Running on Empty?
huge numbers in one specific area, but creating havoc from multiple spots on the field.
Size and speed have always won in football, it’s now just coming in different forms.
“It’s definitely gotten more athletic,” Avon Grove coach Harry O’Neill said of the typical high school offense. “They’re getting away from the big backs you used to see in college and pro football. The fullback in high school is at best, 50/50. Every week there’s a lot more one-back formations and shifts and motions with the backs. The field is played sideline to sideline.”
A quick look at the PIAA career passing totals on Wikipedia shows not a single name in the top 12 who played before 2002.
Teams like those of Central Bucks West, which ran teams over with massive lines and huge fullbacks in the 90s, are few and far between. Quarterbacks are slowly but surely taking over the reins as the premier difference makers in high school. Look no further than Stephen Sturm, who set several records as quarterback at Perkiomen Valley last season.
Part of that stems from the 7-on-7 wave that dominates offseasons. Quarterback camps and gurus are a dime a dozen, and while that doesn’t always work for your local high school, elite prep schools have the ability to find top signal callers.
For the locals, you can count on one hand the amount of transcendent quarterbacks who have come through in the 2000s. It’s the toughest position to fill at a high level, forcing running backs to stay relevant.
“I think at the high school level the run will always be there,” West Chester Rustin coach Mike St. Clair said. “When you can’t recruit, you have what you have, and sometimes you have better runners than throwers.”
The running game will always be a vital part of football, at any level. What running backs are asked to do may be evolving a bit, but talent and skill sets are always the determining factor.
“Barring any rule changes, absolutely, football is still football,” West Chester Henderson coach Steve Mitten said. “Football, for all the changes that have occurred, is still very much the same game.”