Highlanders boast “unbelievable depth”
On those brisk Friday nights in Claysville, Marcus Czulewicz patiently waited along the sidelines with the football in his hand.
He’d toss it but didn’t gain any passing yards. He ran with it but didn’t gain rushing yardage.
Czulewicz was the ballboy for the McGuffey Highlanders football team and he had a front seat to watch his brother, Matt, quarterback the team.
Someday, he thought during those stoppages in play, he would be quarterback. The fans would be cheering for the offense he was running. The games would turn on the plays he would help make. What he didn’t realize was how good he would be at it.
Czulewicz, a 6-1, 195-pound senior, is quarterback in the spread offense of coach Ed Dalton and more than just the fans in the school district believe this can be a special season.
”The expectations are really high,” said Czulewicz. “In the last few years, we’ve made the first round of the playoffs. We want to go deep into the playoffs.”
Czulewicz, who runs in the neighborhood of 4.6 seconds in the 40-yard dash, was a dual threat last year playing against Class AA competition. Now, because of the PIAA’s move to six classifications over the winter, the Highlanders find themselves in Class AAA and playing such teams as Elizabeth Forward, South Park, Mount Pleasant, Waynesburg and Yough.
”I think (the new classifications) narrow things down and puts teams against the teams they should be playing,” said Czulewicz. “Our conference is good from top to bottom. We’ll see how good we are but I think we can go pretty far.”
Czulewicz had 1,762 total yards last season. He completed 76 of 137 passes for 957 yards and rushed for 787 more. His nine touchdowns led the Highlanders, who went 5-3 in the Class AA Interstate Conference – good enough for third place – and 6-4 overall.
”Going into my junior year, I put in a lot of work that summer,” said Czulewicz. “It seems the more work you put in, the slower the game gets. Everything starts to slow down. You start to understand things. That’s when I realized I had the chance to be pretty good.
”I watched a lot of film at the end of the year with Coach Dalton and saw my reads. It was the first time I got into the read offense, so I was still rough on some of my reads. Just making smart decisions and not forcing the ball anywhere (will make me improve).”
Dalton is impressed as much with Czulewicz’s mental skills as his physical ones.
”He’s got a good intellect, a 60-yard throwing arm and a decent-sized kid,” Dalton said. “In the spread, he’s everything you want at the line of scrimmage. He can throw, he can run it and he’s a major threat to the defense.”
And Dalton is encouraging Czulewicz to be more selfish with the football.
”He has the ball in his hand every play,” Dalton said. “He can read (defenses) even better and keep the ball more than last year. I think he knows that. We have very high expectations. He’s a major reason everyone thinks we’re going to be pretty good.”
Dalton said it was easy to see Czulewicz’s skills, even at an early age.
”He was the eighth-grade quarterback and he was really good, composed, a good defender. I think the team went 7-1 and he did such a good job,” said Dalton. “We already had Nate Whipkey in the program so we thought at quarterback, we were sitting pretty good with two good ones two years apart.”
Junior Adam Townsend is coming off a sophomore season in which he rushed for 636 yards and scored six touchdowns. The Highlanders lost two strong receivers in Shaun Sanders (22 rec., 235 yds., 7 TDs) and Connor Thompson (18, 207, 1). Junior Joey Townsend (15, 244, 8) and senior Tyler Bedillion are part of a talented group of receivers who will rotate.
Marko Olivarez, a 6-4, 275-pound lineman, and Chase Miller, a 6-2, 230-pound inside linebacker, are getting Division I looks. And Eddie Shingle, a 6-3, 255-pound senior, is a strong two-way player along the line.
”What we have at McGuffey that we never had before is unbelievable depth,” said Dalton. “We have 30 offensive linemen, a roster of 60 players, 22 juniors. We think the way we play, that’s going to be to our advantage. We only really have to replace some receivers and one defensive back. We have nine starters back on defense and, really, we had 14 kids who played on defense last year. We have eight starters back on offense and there might be 16 or 17 kids who played a lot of offense.”