St. Frances Academy sits on Bel Air Road in northeast Baltimore. It is a Catholic school with roughly 400 students, a wrestling program that has won more state titles than most schools have trophies, and a football team that has quietly become one of the most productive pipelines to professional football in the entire country.
In the 2026 NFL Draft, four players who once walked those hallways heard their names called across three days in Pittsburgh.
Only IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida produced more, and IMG Academy is essentially a professional development factory disguised as a high school, with recruiting budgets and resources that most college programs would envy.
St. Frances Academy is not that. It is a Baltimore school in a Baltimore neighborhood, and it just sent four of its own to the NFL.
Derrick Moore went first. The Detroit Lions moved up to take him in the second round with the 44th overall pick, trading a fourth-round selection to the Jets to make sure nobody else got there first.
Moore is an edge rusher from Michigan, a powerful and disruptive presence off the ball who Detroit sees as a complement to Aidan Hutchinson on the other side.
The Lions gave up capital to get him. That is the kind of pick that tells you everything about how a team values a player.
Jaishawn Barham went next, to the Dallas Cowboys in the third round at pick 92.
Barham is a linebacker with edge rushing experience, a versatile defender who played at Michigan after leaving Baltimore.
He and Moore were teammates at St. Frances before they were teammates at Michigan, which means two players from the same Baltimore high school ended up on the same college roster and both got drafted, one right after the other, on back-to-back days in Pittsburgh.
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That alone is worth sitting with for a moment
Jude Bowry went to the Buffalo Bills in the fourth round at pick 102.
Bowry is an offensive tackle from Boston College, a Germantown native who started at left tackle as a redshirt sophomore and earned a Senior Bowl invitation and a combine appearance before landing in Buffalo.
The Bills see him as someone who can eventually push for a starting role on the interior of the line.
Elijah Sarratt closed it out, going to the Baltimore Ravens with the 115th pick. Sarratt is a wide receiver who grew up in Virginia, attended St. Frances, started his college career at James Madison, followed head coach Curt Cignetti to Indiana, and then caught 65 passes for 830 yards and 15 touchdowns on a team that won the national championship.
The Ravens drafted him as a possession receiver to work behind Zay Flowers and Rashod Bateman.
He went to the team in the city where he went to high school, which is the kind of ending that does not happen very often and means something when it does.
St. Frances Academy has always produced football talent. The school has a long history of sending players to major college programs, and the football program operates at a level that attracts recruits from across the region.
But four players in a single draft, trailing only IMG Academy among all high schools in the country, places the program in a conversation that most people have not started having yet.
IMG Academy has millions of dollars in infrastructure and pulls talent from across the world.
St. Frances Academy has Bel Air Road and a track record built on development and coaching and the kind of culture that keeps alumni connected long after they leave.
Moore and Barham did not just go to the NFL from the same high school. They stayed together for four years after graduating, played on a Michigan team that competed at the highest level, and both got drafted in the first three rounds.
The bond that started in Baltimore carried them all the way to two different NFL sidelines.
Sarratt ends up in Baltimore. Bowry ends up in Buffalo. Moore ends up in Detroit. Barham ends up in Dallas.
Four different cities. Four different teams. One school on Bel Air Road that most people outside of Baltimore have never heard of.
That is the story nobody told when the picks were announced in Pittsburgh. IMG Academy Football keeps adding to one of the strongest NFL pipelines in high school football.
The program now has 30 NFL Draft picks since 2018, the most by any high school over the last decade, while also extending its streak to seven straight years with multiple draft selections.
The 2026 draft class became the second largest in program history, and IMG has also produced 10 first round picks since 2020, continuing a run that has turned the Florida powerhouse into one of football’s most consistent talent factories.
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