It’s the week before homecoming, and the game against Central looms in the air. Head Coach Brandon Gregory receives a call from Connor Gallagher’s mother on the Thursday night before they played the Homecoming game. She had taken Connor, their sophomore starting quarterback, to the Emergency Room due to back problems. Gregory calls Aidan McDaniel, a freshman. Gregory plays a joke on Aidan to see if he is ready for the position, and based on his response, he decides to put Aidan in the position of starting quarterback. Aidan officially takes the position after Gregory talks with the other coaches about it. This is the first time in Gregory’s 13 years of coaching the team has a freshman starting quarterback.

“It made me way more mature because I’m playing with older people, and being the leader on the offense as the youngest, it changed my perspective on the whole football game,” Aidan said. “This made me way more mature and more focused.”

The JV and Freshman teams learn the Varsity plays, so the transition to Varsity was easier for Aidan. Wide receivers had to make adjustments in getting used to how he throws in comparison to the former starting quarterback.

“It’s cool [having another freshman on Varsity],” freshman and Varsity wide receiver Maurice Massey said. “It’s easier to connect with him.”

Since he moved to Varsity starting quarterback so late in the season, the coaches avoided putting emphasis on new things but rep old things and plays. They’ve also worked on what defenders to read and passing to the wide receiver in different plays. During the off season, the coaches will work with him on technique.

“Not only next year but the next three years, from a coaching standpoint, when you know who your quarterback is going to be, it makes it easier,” Gregory said. “Each year I’ve been here, the following year, I didn’t know who the quarterback was going to be. Either he was a senior and was graduating or the next guy was a senior and graduated. From a head coaching perspective, to know you have a quarterback for the next three years makes it a whole lot easier. At the same time, I know he’s a great athlete, so I know he’s going to play basketball as well, and he’s going to continue to do other sports as well. But, when football [season] rolls around again, we’re going to, each year, try to help him get better, and I think he can be one of the top quarterbacks not only in St. Charles County but in the St. Louis area by the time he’s a junior and a senior.”