There was a time when Tyrone turned out 1,000-yard rushers like cars rolling off the assembly lines in Detroit. The Eagles running attack was a machine, and given the right parts it was going to produce. One-hundred yard games were the norm for Tyrone backs, and 1,000-yard seasons were almost expected.
Thousand-yard receivers are another story. Even with the dawn of more spread-out, pass-heavy offenses, those have been a rarity at Tyrone. Only one player, Nick Patton in 2011, has managed to reach the mark in a single season and only seven had done it in a career.
That is until last week. With a monster game where he pulled in 5 passes for 220 yards and a pair of touchdowns in a 35-7 win over Penns Valley, Tyrone senior Andrew Weaver eclipsed 1,000 yards for his career and joined an even smaller list of players with more than 200 yards in a single game (there are now 4).
In the same game, quarterback Ashton Walk set a new single-game record with 360 passing yards.
With just one regular season game left Friday against Forest Hills, there’s not much left for the 6-foot-1 wide receiver to accomplish on an individual level, but Weaver is still setting goals, both as an individual and as part of the team, and they’re very much on the table as the season winds down.
“I think Ashton is starting to trust me a lot more. Our chemistry is up there, at this point,” Weaver said. “I’m glad I’ve gotten 1,000 career yards, so now I’m looking to get 1,000 in a season. I’ve talked to Ash and he said he thinks he can make it happen.”
To look at Weaver now, with his sprinter speed and rangy frame, it would almost seem obvious that he would be among the best to catch passes at Tyrone. But that wasn’t always the case.
When he was a sophomore, Weaver was one of the best blockers on the team, and in 2021, when Tyrone ran for just 630 yards, guys like him were in short supply. Before long, that had Tyrone coach John Franco considering a position switch, if only temporarily.
“We were hurting so much his sophomore year, and he came to me and said, ‘I can play tackle,'” recalled Franco. “A couple of the line coaches said I should see him doing board drills, and I went down and watched him and thought he was as good as anybody we had. We put him in for a game and, son of a gun, he did a heck of a job, so we kept him there.”
As well as Weaver performed as a blocker, Franco said, he always knew he would be a top receiver. He recalled watching him in a jayvee game his sophomore year where he and Walk combined for three pass plays of more than 40 yards, and he knew there was a good relationship between the two.
By the time Weaver was a junior, he was playing tight end, where he was the yin to leading receiver Ross Gampe’s yang. While Gampe, who would go on to be named all-state and sign with IUP, was leading the team in receiving yards, Weaver was having a quietly strong season, with 276 yards and 5 touchdowns on 20 receptions.
This year, Weaver has surpassed even Gampe’s numbers. He’s got 29 catches for 732 yards and 7 scores, and his 25.2 yards per catch average is among the best ever at Tyrone.
“He has just been outstanding,” said Franco.
Weaver said two of the players he grew up admiring were Parker Mitchell and Damon Gripp, both outstanding receivers who, like Weaver, were hampered by circumstances that kept their career numbers below what they could have been otherwise. For Mitchell, who finished with 1,823 receiving yards, it was a shift to quarterback during a time of need his senior season that kept him below 2,000 yards for his career. Gripp, on the other hand, only played 8 games as a senior during the COVID shortened 2020 campaign. He ended his career with 2,147 yards, but could have easily surpassed Patton’s 2,338 with a full slate of games.
However, Weaver is not looking back on what could have been had he been thrown the ball more as a sophomore rather than moved to the line. Instead, he’s focused on what’s ahead, and for Tyrone it’s a legitimate shot at a District title.
“I think we can definitely make it to the District championship, if not win it,” he said. “Penn Cambria is tough, but I think we can make it pretty far.”
He has that wrestling toughness mentality. He puts so much pressure on the opposing quarterback because he’s such a natural, and he’s got great strength to go with it.
John Franco
As good as Weaver has been offensively, Franco lauds him as much for his work as a defensive end. Weaver leads the team with 11 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks, and as a pass rusher he has been all but unblockable. With at least two games left, he’s already surpassed his 2022 totals of 10 TFL and 5 sacks.
“He has that wrestling toughness mentality,” said Franco. “He puts so much pressure on the opposing quarterback because he’s such a natural, and he’s got great strength to go with it.”
Weaver toughness from the mat is well-earned. He’ll enter his senior season on the Golden Eagles wrestling team with 64 wins as a 160-pounder. He’s registered 27 wins each of the last two seasons and placed third in his class at Districts.
In that way, he could join another elite group at Tyrone if he were to manage to reach 100 wins, but that’s months away, and for now Weaver is thinking only about his final football season, which concludes its home schedule against the Rangers.
When he was a sophomore, Weaver said, he couldn’t imagine playing a last home game, though his older teammates told him the time would go by quickly.
“I’m definitely going to miss it,” he said. “It went a lot faster than I thought. I remember being a sophomore and all the seniors like Keegan Gwinn and Jake Johnson telling me it goes fast, but I didn’t really believe it until now. But I wouldn’t want to play for any other team.”
ORANGE AND BLACK 