Before his time at Bishop McNamara High School, coaches mostly played Jianni Davis at tight end because of his father, former NFL star tight end Vernon Davis. He garnered collegiate offers after just two full games in his sophomore season, by playing on the other side of the ball.
The three-star Maryland commit was primarily a tight end his freshman year, but decided to switch to edge rusher the next season. Jianni Davis racked up three sacks and an interception in his first game at the position for Bishop McNamara.
His love for the position has only grown.
“Lining up right in front of the line, and just getting past them. Making their film look worse and worse and worse, each and every play,” Jianni Davis said. “Just getting back there to that quarterback.”
Jianni Davis used to be uncertain about which position he would play in college. At one point, he was unsure he would play college football at all.
Though both his father and uncle, Vontae Davis, played in the NFL, Jianni Davis hasn’t been pursuing football his whole life. He began playing contact football in third grade before taking a four-year break from the sport.
“I never really put a lot of emphasis in getting him ready for the game of football. I just let him do what he wanted to do,” Vernon Davis said.
Jianni Davis dabbled in basketball, baseball and soccer as a child, but football served as an escape from reality. His return to the field felt natural for him and his family. When he rediscovered his passion for the sport, he couldn’t envision himself doing anything else.
“I didn’t really have a clue what else I would want to do besides football, so I took it and ran with it since eighth grade,” Jianni Davis said.
Jianni Davis attended Cooper Middle School, which didn’t have a football program, so he played for Team Legion, a club football program for middle school-aged players in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area.
[5-star forward Baba Oladotun commits to Maryland men’s basketball]
There, Jianni Davis met Marvin Brown II, the head coach of Team Legion and an assistant coach at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville.
Jianni Davis’s familiarity with Brown led him to enroll at DeMatha Catholic, but he barely played as a freshman. Myron Flowers, Jianni Davis’ trainer, said the years off of football likely kept him from seeing the field.
“Going to a school like DeMatha, and Jianni not being super experienced, I didn’t think they were going to have the patience,” Flowers said. “They are so used to getting a lot of talent over there … meaning if you ain’t got it right away, you’re not gonna play.”
For a raw prospect like Jianni Davis, who spent several years away from the sport, playing time was exactly what he needed. The lack of game action, coupled with an academic environment that wasn’t the right fit, wore on him.
“Going into my sophomore year, I felt like I was being drained … I just physically wasn’t there,” Jianni Davis said.
After his freshman year, Jianni Davis’ father consulted with his uncle and agreed to pull him out of DeMatha Catholic.
Jianni Davis wanted to stay in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference, one of the area’s premier high school athletic conferences, but also looked to transfer to a school where he was guaranteed playing time.
Bishop McNamara checked all of those boxes, so coach Gregory Calhoun welcomed Jianni Davis to the program.
Calhoun recognizes that Bishop McNamara provides players with an avenue to immediate playing time, whereas the conference’s powerhouse programs, such as DeMatha Catholic, often make players “wait their turn.”
Showcasing skills on film is paramount for players who aspire to play at the collegiate level, Calhoun said. It took Jianni Davis only two games to do so.
Two games after his three-sack breakout game in the season opener, an injury sidelined Jianni Davis for the season. The limited film was still enough for Campbell to offer him — the first of his 12 Division I offers.
Jianni Davis later received an offer from coach Michael Locksley and Maryland, though he didn’t initially realize it. He visited College Park with Bishop McNamara and teammate Lugard Edokpayi, an upperclassman who already held an offer from the Terps.
“I thought it was just big bro taking little bro to just go see the facility,” Davis said. “But [Locksley] came over to me … and gave some wristbands and stuff, so I thought he was just saying what’s up.”
[Steve Blake’s jersey sits in the Maryland rafters. His son wants to continue that legacy.]
Locksley called Jianni Davis two months later and told him he offered him during his visit. Jianni Davis took another official visit to Maryland in June 2025, and said he already felt like a member of the team.
The Davis family has a long-standing relationship with Locksley. The Terps’ coach was Maryland’s recruiting coordinator from 1998 to 2002 and recruited Vernon Davis before leaving for Florida.
Maryland was also the only Power Four program to offer Davis. These factors made the decision to commit to Maryland a natural choice.
Jianni Davis will join a Maryland pass-rushing group loaded with young talent. Freshmen Sidney Stewart and Zahir Mathis have been among the Big Ten’s best defensive line tandems, combining for 13 sacks through 21 games. Zion Elee, the No. 5 prospect nationally, per 247Sports’ composite rankings, is also slated to join the Terps next season.
Flowers believes Jianni Davis will thrive in the competition because of his experience competing with NFL talent. Under Flowers’ guidance, Jianni Davis has trained with New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs, Dallas Cowboys cornerback Trevon Diggs and Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Charles Snowden, among others.
He’s been around NFL talent his entire life. Before he was drafted sixth overall in 2006, Vernon Davis built one of the most remarkable legacies in Maryland football history. But his son wants to be known for something more than that.
“I do want to make my own legacy, make a name for myself,” Jianni Davis said. “I’m not just Vernon Davis’s son … I want to do something better that my father didn’t do.”
