All fuel, no brakes, and positively no punting.
Yep, with 2024 commencement commencements afoot, the Canine Days of Summer season looming, and a excessive soccer season on the distant horizon, it’s again… the “Mauk” query.
Will probably the most passing yards in highschool soccer historical past ever be damaged?
Most likely not?
Perhaps?
You already know a child … ?
Whereas highschool soccer hasn’t shifted to an entire “pass first” fashion of offense — Wing-T and a cloud of turf rubber for the win — that’s to not say the sport at this stage hasn’t mirrored a few of the playbook tendencies in school and naturally the NFL.
Simply have a look at the 2023 season, the place slingers like DJ Lagway and Dylan Raiola lit up defenses with an air assault that had the opposing workforce’s secondary on their heels — and the social media world on standby, able to hit ship:
Florida 5-star QB commit DJ Lagway continued his monster senior season final evening with 5 TDs, together with this 52-yard bomb🎯
Lagway has 41 TOTAL TDs by way of seven video games🤯
(🎥: @densilva02) https://t.co/Swm4OW4ksEpic.twitter.com/Nq2zBnpHfz
— On3 Recruits (@On3Recruits) October 6, 2023
Raiola’s second TD of the evening goes to 5 star Florida State commit KJ Bolden. #GoDawgs pic.twitter.com/yH2gQhQRH3
— Jeremy Johnson (@JeremyO_Johnson) October 28, 2023
Predecessors of the air assault have dotted the highschool gridiron the previous couple of a long time, a showcase of arm expertise — maybe combined with the usually commonplace make-up of the protection — that produced career-like stat traces in a single season.
And when the ultimate sport of their senior seasons ended, the precise profession numbers stood in otherworldly territory you’d sometimes discover in video video games set on Newbie Mode.
Will these kinds of numbers ever be repeated by a few of the play-callers within the forthcoming graduating lessons?
Or ever?
When scouring the archives and contemplating issues like most passing yards of all time, it looks like the reply is not any.
The hypothetical reply first lies throughout the math
One of the crucial prolific passers in 2023, Gage Baker, threw for over 6,000 yards at Paradise Honor (Shock, Ariz.), including to a profession complete of 11,769.
These are unbelievable numbers, and transfer him forward of two nice quarterbacks in Josh Booty and Greg Paulus.
However that’s nonetheless exterior the highest 25.
Baker would have wanted at the least three years with the identical output to return near the all-time finest, however even then, shut shouldn’t be the identical as overtaking the lead.
The large chips?
Arch Manning, one of the crucial distinguished nationwide highschool stars we’ve seen lately, ended his profession at Isidore Newman (La.) with 8,539 yards passing. Uncle Peyton had 7,207. Uncle Eli had 7,389.
Fellow Longhorns slinger Quinn Ewers didn’t crack 7,000.
The 2 aforementioned 2023 standouts are in the identical space. Lagway ended his profession at Willis (Texas) with 8,392 yards passing. Raiola ended his outstanding journey from Arizona to the Georgia highschool soccer fields with 8,442 yards.
(With out query, each Lagway and Raiola prompted torment with their legs, too, so the passing totals are taken with sprint of knowledge salt.)
However, not one of the these respectable hauls cracked the highest 100 of all time, the place names like Brock Purdy (8,932 yards) loom.
Which QBs have come shut?
A few of the most up-to-date names to make a major push up the record had been Richard Stallworth, who completed his Yuma Catholic (Ariz.) profession in 2022 with 12,590 yards; Sam Huard, the Washington standout who set a state file with 13,226 yards; and Aaron Philo, who made probably the most vital mark throughout his time at Prince Avenue Christian (Shreveport, La.) — which led to 2023 — throwing for 13,922 yards.
That positioned him forward of notable NFL names and Heisman winners Trevor Lawrence and Bryce Younger.
Nonetheless, all of them are nicely exterior even the highest 5…
13. Tucker Israel, Lake Nona (Orlando, Fla.)
Profession passing yards: 14,082 (2011-14)
12. Travis Quintanilla, Refugio (Texas)
Profession passing yards: 14,228 (2011-13)
11. Hunter Lile, Booker (Texas)
Profession passing yards: 14,408 (2011-14)
10. J.R. Home, Nitro (Wv.)
Profession passing yards: 14,457 (1995-98)
9. Will Grier, Davidson Day (N.C.)
Profession passing yards: 14,565 (2011-13)
8. Myles Brennan, St. Stanislaus (Bay St. Louis, Miss.)
Profession passing yards: 15,138 (2013-16)
7. Layne Hatcher, Pulaski Academy (Little Rock, Ark.)
Profession passing yards: 15,483 (2014-17)
6. Chris Leak, Independence (Charlotte, N.C.)
Profession passing yards: 15,593 (1999-02)
5. Grant Gunnell, St. Pius X (Houston, Texas)
Profession passing yards: 16,108 (2015-18)
4. Alex Huston, Glendale Excessive College (Springfield, Mo.)
Profession passing yards: 16,566 (2015-18)
3. Jake Browning, Folsom (Calif.)
Profession passing yards: 16,775 (2012-15)
2. Ben Mauk, Kenton (Ohio)
Profession passing yards: 17,364 (1999-02)
1. Maty Mauk, Kenton (Ohio)
Profession passing yards: 18,932 (2008-11)
Mauk throughout his record-setting profession at Kenton (Ohio).
And with that, we’re again at the place we began.
Will any highschool quarterback ever prime Maty Mauk’s complete?
Yearly, we have a look at these five-digits like a blinking neon signal and throw hypothetical head-tilts at it like we’re gauging an entree on “Man vs. Food.”
And yearly, it looks like surpassing 18,932 yards is an uphill battle that may go untouched endlessly.
The hypothetical reply additionally lies inside a coach’s decision-making
Other than most likely needing to be a four-year starter, with an above-average freshman marketing campaign, or a three-year starter with an enormous sophomore season, there’s additionally the physicality required for such gaudy numbers.
Ben Mauk threw 1,905 passes throughout his profession; Maty threw 2,110.
The following-closest complete to both is at 1,745.
That’s quite a lot of throws.
Mike Mauk, who coached each his sons and the No. 4 all-time passing chief, Alex Huston, didn’t depend on the pass-happy philosophy as a result of he needed his quarterbacks to be record-breaking.
Seen by many as a pioneering icon in highschool soccer, Mauk as a substitute constructed the 5-wide/no operating/no punting (severely, no punting) idea, at the least in his thoughts, out of necessity.
“If you look at the Kenton (Ohio) program when we came here back in 1983, we had to find a way to be competitive in our league and we had not had great success in past years. We had nine winning seasons in the history of the school in the Western Buckeye League. We sure couldn’t line up and run the Wing-T or the conventional offenses a lot of teams were running. We tried for three-four years and weren’t successful. Finally, we had to turn things around and we began to throw the football.”
And, oddly sufficient, a quote from Ben Mauk to MaxPreps in 2011 about his file being topped by little brother sheds gentle on one issue that compounds that subject.
“Other people know more about them (records) than I do. State champs — I’ll remember that a lot longer than records. When you play a team sport like football, it’s not about individuals. I sat out a lot. In a lot of fourth quarters, I had my shoulder pads off and watched from the sidelines. In a lot of games I had 500 yards at halftime. Maybe I could have thrown for 1,000 yards and set a national record.”
Sportsmanship, although an idea traditionally brushed in grey areas, is underneath a far larger microscope within the Social Media Age.
However might or not it’s that kind of old-school lesson that truly hits the brakes on any QB coming near breaking the file?
Or do you actually know a child …?
