RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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See the full story · 1 sourcesAug. 15—ST. JOSEPH — Cameron Wagner ended up on the ground.
A few seconds prior, the drive home for the St. Joseph resident was just that. A drive home on a late afternoon summer day in 2025 from working his summer job at Atkins Golf Club in Urbana.
A brief downpour was happening, though, with the 16-year-old Wagner behind the wheel of his blue 2005 Ford F150 truck.
"Nice little truck," Wagner said. "Not the biggest rig in the world."
Wagner said he was going around 45 mph before he approached a small bridge while driving in rural St. Joseph, just a few miles north of the Windsor and High Cross road intersection in Urbana. The two-lane country road is straight. No road markings on the ground. Just blacktop.
Minimal traffic most days.
Wagner had driven it countless times before since he turned 16 in November 2024 and had gotten his driver's license. But this was one ride, for a high school senior who has visited some of college football's most iconic stadiums across the country and enters the 2026 high school football season as The News-Gazette's choice for its preseason All-Area Player of the Year, Wagner won't ever forget.
Because his life changed.
Could have ended, too.
"I was on the phone, talking through the bluetooth speaker, with Penn State's old assistant offensive line coach," Wagner told The News-Gazette two weeks ago, sitting inside a vacant locker room at St. Joseph-Ogden High School. "He was calling to check in on me. Right before that bridge, there's a small dip. I hit the dip and started hydroplaning."
Another car was driving on the road at the same time. In the opposite direction, heading toward Urbana.
"I slide and hit head-on with the other car," Wagner said. "I go into one of the deeper ditches, and I roll four or five times."
Wearing his seat belt, Wagner never lost consciousness. His airbag never went off. Once he got his bearings and once his truck came to a stop, he realized he was upside down in a nearby field after his truck flipped.
"My knees were against the dash. I had nowhere to go," Wagner said. "But I was completely fine. I had a bruise across my chest from the seat belt and my knee was cut up a little bit, but for how bad of a crash it was and for how fast I was going, I had nowhere to go because I was so big."
Wagner cuts an imposing figure for a 17-year-old. Standing 6 feet, 7 inches and weighing 305 pounds, Wagner is easy to spot on a high school football field underneath the Friday night lights. A starter since his freshman season at SJ-O, Wagner will look to assert his will against opposing defensive linemen all season as the Spartans' starting left tackle. College coaches across the country have taken notice during the last two-plus years, flocking to St. Joseph in an effort to woo him to become a permanent fixture on their campus and around their facilities.
Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame. Bret Bielema at Illinois. Luke Fickell at Wisconsin. Dan Lanning at Oregon.
Oregon is where Wagner will spend the 2027 college football season after he committed to Lanning and the Ducks this past May, doing so in front of a packed auditorium at SJ-O and doing so live on 'The Pat McAfee Show,' on ESPN.
All those moments, of a promising junior season with the Spartans, of prominent college coaches stopping by a small Champaign County town, of Wagner unzipping a maroon SJ-O pullover to reveal a black Oregon T-shirt for a live national audience, almost never happened.
"If I had hit my head in a different spot, I could have died," Wagner said, "and if I didn't have my seat belt on, I would have died."
Fast forward a year later.
The SJ-O football team is going through a late summer evening practice against LeRoy. With the Spartans' offense trying to get as many plays in as possible during a two-minute drill situation, Wagner seemingly has his way against the Panthers' defensive line.
The way he easily moves defensive linemen out of the way for a run play or more than holds his own to protect SJ-O quarterback Lane McKinney is easy to spot.
"His length makes him difficult to work around," said BJ Zeleznik, LeRoy's veteran coach who is in his 24th season leading the Panthers and has a school-record 146 victories. "As big as he is, he's light on his feet for his size."
Figuring out how to gameplan against Wagner is a topic Illini Prairie Conference coaches will have to deal with this season. And have since the 2023 season.
Paxton-Buckley-Loda coach Josh Pritchard, whose Panthers will host SJ-O on Aug. 28, remembers Wagner as a freshman with the Spartans.
"His second start ever was against us, and it's been crazy watching his growth," Pritchard said. "His footwork has really come along."
"You have to be cognizant of where he is at all times," added Monticello coach Cully Welter. Welter, like Zeleznik, is an Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee and has led Monticello to 16 playoff appearances since 2009, including a 2018 Class 3A state title. "St. Joe is creative in what they do and how they use him, but you know that when push comes to shove, they're going to be running behind him."
Prairie Central coach Andrew Quain, back for his second stint leading the Hawks after he went 32-8 at Prairie Central from 2019-22, and his players will get the first chance to go against Wagner this season. SJ-O hosts Prairie Central at 7 p.m. next Friday in the season opener at Dick Duval Field in St. Joseph. Quain served as an assistant coach with the Hawks during the 2025 season and one image from the two teams playing in their season opener a year ago at Lewis Field in Fairbury still reverberates.
"He took one of our top linemen last year and just tossed him in the air," Quain said. "He pulled ...
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