After a Thursday morning workout at Cary High, rising senior Fre’Shad Hunter hopped into a car with Imps coach Ben Kolstad and Sanderson’s rising senior Matt James and soon the trio headed out to Knoxville, Tenn.

Over the next few days, Hunter attended a football camp at the University of Tennessee, one of the eight schools offering him a football scholarship.

It’s been a meteoric rise for Hunter, who was named to the first team All-Tri-Eight in 2008 after his first season as a defensive end. A former linebacker, Hunter finished his junior year with six sacks and eight tackles for loss.

“Every game I told my team I was fired up,” Hunter said. “I was ready to go out there and give’em all I got and I had a big season.”

After a few good combine numbers, including a 4.7 40-yard dash at a combine in Charlotte, Hunter quickly became the most sought-after Imp football player since current Wake Forest running back Josh Adams.

Scout.com recently named Hunter the No. 4 senior prospect in North Carolina and the 12th-best defensive tackle in the country. Rivals.com has even loftier praise, calling Hunter the 10th-best defensive end in the country, and the 93rd-best player regardless of position.

“I expected [the recruiting attention], to be honest with you. I was a little surprised at how much attention he’s getting, but he’s got everything you look for,” Kolstad said.

“You can’t coach height and weight and the biggest thing about Fre’Shad is he’s just got a motor. He doesn’t know how to stop and slow it down — he’s full speed.”

Kolstad said Hunter was a pretty good linebacker — tallying 89 tackles in 2007 as a sophomore — but at 6’4 and 245 pounds, he outgrew the position.

“[Defensive end] was an easier fit for him,” Kolstad said. “We fell on it by mistake, we played him as a linebacker in kind of a flex position and he really excelled and started to make more plays there and he’s just gone from there.”

Hunter said he hopes to visit more out-of-state campuses this summer at different camps.

“I want to try to make my way to Florida and LSU but I don’t know if I can have the transportation out to those places, but those places would be nice places to go to,” Hunter said. “I know I’m going to try to go to South Carolina too.”

Hunter’s first scholarship offer came from N.C. State. The only other in-state school to offer, East Carolina, impressed Hunter when he camped there two weeks ago.

“I like coach Skip Holtz and coach Rock [Roggeman], the defensive [tackles] coach, they’re some nice people. I just like the atmos[phere] down at ECU, it’s a good school around home and N.C. State was my first scholarship offer so they’re obviously high on my list.”

Hunter said he sees himself continuing as a defensive end in college. He hopes to make his decision sometime next month.

“I told my mom I was thinking some time in July, probably before the season,” Hunter said. “But if it’s not before the season then sometime after the season.”

Kolstad said it’s an exciting time for the program as Hunter’s national interest continues to rise.

“It’s been exciting, not just for Fre’Shad with all the recruiting attention, but also the rest of our kids,” Kolstad said. “It kind of puts life into the kids as well, because they’ve got something to push forwards to. With guys coming to watch Fre’Shad, you never know who else might stick out.”

Last season, the Imps had the fewest varsity players of any school in the conference, but did make the playoffs on a 4-8 season. Three of those losses came after blowing leads entering the fourth quarter — a clear indicator of the lack of depth.

Hunter said he plans on playing offensive line and tight end as well as his usual defensive end spot, but Kolstad hopes to limit those opportunities to preserve his star lineman.

“We hope we can limit, as much as we can, how much he has to do that. He can [play offense] sparingly here and there,” Kolstad said. “He plays so hard one way it’s going to be hard to play him both ways. We’ll use him full-time D and some special teams and in key situations we’ll use him [on offense].”

Purdue, LSU, South Carolina, Florida State and Syracuse round out the teams that have offered Hunter a scholarship thus far.

As he prepares to make a decision on next year, Hunter is equally energized for the first game of his senior season — a rematch of last year’s 42-21 season-opening loss to Broughton.

“I’m getting ready for the first game because my coach told me that game is for war,” Hunter said. “They came to our house last year and they whuped us up pretty good. This year we want to send a message that we’re ready.”