Hillsborough’s Thomas Amankwaa (Mike Pavlichko)
Thomas Amankwaa – now a state champion – plans to graduate Hillsborough High School early and enroll at Rutgers for the Spring semester, once he signs his National Letter of Intent on December 15th, the first day of the “early” signing period.
Amankwaa spoke of his decision exclusively with Central Jersey Sports Radio Wednesday afternoon.
Amankwaa and the Raiders are coming off a perfect 13-0 season, the first in school history, and their first state championship in 21 years. That came three weeks ago when they beat North Brunswick for the Central Jersey Group 5 title at Noonan Field.
READ MORE: Hillsborough’s Amankwaa gets offer from Rutgers, verbals to Knights, all within 48 hours
Not only was it an all-time best year for Hillsborough – the first school in Somerset County ever to win 13 games in a season – but Amankwaa had a record-setting career. He owns the school marks for touchdown catches (28), total TDs (50), and total points scored (304), as well as receiving yards, breaking Jackson Parham’s mark (2014-17) in Saturday’s regional championship game win against Kingsway, finishing with 2,184.
This season, he began taking the ball at running back to help replace some of the productivity of the graduated Sean Levonaitis, and had career bests at both positions: 853 receiving yards and 12 TDs, along with 1,125 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns.
Amankwaa had a number of Power 5, FBS and FCS offers heading into this season, but was waiting for an offer from Rutgers, which came in-person from Scarlet Knight head coach Greg Schiano when the Hillsborough senior was on the field for the Delaware game. He committeed two days later.
Click below to hear Tommy Amankwaa talk about his decision to graduate high school early, and enroll at Rutgers for the Spring: