Protime’s Pigskin Parlance – 2024 Milestones, Record Breakers & Game Shakers – Edition 4

Tagged under: News, pfn, Protime Predictions

Phil Myers | September 18, 2024

Protime’s weekly column will attempt to get readers up to date on current football facts, stats, and miscellaneous tidbits of information from across the entire state of Pennsylvania.  His crack staff of one will peruse some, but not all newspapers and other sources for hopefully what will be up to date scoop on the previous week’s games, records, and hitherto unknown factoids of the sort.

Trivia question of the week: Who holds the NCAA Division 1 record for most career touchdown passes?

Couple Notes from Prior Weeks

In the second week Meadville beat Connellsville 48-41 in 4 overtimes.  Jacoby Thompson scored 4 touchdowns, 2 in the last five minutes, then saved the game with an interception in the end zone in the 4^th OT.  In the third week, Southern Columbia’s quarterback, Ayden Hockenbroch, threw 5 touchdown passes to 5 different receivers.  According to Coach Roth, that may never have happened at So. Columbia before.

Program Wins Milestones

These schools are really, really close: Schuylkill Haven has 599, Uniontown 499, Spring Grove and Pine Grove 299.

Coaching Milestones

These great coaches may get to somewhat of a milestone this year: John Franco and Jeff Weachter may get to 275 coaching victories, while Art Walker Jr. is closing in on number 250, finally Mark Lyons and Max Shoemaker have good shots at hitting 225 career wins.

Team Achievements

Johnstown stopped a very long 43-game losing streak by knocking off Central Cambria 47-36.  The following teams are 4-0 and haven’t been for quite some time (last year they were 4-0 in parenthesis): South Allegheny (1977), Leechburg (1981), and Jefferson-Morgan (1987).  Add to that Deer Lakes who is 4-0 for only the second time ever (2015).  California ran the ball to the tune of 503 yards.

Individual Achievements

Julius Reed #9 of Greater Johnstown.

Julius Reed of Johnstown was instrumental in the Trojans getting off the schneid last week as he was responsible for all 7 touchdowns, throwing for 5 and running for the other 2.  Aaron Pegues of Farrell went 14 of 16 passing for 326 yards and a trio of touchdowns.  Lee Qualk, California, rushed for 269 yards and 6 TDs.  Ty Salazar of State College went over the 2,000-yard mark in receiving yardage.  Spencer Althouse, Penns Valley, returned an interception 102 yards for a TD.

When Owen Roker of Punxsutawney kicks off the ball is high and usually falls inside the five.  He kicked field goals of 36 and 37 yards last week, both would have been good from 50 or more.   So, you say, others can do that.  Forgot to mention that Owen is only a freshman who kicked 40 and 50 yard field goals in junior high school football games.

Gabe Johnson, Northern York had 344 yards toting the ball.  Thomas Jefferson’s Brayden White grabbed 12 passes for 231 yards.  Carson Metz of Mercyhurst Prep recorded 6 sacks.  The state’s leading rusher, Braxtyn Brown of Columbia-Montour Vo-Tech, carried the agate 8 times for 307 yards and 4 touchdowns.  That’s an average of over 38 yards a touch.  Owen Rounsville of Smethport and Joe Flach Jr. of SCH Academy each had 3 picks in their games.  Susquehanna Township’s Kaseemh Singleton-Brown picked up 19 tackles last week.

School Record Breakers

Easton wide receiver, Jasir Frutchey, caught 4 passes for 131 yards and all 4 went for touchdowns which ties a school record.  Montour’s QB Trey Hopper threw for 436 yards which is now a school record.  He did that on only 12 completions, an average of 36 yards a completion.  Jaxon Covell of Titusville set the all-time school rushing record last week.  Daron Harris, Chester, tied the Clipper record by scoring 5 touchdowns.

On the defensive side, Dominic Fetterolf of Southern Columbia broke the school record for career tackle.  The old record was held by Cal Haladay who currently plays linebacker for Michigan State and has led the team in tackles each year he has played at MSU.  Middletown’s Genise Ross had a school record 99-yard fumble return touchdown.

Interesting Tidbits

Not often anymore do games end up low scoring.  Last week Eisenhower beat Iroquois 7-0.  This week we have more: South Park beat Steel Valley 7-0, Greensburg-Salem beat Ringgold 7-0, East Pennsboro got by Greencastle-Antrim 7-3, Mount Carmel beat Southern Columbia 7-6, and the one that tops them all, Franklin Regional slid past Greater Latrobe 3-0.  Clairton has only allowed one touchdown in 4 games.  The offense allowed the score on a turnover.  The Bear ‘D’ has not given up a single point yet.

Games of the Week

Again, this week some great ones, but this game fascinated me.  Roman Catholic (#1 in 5A) led Malvern Prep 14-0 in the first half, only to have Malvern score the next 17 points.  Malvern Prep went ahead 17-14 with eight and a half minutes left in the 4^th quarter.  That is when Roman’s QB Semaj Beals took over.  From what we understand, he called each play on their next possession and led them downfield for the winning touchdown.

Kids never quit no matter if you are trailing or if you were winning and the other team comes back.  That was the case when Springfield-Montco jumped out to a 21-0 lead not long into the second quarter against Elizabethtown.  Elizabethtown slowly climbed back into the game in part thanks to a bizarre play where E’town threw a pass that was deflected when trying to intercept which then bounced off another defender’s helmet into the hands of the intended receiver who raced downfield to score.  With 2 minutes and change left Elizabethtown completed the comeback and tied the game at 21.  Overtime would go E’town’s way the way things were going.  But a good return, followed by a long pass completion set Springfield-Montco up to kick the game-winning FG with 9 seconds left.

Answer to trivia question: Case Keenum of Houston threw 155 touchdown passes which is 13 more than Kellen Moore of Boise St.  Keenum played from 2007 to 2011.  He got an extra year with a medical redshirt because he got hurt in 2010 and only played in 3 games.

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