The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Petruccelli makes early impression at Mount
Perry graduate leaps into freshman season with Purple Raiders
Division III college football programs can’t measure recruits for vertical jumps, so Mount Union coach Vince Kehres had no idea what was coming Sept. 16.
Matt Rosati has seen this routine before. Josh Petruccelli hurdling a defender while running with the football is old hat for the Perry football
coach.
The difference in what the former Perry running back pulled off in his second game at Mount Union as opposed to when he was in high school is that a national audience saw it.
“Probably at least six times,” Rosati said. “He got penalized for it three times, but I didn’t care. I encouraged him to do it. I just loved watching him do it.”
“Do it” as in Petruccelli running and jumping over defenders while at Perry as a running back.
It’s a 15-yard penalty in high school to do so, but not in college.
When Petruccelli did it for the first time as a Purple Raiders freshman running back Sept. 16 vs. Marietta, Kehres did a double take.
“I was like, ‘Did he just jump over that player?’ ” Kehres said in a phone interview. “I asked my assistants, ‘Did you see what he just did?’ ”
It was quite an impression for Petruccelli, who’s quickly making his mark as a freshman at one of the best Division III programs in the nation. At a program the quality of Mount — winners of 12 national championships in football — that’s not easy to do. Kehres said the program brings in about 70 to 75 freshmen each season. Few make immediate contributions, but Petruccelli isn’t the norm.
His highlight-reel play vs. a Marietta defender brought oohs and aahs from the crowd in the 69-3 win.
Following the game, a Mount Union official submitted the video to ESPN, and it made the cut for “SportsCenter” Top 10 plays for Sept. 16.
Petruccelli’s arrival and immediate impact at Mount Union is mostly of his own doing, Kehres said.
“He showed up to camp ready to go and bigger and stronger than I remember when I saw him on tape,” Kehres said. “He looked like one of our returning starters.”
Rosati said Petruccelli had interest from colleges from all levels that included Mid-American Conference schools, FCS Youngstown State and John Carroll.
A knee injury suffered before his senior season at Perry was an issue because it prevented the 5-foot-8, 190-pound Petruccelli from participating in several college summer camps.
“That really hurt Josh in the recruiting process,” Rosati said. “These colleges need to see the kids in person, and Josh wasn’t able to do that.”
Instead, he made a push to be ready for the start of his senior season in which the Pirates made it to a state semifinal before bowing out of the playoffs. Petruccelli made it back to the field by Perry’s first regular-season game, but wasn’t 100 percent until late in the season.
He chose Mount Union over John Carroll in January, then went to work increasing his speed and strength. Petruccelli joined Perry’s track and field team, and helped the 4x100 team qualify for the state meet.
The plan for Petruccelli was to do anything and everything to not just show up in Alliance, but be ready to contribute immediately.
“That’s what I told the coaches at Mount,” Rosati said. “He will make an immediate impact.”
That’s what Petruccelli has done. In two games, he’s Mount’s leading rusher with 125 yards on 14 carries (8.9yard average). Against Marietta, he rushed for a gamehigh 88 yards on seven carries and scored his first two collegiate touchdowns on runs of 5 and 17 yards.
He might have started the season No. 2 at running back on the team’s depth chart, but Kehres expects Petruccelli to be a major contributor going forward.
“What he’s doing isn’t a surprise,” the Mount coach said. “When we turned on the video of him in high school, he just did so many good things. He lined up in the slot (as a receiver), threw passes from the wildcat, he played defensive back, he returned kicks and blocked kicks. He can so many different things, and that makes him a valuable football player.”
At Mount Union, freshmen are off limits to the media, but not the football field on game days. Petruccelli could one day be the next in a long line of great Purple Raiders running backs. Time will tell on that narrative.
“What he’s doing right now (playing as a freshman) isn’t easy to do, but the bar is pretty high for him,” Kehres said. “We pride ourselves on taking young players and developing them to be starters as they get older, but Josh is definitely ahead of schedule for us.”