Martin Luther duo has connection
Prior to the 2020 prep football season, the Journal Sentinel will reveal the Supreme 17, a look at the top players in the area to watch. Each day before the first day of practices Sept. 6, one player will be revealed with a feature story. This is our sixth installment.
The numbers jump off the page, but the success lies in the subtleties.
As juniors in 2019, Martin Luther quarterback Brady Hoppert and wide receiver Sylvere Campbell combined for 61 completions for 1,076 yards and 16 touchdowns. They hooked up for a score in every one of their 11 games.
No receiver in the state had more touchdown receptions than Campbell and he caught every last one of them from Hoppert.
“Their statistical success, yeah, we didn't quite expect that,” said Rick Hoppert, who pulls double duty as Spartans head coach and Brady's father.
The head coach may not have seen those eye-popping numbers coming, but Campbell did.
“To us, last year wasn't a surprise because we always had that connection,” he said.
The secret to the success
The connection is often subtle, treacherously so for the defense, but it's a driving factor for Hoppert and Campbell. You may see Campbell strolling into the end zone, but unless you're looking closely, you may miss the tenuous adjustment at the line of scrimmage that set it up.
The nod of a head. A hand wave. A look of the eye.
One small movement or glance from either quarterback or receiver is enough for them to both know the route has been changed.
“If Sylvere's on the line and he knows he can beat his man and I know he can beat him, we'll just kind of give each other a look,” Hoppert said.
Those on-the-fly adjustments have proven hard to stop, especially as opponents have learned they can't take everything away.
Hoppert and Campbell started having the freedom to rewire the called route at the line of scrimmage a couple of games into last season. Teams were starting to shift greater attention toward Campbell on the outside, often giving a cushion at the line of scrimmage with safety help over the top to combat the fade route that the Spartans pair had mastered.
Without barking out any audibles most of the time, Hoppert would know Campbell was going to break it off into an underneath route until the defensive looks were once again conducive for a deep ball. Then they would go back to popping the top off the defense.
“They execute the fade route really well and so, when teams played over the top of that, they just dink and dunk and so they're able to read that on the fly,” Rick said. “It's been a process. They're really good now at knowing what the other is doing to do. I think I'll probably be even more hands-off this year.”
The duo's connection dates back to the summer before their freshman year when they first met at Martin Luther.
“My first question I ever asked him was, ‘Are you a scrambling quarterback?'” Campbell said.
The answer: an emphatic no. “I'm alright with that now,” Campbell said with a laugh.
A connection years in the making
Hoppert didn't take over the starting quarterback job until last fall, playing defensive back and seeing occasional reps at receiver as a sophomore. Nik Mueller was the quarterback for three years, helping lead the Spartans to Level 4 of the playoffs as a junior and Level 3 as a senior, but Hoppert always figured to be next in line.
“Just from the depth that we had in our program, I knew he would take over and follow Nik when he graduated,” Rick said. “I knew he would take over as a junior.”
Something else that Rick knew in advance was that Martin Luther would have to pass the ball more last fall, and it wasn't just because his son was assuming the reins.
With all-state running back and twotime 2,000-yard rusher Darios CrawleyReid in the backfield as a senior, the Spartans passed just 35% of the time in 2018. Last year, that figure jumped to 45%.
“I definitely like it,” Brady said. “It's a little more pressure. If you can run the ball because you're good at it, less can go wrong, but we're comfortable doing either.”
Campbell has started as a defensive back since he was a sophomore and has five interceptions and three touchdowns on that side of the ball.
Campbell isn't the most physically imposing wideout at 6 feet and 185 pounds, but he has separated himself by honing in on the technical aspect of the position.
“He's got really good hands and he understands positioning very well,” Rick said.
“He's not the fastest guy that can run away from a lot of people, but he understands how to position himself to get his hands on the ball. That's his biggest strength.”
Said Brady: “If I'm throwing it into triple coverage, he'd go up and get it. I see a target that goes up and catches everything.”
The Spartans not only return Hoppert and Campbell, but also Aundreas Griffin and Jacob Hartlaub, who accounted for another 65 catches, 1,030 yards receiving and 13 touchdowns last year. Add in eight of the top nine tacklers also returning from a team that went 8-3 a year ago and you can start to see why there's burgeoning optimism around Martin Luther.
“We've got a lot of guys coming back and it's not just me and Brady,” Campbell said. “It's a lot.”