Liberty quarterback could join exclusive 4,000/4,000 club
Written by: Josh Funk on Monday, February 2nd, 2009. Follow Josh Funk on Twitter.
Before the start of the 2007 high school football season, Pennsylvania had never had a quarterback rush and pass for 4,000 yards each in his career.
Now, by the end of 2009, the Keystone State could see a second quarterback accomplish the feat in three years.
The only quarterback with both 4,000 rushing and passing yards each in his career was Terrelle Pryor, Jeannette’s phenomenal quarterback. Pryor finished his career with 4,250 rushing yards and 4,340 passing yards, according to the Pennsylvania Football News’ Resource Guide.
Pryor currently starts at quarterback for the Ohio State Buckeyes, and helped lead the scarlet and silver to the Fiesta Bowl.
Now, Liberty quarterback Anthony Gonzalez could join Pryor in the 4,000/4,000 club. If Gonzalez is successful in reaching the milestone, he’d be in the company of an athlete who is considered to be one of Pennsylvania‘s greatest.
By now, you’ve seen Gonzalez’ 2008 season stats published in some written form, whether on this website or in a Lehigh Valley newspaper. But in case you hadn’t seen the season Gonzalez had in 2008, he totaled 1,697 rushing yards and 1,585 passing yards. He ran for 24 touchdowns and threw for 12 more.
But it’s the 2007 season stats that few may remember. Liberty‘s football website usually kept accurate season statistics for passing, rushing, and receiving yards, that is, up until this season. The 2007 season stats weren’t accessible on the site, and the 2008 numbers only went through the first two games of the season.
So the question became this: what were Gonzalez’ sophomore season stats? Liberty hasn’t made submitting statistics to Maxpreps.com a weekly habit as most schools have, which is OK. In that sense, statistical accomplishments remain anonymous. Football, after all, is a team sport.
However, Gonzalez’ statistical accomplishments are not going to remain anonymous very long. After receiving his ’07 season stats in an e-mail from Liberty coaches, and with some simple addition learned from first grade, the numbers are eye-popping.
For his career, Gonzalez has run for 3,443 yards and 37 touchdowns. He has thrown for 3,171 yards and 40 touchdowns. That means that in his sophomore season, Gonzalez ran for 1,746 yards, threw for another 1,586, and totaled 41 touchdowns. He had 13 rushing scores. The other 28 were passing.
Now, here comes the number crunching, with some intense long division and multiplication thrown in. Get your calculators ready.
In his varsity football career, spanning 28 games, Gonzalez has averaged 122.96 rushing yards per game. His average passing yards per game is just slightly less, at 113.25.
Given only a 10-game regular season at those career averages, which is all that Liberty is guaranteed at this point for the 2009 season, Gonzalez would total 1,229 rushing yards and 1,132 passing yards, comfortably putting him over the 4,000-yard mark in each category.
Assume that, come the week before Christmas, Liberty is once again playing for the PIAA “AAAA” championship. You must assume a 15-game average in getting to that point, and the projected season stats for Gonzalez, using his career per game averages, would look something like this: 1,844 rushing yards and 1,698 passing yards.
A season of that magnitude puts #8 in the position to set him apart, at least statistically speaking, from Pryor in this sense: 1,844 rushing yards would give Gonzalez 5,287 rushing yards. If his passing total hits 1,698 yards, that leaves him 131 yards shy of 5,000 passing yards.
For the record, though it’s pretty obvious, no Pennsylvania quarterback has ever passed and rushed for over 5,000 yards each in his career. And if Liberty’s quarterback can surpass the career stats of Pryor, you can bet that the comparisons between Pryor and Gonzalez will be off the charts.
It’s no wonder that Gonzalez has drawn so much attention from Division-1 colleges since December. But don’t expect the list of suitors to stop.
Instead, expect it to keep on growing, just like #8’s career statistical totals.
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January 25th, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Nice interesting….
December 27th, 2010 at 9:43 am
Nice job. Keep posting
October 31st, 2010 at 9:33 pm
I can see you’re an expert at your field! I am launching a web site soon, and your details is going to be incredibly useful for me.. Thanks for all your aid and wishing you all the best. 🙂
February 15th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Guys, here’s what happened with the sophomore stats: Coach Moncman provided me the wrong stats. He thought I meant the 2008 season stats, not 2007. I’m still awaiting the correct stats from Gonzalez’ ’07 season. When I receive them, I’ll update the career numbers accordingly.
Thanks for your comments expressing concern for the inaccuracy. Once I get the right info, it will be updated!
February 15th, 2009 at 11:37 am
What happened to my last post? It got deleted? Anyway, I sincerely doubt AG’s sophomore numbers. They seem rather inflated. Have these been verified, besides from an “email from Libery coaches”?
“For his career, Gonzalez has run for 3,443 yards and 37 touchdowns. He has thrown for 3,171 yards and 40 touchdowns. That means that in his sophomore season, Gonzalez ran for 1,746 yards, threw for another 1,586, and totaled 41 touchdowns. He had 13 rushing scores. The other 28 were passing.”
February 13th, 2009 at 10:13 am
I think someone should double-check these. Though I think this kid is a great athlete/QB/football player, these stats seem somewhat inflated. I don’t believe he had that type of soph. year.
“For his career, Gonzalez has run for 3,443 yards and 37 touchdowns. He has thrown for 3,171 yards and 40 touchdowns. That means that in his sophomore season, Gonzalez ran for 1,746 yards, threw for another 1,586, and totaled 41 touchdowns. He had 13 rushing scores. The other 28 were passing.”
February 8th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
Josh, confirm the soph rushing stats. Seems somebody added a one to his actual totals. Ahkeem Smith lead the Canes in rushing that year and I don’t think he even totaled 1700.
Gonzo still has a very good shot at 4k/4k but 5k/5k is probably out of reach.
As usual, excellent article.
February 8th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
10,000 career yards in 3-years of high school a possibility? There are no words if this is accomplished by AG.