Had you told Tyrone football coach John Franco in late August that the 2002 Golden Eagles would lose out on a Big 8 title by way of a nine-point loss to Huntingdon, earn a home playoff game and advance all the way to the District 5-6 AA semifinals, you may have been received with a quizzical grin, at best.
That’s because it was around that time that Franco found himself sharing a light moment with his team following one of the preseason banquets team members attend, and he realized his senior class hadn’t exactly set the world on fire as junior high players.
“I was sitting around with the team – it might have been after the Monogram Club banquet – and I was asking them who they thought would be good in the Big 8 this season,” recalled Franco last week, six days removed from the Eagles’ 21-13 playoff loss to Forest Hills. “I asked the seniors, ‘Well, who did you beat in junior high?’ They said they only had one win in junior high and that was by two points over Philipsburg-Osceola. That’s when I thought, ‘Oh boy!’”
It was the rise to success from relative obscurity by the senior class that was the story of the 2002 Tyrone football season.
“They were a group of kids that didn’t have everybody telling them how good they were,” said Franco. “They hadn’t experienced much success through their careers and we had lost a lot of players. There were a lot of kids that simply would not come out. I’m really proud of this group. They started with a lot against them.”
Tyrone began facing adversity as early as one year ago, when a young and depleted Eagle team fell short of the lofty expectations of a football hungry community. In 2001, Tyrone finished 5-5, lost a first-round playoff game for the first time in 13 years, and played .500 ball for the first time since Franco first season in 1994.
That was nothing compared to the tragic news that followed in May, when senior-to-be Randy Estright was killed in a car accident. That incident shook the entire class, and it served as a rallying point for the team, which dedicated its season in Estright’s memory.
The Eagles lost their fist two games of the season to Bellwood-Antis and Huntingdon and immediately found themselves at a crossroads.
“We had a couple of heartbreaking losses to start the season and considering all they had to overcome they could have easily packed it in,” said Franco. “But their resolve to get better and to make a run was unbelievable. They just kept coming to practice and listening to what we were telling them.”
Most people point to Week 7 – on the road against Philipsburg-Osceola – as the spot where the Eagles’ season began to turn.
It makes sense. After all, that game – a 14-7 Tyrone win – began a four-game winning streak, and it was the coming-out party for
sophomore running back Brice Mertiff, who gained 177 yards on the ground and scored two touchdowns. Led by an underclassmen dominated offensive line, Mertiff would go on to finish the season with 948 yards and 11 touchdowns, becoming the most prolific sophomore rusher at Tyrone since Jesse Jones.
Franco has a different take on the matter. The turning point, he said, came in the weeks following the near misses against Bellwood-Antis, Huntingdon, and Pius X – and the team’s resolve was not forged by its youngsters, but by its mostly unheralded seniors.
It was forged by players like captain Dan Grazier, a senior tight end and linebacker who put all of his money on the table for his senior season. Grazier gave up the end of his junior basketball season – in the midst of a playoff run – to have hand surgery so he could be healthy for his final year of football.
Then in Week 5 against Bellefonte, Grazier broke his left fibula and saw his football season, and perhaps his athletic career, flash before his eyes. He underwent experimental treatment, according to Franco, and tirelessly rehabbed in order to return just four weeks later against Punxsutawney. He played the rest of the season in pain and with a noticeable limp.
“I had to go to his doctor at one point to make sure he wasn’t in danger of hurting himself further,” said Franco. “This team had a lot of heart. I hope that the young players learned from that.”
Whether or not Tyrone’s young players learned lessons of grit and determination, one thing is for certain, they did learn. They had no choice.
Injuries and lack of participation forced an unusual amount of sophomores and even freshmen to play prominent roles in the Eagles’ starting rotations. By the final game of the regular season, Tyrone had two sophomores (Ben Gummo and Brandon Maceno) and a freshman (Briton Mingle) starting at linebacker, two sophomores (Gummo and Mertiff) in the offensive backfield, and two sophomores (Terry Tate and Ralph VanAllmen) starting on the offensive line.
That means the 2003 Eagles will be a uniquely veteran junior-oriented team.
“That helps us for the future,” said Franco. “We’ll have a lot of kids with experience back, especially on defense.”
That’s not to say Tyrone’s senior class lacked star power. Quarterback Tyler Mertiff and Aaron Jeffires provided that in abundance, and they became the top passing-catching duo in school history.
Tyler Mertiff set a new record for passing yards in a single season, completing 100 of 194 passes for 1,595 yards and 12 touchdowns, eclipsing the mark of 1,405 set by Brandon Hoover in 1999. He also set a TAHS single-game passing mark when he threw for 282 yards against Pius.
Jeffries, meanwhile, hauled in 48 receptions for 848 yards and 10 scores, breaking the record of 805 set by Steve Johnson in 1999.
Both went on to earn first team spots on the All-Big 8 all-star team. Jeffries was also selected to the AP Second Team All-State Small School squad as a wide receiver.
But while their numbers place them among an elite group in the Eagle record books, there were other performances to take note of. Defensive end Josh Good recorded eight sacks and became the Eagles best pass rusher since Tim Dry. Brian McManigal finished, according to Franco, as “maybe the best center I’ve ever coached,” and Blake Cowfer became a true playmaker on the defensive line, able to seize the moment and make big plays with bone-crushing hits.
Boyd Taylor went from a backup as a junior to a two-way starter “as valuable as any lineman we had,” Franco said. And by the end of the season, Josh Clark was as good a cover corner as there was in the Big 8.
The focus and drive of the group as a whole gave the Eagles an edge that couldn’t be measured in numbers. But if there’s one number Tyrone’s season boiled down to, it was turnovers.
Losing Their Grip
There have been seasons at Tyrone when Franco-coached teams turned the ball over a mere 12 times over a nine-game regular-season schedule- a phenomenal mark that attributes to the success the Eagles have experienced on a regional level since 1995.
In 2002, Tyrone coughed the ball up 22 times in its first nine games and 25 times for the season. The mark surpassed the former high of 18 set in nine games in 2001.
Some of the turnovers were to be expected. After all, with a free-wheeling, instinctive quarterback like Tyler Mertiff running the show, plays that look like gaffs often turn into the biggest yardage-gainers, so you let him loose.
But it seemed as though the turnover bug bit the Eagles when they could afford it the least. Week 1 against Bellwood-Antis, when Tyrone turned the ball over five times in a 17-15 loss, was a prime example.
The hardest pill to swallow came in Week 6, when a season-high seven turnovers, five on Mertiff interceptions, turned a 14-0 first-quarter advantage into a 25-21 defeat at the hands of Class A power Pius.
“That was the story of the season,” said Franco. “I thought we may have been able to go longer, but turnovers really hurt us. We’ve got to learn to take care of the ball and we’re going to work like crazy to get it right.”
The Next Generation
Franco is expecting the Eagles’ running game to be a strength next season. Gummo and Brice Mertiff combined this season to gain over 1,500 yards and score 22 touchdowns, and with a solid core of linemen, including Tate, VanAllmen and Justin Clark returning, those numbers should go up.
Gummo and Brice Mertiff both proved to be durable, gutty backs, capable a catching the ball out of the backfield, battling for tough yards and breaking away from defenders.
A spry running game early on will also give Tyrone an opportunity to develop its one offensive weakness – quarterback.
It’s the one area over Franco’s tenure where there has rarely been a question mark. The lineage can be traced from Jarrod Anderson to Matt Sharer to Corey Anderson to Brandon Hoover to Mertiff.
But Tyler Mertiff’s graduation leaves a gigantic void to fill.
Franco said two-year backup Bill Schreckengost, because of his size and strength, will likely move to tight end, leaving the nine-year coach with some interesting options.
Maceno was the quarterback of the junior high team two years ago that went unbeaten and won the Big 8 junior high championship. He was excellent on the move and had a feel for using his athletic instincts in game situations.
Freshman Leonard Wilson was the quarterback of the junior high team that this season repeated as Big 8 champions and he’s already got a varsity quarterback’s body.
“We could end up using a two-quarterback system,” said Franco. “Maceno showed me a lot in jayvees and we have a nice sophomore coming up in Leonard Wilson. The key will be if he’s willing to put in the work.”
Whoever is throwing the passes, they can be sure they’ll have a reliable target in Tommy Crowl, a junior speed merchant who ended his season with over 250 receiving yards and an 85-yard kickoff return for a score against Forest Hills. His presence adds to the kind of multi-dimensional offensive approach Franco favors.
