Football has changed a lot in the 25 seasons John Franco has coached at Tyrone, perhaps most notably where running the football is concerned.
While he was viewed as a quarterback-friendly passing coach when he first arrived in Tyrone in 1994, Franco’s teams were always run-first operations. In fact, the best rushing seasons in school history have come under his watch and running the football has always been a top priority.
That changed a little when Ashton Walk became the starter his freshman season in 2021. Then, with Tyrone struggling to build a running game, passing became the first option, and it worked. In 2022, the Eagles went 8-3 when the leading rusher had 320 yards and the team as a whole barely produced 1,000 yards on the ground. But byy Walk’s third and fourth seasons as the starter, the passing game was effective enough to help produce a pair of thousand-yard rushers.
However, while Tyrone has shown it’s possible to win without a reliable running attack, it’s far from ideal, which is why for Franco figuring out the running game is a priority for the Golden Eagles in their home opener Friday at Gray-Veterans Memorial Field against Westmont Hilltop.
“The key this week is we had to work on the running game,” said Franco, whose team managed just 56 rushing yards in the season-opener last week against Bellefonte. “It wasn’t like it’s been giving us trouble all preseason. We’ve looked really good running the ball. (Bellefonte) was in the exact defense we prepared for, and we had guys that were blocking the wrong man and not using the techniques they’d been using. It was like a deer in the headlights. We’ll get it together, and I just want to see us play a really good, solid game this week.”
Both Tyrone and the Hilltoppers enter the Laurel Highlands crossover game 0-1. Despite leading 20-7 late int he fourth quarter, the Eagles dropped their game against the Raiders 21-20 on a last-second pass. Westmont, meanwhile, battled for most of the first half before being overwhelmed by Forest Hills 42-13.
There were a lot of issues for Tyrone Franco wanted to address after the loss, like poor special teams play that gave Bellefonte short fields and untimely penalties (the Eagles had four in the fourth quarter). But his biggest concern was running the ball.
Tyrone ran the ball 22 times and averaged just 2.5 yards per carry, and on most downs just getting past the line of scrimmage was a battle.
That’s something Franco said is going to have to change. Unlike many recent years, Tyrone returns an offensive line this season that’s got size and experience, and with a pair of talented runners in Caleb Whitby and Ashton Emigh, Franco was hoping to lean on the running game to bring along Eli Woomer slowly in his first season as the starting quarterback.
But Woomer was sharp in his debut, completing 11 of 20 passes for 229 yards and a touchdown, which helped Franco reconsider how he’ll use the senior moving forward.
“To his credit, he really came through and had a heck of a game,” said Franco. “His reads were really good. You’re going to see us use him more. We only ran him a couple of times and tried not to throw as much. We were really hoping we’d be able to run the ball more. That’s still the long-range plan.”
While the offense had some kinks to work out, the defense, under defensive coordinator Jason Wilson, was solid all the way up to the Raiders’ last two series, and even then it wasn’t bad. A long scramble on fourth-and-8 set up Bellefonte’s first touchdown of the fourth quarter, and on the Raiders’ final drive a pair of 15-yard penalties meant they only had to gain 13 yards for the game-tying score.
The Eagles dropped 14 plays behind the line of scrimmage and got sacks from Emigh, Owen Oakes, and Kyler Suhoney. Mason Emigh came through with an interception in the endzone to thwart a drive at the end of the first half.
That group will be challenged this week by a new-look Westmont offense that has begun the process of opening things up under first-year coach Josh Rearick. Under previous coach Pat Barron, the Hilltoppers played a compact Wing-T offense that was predicated on running the football and controlling the clock, but it yielded minimal results. In 2024, when Westmont finished 2-8, they passed the ball only 71 times, completing 24.
CLICK TO VIEW TYRONE-WESTMONT HILLTOP ALL-TIME
| 1996 | Tyrone 21 | Westmont 6 |
| 1997 | Tyrone 42 | Westmont 18 |
| 2000 | Tyrone 14 | Westmont 0 |
| 2007 | Tyrone 14 | Westmont 0 |
Against the Rangers, Hilltopper quarterback Justin Ray passed 27 times, completing 14 for 120 yards and a touchdown.
Outside of Ray, Westmont’s top offensive weapon was junior running back Bryce Goodman, who ran 9 times for 94 yards and a touchdown and caught a 16-yard pass for another score. Sophomore Derek Gartner was the Hilltoppers’ leading pass catcher, with 6 receptions for 55 yards.
Defensively, Westmont struggled to contain athletic quarterback Xander Richardson, who passed for 130 yards and ran for 75 yards, which could bode well for the expanded role Franco sees Woomer assuming. The Hilltoppers also struggled in preventing big plays – two Ranger receivers had receptions of 50 yards or better while Richardson and running back Austin Prumak each had runs of 23 yards or better.
Those are all numbers that hint towards an advantage for the Golden Eagles, but more than anything Franco is simply looking for improvement.
“I’m expecting us to play a much better game,” he said. “We’ve just got to get back on the right track, and the big part of our schedule opens up then.”
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