently participated in the Best of the Midwest camp, where he earned Linebacker MVP honors.

Lunz is the third North Hardin Trojan to speak with Cats Illustrated, following Jordan Lovett and Lavell Wright. He detailed his recruitment and talked about what has changed to make North Hardin a division one football pipeline.

The linebacker prospect currently holds offers from Cincinnati, Akron and Georgia State, all of which came after the start of the new year.

“I picked up an offer from Cincinnati a couple of weeks ago, and picked up Georgia State today,” Lunz told Cats Illustrated. “Boston College is showing interest, along with Ohio University, Tennessee showing interest also. There’s been a few coaches follow me (on Twitter).”

Lunz did not start receiving interest from schools until this year. He started getting looked at whenever colleges would come to North Hardin to check in on other players like current Kentucky Wildcat, Octavious Oxendine.

“I’ve been a low key baller. I’ve been really slept on," he said. "My exposure came from the success of our team and how good we were. When the team started balling, schools started paying attention to everything that was going on.”

Who started the trend of identifying talent at North Hardin?

Lunz says that it was Kentucky’s Vince Marrow.

“Coach (Vince) Marrow at UK, he’s the one who started it. He came out and watched us play Central Hardin this year. I think that’s when it took off, with people posting ‘Coach Marrow is in attendance looking at Lunz and others’, when really he came for Jordan (Lovett). Jordan received an offer two days before he came and watched.”

Said Lunz, “Whenever colleges would come in there for players like ‘Ox’, Coach Thompson would always ask if they wanted to check out our younger guys that are coming up. Coach always does a good favor of putting our name in, because my sophomore year stats were better than this year’s. I had 114 total tackles my sophomore year, I finished this year with 85 to 90. I had better stats in other categories this year. The success, and the exposure from Coach Thompson with kids that he knows can play at the next level, I think that’s really what set it off.”

In just a short time frame North Hardin has become a legitimate pipeline for FBS talent. Kentucky has added Octavious Oxendine, a four-star defensive lineman in 2020, along with a handful of preferred walk-ons. Outside of Lunz, the Trojans have two three-star prospects in 2021, Jordan Lovett, a defensive back, and Lavell Wright, an all-purpose back.

North Hardin also has a lot of up and coming players in the younger classes.

“It’s surreal, but at the same time, it’s expected. We knew we were going to be ballers, especially this past year. We knew we were going to be special since middle school. We’re building a foundation for the program to succeed from here on out. We’re still young as a program. You look around Kentucky, some schools are one hundred, one hundred and fifty years old. We’re just over fifty years old. It’s big for us,” Lunz said.

A lot of North Hardin’s success is attributed to the work ethic that coach Brent Thompson has instilled in the program.

“North has been pretty bad for years,” Lunz said. “We won the district championship a couple years ago for the first time in over a decade. When Coach (Thompson) came in, he was a slow, slow builder, but this upcoming season will be his tenth year. It’s been a slow build up, but we’ve done nothing but get better each year. He’s an incredible coach. All the recognition he’s gotten over the last couple of years has been greatly deserved with all the hard work he’s put in.”

There are a couple of schools that stand out to Lunz when he thinks of what he would consider “big offers”.

“Obviously, Alabama is my dream school. Kentucky would be really big for me and Tennessee would be really big for me," Lunz said. "To be honest, any SEC offer, or actually any Power Five offer. Other than Tennessee or Kentucky, there’s no school that I’m really shooting for that I would commit to right away. A Power Five offer would be a nice confidence booster. My three current offers have helped me to set a foundation.”

When it comes to Kentucky, Lunz knows what he has to do to get an offer.

“I talk to Coach (Vince) Marrow and Coach (Jon) Sumrall on multiple occasions,” he said.

“They say, when watching my film, that my biggest thing to work on is my speed. Speed is the only question they’ve ever had, and that any college has ever had with me. They want me to get a forty time posted. Coach Marrow said, if you come to camp and you run a 4.6 or faster, that I’ll get an offer. He loves the way I play and he loves my size, but my speed is my biggest downfall so far. “I’ll get that 4.6 this spring,” Lunz said.