MORGANTOWN — A smile hits Maddox Twigg’s face when the conversation turns to manipulating defenses.
“I know exactly where I’m going with the ball when I see the defense,” the Morgantown High sophomore quarterback said. “If that’s not open, I know exactly where I’m going with the ball next.
“We can run the same play, but change the formation to get the defense to line up a different way. We can do a bunch of stuff like that. We can use motion just to see how a defense reacts.”
It’s the kind of stuff you’d expect to hear from Tom Brady or Peyton Manning.
Not from a 15-year old kid in Morgantown.
“We forget all the time he’s 15,” admits MHS head coach Sean Biser. “When he makes a mistake, sometimes the urge is to get on him, but then we’re like wait a minute, he’s only 15, even though he doesn’t look anything like a 15-year old.”
Age is just a number, at least in Twigg’s mind.
“On the field, I honestly don’t feel any different from anyone else out there,” he said.
That does come with a sort of an asterisk, though, Twigg admits. He’s already ranked in the top five, according to Prep RedZone, among the top college prospects from West Virginia even though the majority of everyone else on that list are already seniors.
With 348 passing yards, 213 rushing yards and six combined touchdowns, Twigg has also made enough of an early impression this season to be mentioned for the Kennedy Award, given annually to the state’s top high school football player.
You guessed it, it’s been a long time since a sophomore actually won the Kennedy Award, 29 years to be exact, when Nitro’s J.R. House won it in 1996.
“Like being in the running for the Kennedy, that’s where I feel 15,” Twigg said. “I’m only 15, so I’m probably going to be at a disadvantage to the seniors. That’s something I think about, but when I’m on the field, I feel like I’m just like everyone else.”
The Mohigans (2-0) host Hedgesville (0-2) at 7 p.m. Friday, with the opportunity to fine tune some things before the Mohigans get prepared to face a gauntlet of a schedule beginning with Spring Mills in two weeks and also includes games against Wheeling Park and Martinsburg following that.
Fine-tuning Morgantown High’s offense actually began as soon as last season ended, or as Biser explained it, “We blew it up and started from scratch.”
It was a process with a long-term goal in mind, Biser said. In the short term, coming up with an entirely different look was a little easier knowing Twigg was already on the MHS roster.
“I don’t know if we tear it all down if he’s not here, that’s a good question,” Biser said. “I don’t know that we change everything, but at the end of last year, we just relied on A.J. (Thomas) so much and it cost us when we went to Spring Mills in the playoffs and he got hurt.”
Morgantown High’s spread offense is now designed for Twigg to distribute the ball to different playmakers.
There are some designed runs for Twigg, too, but it is an offense that relies on more than just one guy and the offensive line having a good night.
And then there are the chaos plays, where something goes wrong or receivers are covered.
Coaches do not get excited by chaos plays, but this is where Twigg is maybe a bit unique, because Biser says that’s when his quarterback sets himself apart from others.
“It happened a lot last year,” Biser said. “I remember we were at Wheeling Park and we run buck sweep and he forgot to hand the ball off.
“He takes off on a bootleg and gets a 20-yard gain. You’re like, ‘That’s one heck of a play.’ If somebody else did that, it definitely wouldn’t look the same.”
And if Twigg being just 15 is truly just a number to him, the good news is it will change to 16 in two months.
His goal then: earn his driver’s license.
“Yeah, I’m getting tired of having my mom drive me around everywhere. She’s probably getting tired of it, too,” Twigg said. “I’m on my learner’s permit now, and that gets a little scary driving around Morgantown. When it’s around rush hour, that’s when it gets pretty scary.”
