Aug 21, 2022 4 min read

When the offense takes the football field for West Greene High School, don’t look at the running backs for Colin Brady.

He won’t be there.

Try a peek behind center or a few steps backs. That’s where he’ll be.

In an effort to spark more productivity from the offense, Brady, a 6-2, 185-pound junior, will handle the football on more than just running plays.

“I’m pretty excited about it,” said Brady. “I’m willing to play where my coach wants me to be, whatever helps the team out the most.”

Brady gained 1,444 rushing yards and scored 20 touchdowns, good enough for 10th place and 19th place in the WPIAL, all classifications, last season. He averaged 9.2 yards per carry. Brady helped West Greene become the third-highest scoring team in Class A (33.3 points per game).

So why the move to quarterback? Well, last year’s starter at the position, Wes Whipkey, graduated and only one other player was listed as playing there on the roster.

“We’re going to be pretty young,” said West Greene head coach Brian Hanson. “We have four returning starters on defense and three returning starters on defense.”

Because of its relative youth, Hanson wants the football in the hands of veterans, so if that means moving Brady to quarterback, then so be it.

“Colin has a chance at some records,” Hanson said. “He probably won’t catch (Benjamin) Jackson’s rushing record or touchdown record. He is tied with Jackson for rushing yards per game. What hurt him was his freshman year. He averaged 135 yards a game but we only played six games (because of COVID-19).”

Brady has experience playing quarterback. He last played there regularly three years ago.

“It started to be a thing at the end of last season,” said Brady. “Over this summer, they put me at quarterback to help the team.”

As a running back, Brady had to know where everyone was going in the backfield for the play to work. So switching to quarterback won’t require a major change in preparations.

“It’s not a big change thought-wise but I feel like it’s a different style,” said Brady. “It’s going to be fun.

“I throw the football fairly well. I’ve played baseball since I was 5 so throwing a football is not too different.”

Brady will have an opportunity to play other positions, such as wide receiver, but mainly to fill a gap.

“It would mainly be if there was someone not there,” he said. “If someone was out with an injury or it was the other team’s weakness (on defense). It just depends on the game.”

Brady is one of three returning starters on offense. The other two are junior Johnny Lampe, who played at running back last season, and junior Brian Andrew Jackson, who starts on both sides of the line.

On defense, Brady and Lampe return to their linebacker positions. Bill Whitlatch, a junior defensive back, led the team in tackles last year.

Sophomore Patrick Durbin, Whitlatch and junior Seth Burns will be Brady’s main targets when he throws the football. A battle in camp finds junior Cooper Chambers and junior Parker Burns vying for the tight end position.

West Greene, which went 8-3 overall last year, returns to the Class A Tri-County South Conference that was devastated during the playoffs. Not one playoff team won its first-round game.

“I think we’re in the middle of the pack with Beth-Center, Carmichaels and the like,” Hanson said. “(In last year’s playoffs), we lost to Springdale, Mapletown lost to Rochester, Carmichaels lost to Shenango and Monessen lost to Cornell.

“It was pretty disappointing to me because I thought we would perform a lot better against Springdale. But, hey, hats off to them. They came in and outplayed us.”