Now that the regular fall sports season has finished, I will take my annual stroll down memory lane to recap the football season. I will begin with a serious question. What is going on with Catoctin Cougars football? Catoctin football has had two coaches over the past seven seasons with only 13 wins. That’s an average of less than 2 wins per season. Their combined record is 13-50 since 2019. According to Maxpreps, in a field of 210 Maryland high school teams, this season, Catoctin Cougars football is ranked 200. That’s in the entire state of Maryland! In 2019, we were 22nd.
But that doesn’t mean this season is unique. Even under legendary two time 1A state champion coach Doug Williams, the Cougars struggled in 2004, 2011, 2012 and 2016 with losing seasons. However, something jumps out at you. If you look at the records, you saw progress. After a miserable 6 game slide to start the season in 2004, they turned it around to finish with 3 impressive wins. In 2005 and 2006, they were 7-4, in 2008 they were 8-5. In 2009, 14-0. That is undeniable progress! That was the year they beat Dunbar by one point in the Ray Lewis Escalade state semifinal game led by their big strong quarterback Dylan May. Then, they slid down into back to back losing seasons and one of the lowest points in Coach Williams career, 2-7 in 2012. Coach Williams had them back in the winning column in 2013 with another big strong quarterback, Peyton Laramore. Laramore graduated and his 2013 backup junior Frankie Anderson, another big kid, stepped in to lead the Cougars to a 6-4 season in 2014. Anderson graduated and the downward slide began again when a freshmen quarterback took the team to 5-5 in 2015. That same quarterback Christian Michael, current quarterback coach for the 2026 football team, took his team as a Junior and Senior to consecutive winning seasons of 8-2 and 10-2 respectively. Progress! He turned the reigns over to Ryan Orr in 2019, a 6’2” 210lb. athlete who took Catoctin to its second state championship and Coach Doug William’s 29th and final season as the Catoctin High School Head Coach. Ryan Orr went on to graduate with a degree in exercise science at Shippensburg and became the Clemson Tigers college football strength and conditioning coach.
As you can see, there are two distinct patterns in this 20 year history of ups and downs. First, none of those teams, under Coach Williams, had losing seasons for more than a year or two in a row. They got bigger, stronger and better after losing. They wouldn’t allow themselves to stay losers. They fought back, in the classroom, the weight room and on the field. Second, they all had big strong, physical quarterbacks. In this day and age of spread offenses, multiple skill positions, blazing speed at wide receiver, huge lineman and bruising defenses, it’s no longer a ground and pound game and small quarterbacks run for their lives. Just take a look at what Coach Stein, former offensive coordinator for the 2009 championship Cougars, has done with Oakdale. I asked several former Frederick County football coaches for their honest assessment of Catoctin’s decline. The consensus was size and strength. They need to get bigger and stronger. They are getting pushed around by other teams, one coach said. That starts in the weight room.
And finally, Catoctin has had seven straight losing seasons since 2019. That is a losing culture that has become embedded. That is NOT Catoctin football.
I remember like it was yesterday what it felt like to be on a losing team. After our third or fourth loss in a row, we began to not care. A spirit of self-preservation kicked in and we began to expect to lose. That way, we could go back to having fun and forget about the hard work. My last year of high school football, we were 0-9 heading into our last game. My Sherwood football coach thought it was funny to call me Beverage, a play on words from my real last name: Betteridge. He thought he’d use that as a motivational device on the bus ride to Churchill for our last game. So he announced to the team that if we won today’s game, he would call me by my correct name. I know what you’re thinking. You thought we lost, didn’t you? Worse than that. We tied. Ask the Washington Commanders how a tie feels. On the quiet bus ride home, he stood up and said: “Beverage, a tie is not a win”. Some things you never forget, even 58 years later. Losing stinks!
Maybe Ryan Orr can follow teammate Christian Michael’s example and return as our strength and conditioning coach next year? We desparately need to get stronger. Imagine a team with three former Catoctin standouts all on the same coaching squad, two who played on both state championship teams. Can the alumni experiment bring back a winning culture? The jury is still out.
One thing’s for sure. Seven straight losing seasons is unacceptable.
It’s time to turn things around!