The 2018 Catoosa-walker County Football Dream Team Offense

The last time Heritage High School fans had seen Nolan Letzgus on a football field - prior to this past season - came in 2016 when, as a sophomore, he had 94 total kick return yards in two games and made two tackles in another game as a defensive back.

The 2018 season would prove to be a little more fruitful.

Letzgus missed the first four games of his senior season, but more than made up for it once he finally took the field. With over 1,300 all-purpose yards and 10 total touchdowns in just seven games, Letzgus became a defensive coordinator’s nightmare and was a big piece of the puzzle as the Generals overcame heavy graduation losses to make it back to the Class AAAA state playoffs.

Today, he is being honored as the 2018 Catoosa County Offensive Player of the Year.

“It feels pretty great,” Letzgus said of winning the award. “I certainly didn’t expect it. I was just trying to have a fun year and things turned out well.”

Letzgus, coming off a huge spring as an infielder on the Generals’ Final Four baseball team, ultimately opted not have surgery in order to give football another shot in his final prep season.

“I was dealing with some injuries and I was going to have surgery, but I decided not to,” he explained. “I just wanted to play (football), so I came back.”

The Generals were glad he did.

His first game back on the gridiron came in the Region 6-AAAA opener against Ridgeland. Heritage would lose the game, but the 6-foot2, 185-pounder introduced himself to the Panthers and the rest of the region with 12-reception, 105-yard, oneTD performance...and he was just getting started.

He followed up with six catches for 158 yards and two touchdowns in a shootout win over Lafayette and later piled up 137 yards and a score on six grabs against Gilmer. Then in two big victories against the Whitfield County schools, he was virtually unstoppable.

Letzgus racked up eight catches for 210 yards and three touchdowns against Southeast and added a 98-yard kick return for a fourth score. Two weeks later versus Northwest, he torched the Bruins for 226 yards and two TD’S on nine catches and tacked on an 86-yard kick return to set up a Heritage touchdown.

Even in a first-round state playoff loss to eventual state semifinalist Marist, Letzgus still found a way to put up nearly 150 all-purpose yards, including 46 receiving, 44 in returns and a 56-yard TD pass on his only throw of the year.

“He had missed the preseason, but he came to me later wanting to come out and play,” Heritage head coach E.K. Slaughter said. “We put some difficult expectations on him, but he did everything we asked him to do and when he first got out there, he was just a beast. He had a huge first game against Ridgeland and just took off from there.”

Not only did Letzgus help the Generals’ passing attack go from 133.5 yards a game in the first four games to just shy of 200 yards a game over the final seven, he also averaged 38.1 yards on 10 returns (seven kick returns, three punt returns) to help give his team solid field position.

“He’s a really good player,” Slaughter added. “His measurables are decent, but what makes him so good is because he’s just a competitor that wants to win. Not only is he a good athlete, but he’s naturally gifted as a receiver. He has good hands and knows how to set up defensive backs. All the different things you try and teach to receivers, he just does naturally. He’s got the ability and the competitive spirit.”

Letzgus humbly deferred to his teammates.

“Everyone was all in and we all just wanted to have fun,” he explained. “They helped me do the things that I can do and I helped them do the things that they could do. It all just worked out really well. I’m going to miss all my teammates around me and how they made it all fun, from practice to the games on Friday. It was a great atmosphere here.”