Five years ago, everyone seemed to want star New Jersey football player Donovan Bunch.

The Winslow Township High School senior received offers to play college football at nearly a dozen schools with prestigious programs, including Pitt, Duke, Georgia Tech, Syracuse and Rutgers.

After briefly committing to Rutgers, he ultimately settled on the University of Maine. The school announced the 17-year-old cornerback’s decision with great anticipation in July 2019.

“Donovan is an exceptional person and player that will be a great addition to our team,” a statement by the head coach proclaimed.

Five years later, he is facing a prison sentence for an elaborate bank fraud scheme — and plenty of questions about how his promising future slipped away.

Bunch says he made “bonehead decisions” when he was too young to realize what he was sacrificing.

“People followed me. People wanted to be like me because I had all these offers. I had a good thing going for myself,” he said. “I’m 23 now with a lot of lessons learned.”

“If I could go back and change it, I definitely would,” he said.

Bunch pleaded guilty in April to charges of illegally possessing a firearm as a convicted felon and conspiring to commit bank fraud.

Along with three others, he was accused in an elaborate scheme of stealing checks from blue U.S. mail collection boxes using stolen keys to unlock the boxes.

They then created counterfeit checks or altered the stolen checks themselves to increase their value and changed the name of the recipient to someone tied to the scheme, according to court documents.

The checks, each with a value of several thousand dollars, were deposited and the funds withdrawn before banks discovered the checks were fraudulent, according to prosecutors. The conspiracy involved hundreds of altered checks and transactions at banks across South Jersey.

Co-defendants Tracy Felder-Carter, Dante Ford, and Quamell Keyes-Griffin previously pleaded guilty to their roles in the scheme and are awaiting sentencing, prosecutors said in April.

As part of the investigation, officers searched Bunch’s car in 2023 and found a stolen pistol loaded with 14 rounds of ammunition. Bunch was on probation as a result of a prior New Jersey felony conviction at the time.

In that prior case, he pleaded guilty in 2022 to third-degree counts of theft by unlawful taking and burglary in Gloucester County. He was sentenced to two years probation.

He’s scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 18 on the federal charges.

Donovan Bunch is shown with then-Winslow head football coach Kenny Scott in 2018.(Kevin Minnick | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)

Bunch’s life has changed drastically since his years in high school, when opportunities began to open up for him as college approached.

“It was a good experience. I had wonderful people around me. I had great resources, coaches, teachers, the whole nine, the whole high school experience,” he said. “It honestly went great for me.”

He was excited by the chance to play for Maine and fell in love with the school and the atmosphere, he said.

Once he got there, though, Bunch said he was disappointed.

He ended up playing in only one game his freshman year and was gone from the team after a few games after he failed a drug test, he said. He admitted he had smoked marijuana.

Bunch recalled a meeting with the head coach.

“He pulled me into his office and he basically said I was off the team due to that failed drug test,” he said.

His world had revolved around football and now that world was falling apart.

“I was so young and young-minded and I wasn’t fully aware of my situation,” Bunch said. “I didn’t take full advantage of my situation. So I made some bonehead decisions.”

He left school before the end of his freshman year and returned to South Jersey. He wanted to enroll in another school.

“But I was distracted. I was young. I wanted to do other things,” he said.

His college experience left him lost and disenchanted with his beloved sport.

“It just took the whole love of football out of me,” Bunch said. “Everything in my life revolved around football. I didn’t have a life besides football. I didn’t know what to do with myself.”

He started hanging around with the “wrong people,” he said.

“When I left Maine, I felt like people just gave up on me and I kind of basically gave up on myself,” he said. “It was really just me hanging around with the wrong people and being a bonehead. Just wanted to take the easy route out.”

That wasn’t who he thought he was, Bunch said.

“I never took the easy road ever in my life. I always worked hard for everything I got. I’ve always been a team player,” he said. “I’ve always been someone you can rely on.”

One of his former high school football coaches, Kenny Scott, was stunned when he heard about the criminal charges. He recalled Bunch as a good kid who stayed out of trouble in high school.

Court records say Bunch had no juvenile record.

Being far from home for college may have contributed to his problems, according to his attorney, Martin Isenberg.

“I know that he was recruited at Rutgers and that they wanted him and it might have been better if he stayed in the area with his family,” Isenberg said.

He called Bunch’s story tragic.

“Everything went south for him. I think he had a tremendous love of football and whatever happened up in Maine he just lost that,” Isenberg said. “It’s a shame. It’s tragic.”

Donovan Bunch was a star on Winslow Township High School’s football team. (Andrew Mills | NJ Advance Media)

Another former head coach at Winslow, Kemp Carr, recalled Donovan as one of the hardest workers he’s ever known.

“All I know Donovan for being is a great kid that would listen and do anything that the coach asked,” Carr said. “He was very respectful and a kid that understood the mission when I was there as his head coach.”

Scott, former head coach at Winslow, said he hasn’t been in touch with Bunch or his family since he headed to college. He’s been trying to respect their privacy in light of the federal court case.

At the same time, Scott said he’s been thinking about his role as a coach and mentor to students and wondering if he could have done something differently during his time working with Bunch.

“Is there something that I didn’t do to help him?” Scott said. “I’d like to think that my interactions with Donovan during that time were beneficial. I think I did the best I could, but it is very disappointing and unfortunate that he’s in this experience.”

Bunch is currently enrolled in a culinary program and spoke about his future plans on his lunch break.

“I always had a passion to cook,” he said. “I’m taking this course and I love it. It’s doing good things for me in my head, keeping me in the right mind space.”

He hopes to eventually pursue a career using his culinary skills.

“That’s where my head is at right now and it’s keeping me in line with myself and it’s keeping me afloat,” Bunch said.

He knows his parents dreamed of him achieving bigger goals in life and never imagined his current legal issues.

“I know they’re disappointed in certain things that I’m involved in, but one thing they never did was leave my side,” he said. “I have the most supportive family ever. I can’t tell you how much my parents and my siblings mean to me.”

As he works on rebuilding his life, he’s not sure what kind of sentence he’ll receive in August.

The firearms charge carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison, while the bank fraud charge has a maximum penalty of 30 years.

“I don’t know how it will go, but the judge can go either way,” Bunch said. “He can make an example out of me, he can show me a little bit of gratitude. But honestly, I don’t know. It’s in God’s hands.”

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Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com.