Even before the start of the 2009 season, the first after Chad Rupp had left campus, Ray felt that Nick Purichia might have a leg up on him to be the next starting quarterback. The reason he felt that way, he said, was because Ray initially committed to attend the University of St. Francis in Fort Wayne in 2007, while Nick had no such “side trip” before landing at Franklin College.
Ray felt that Purichia’s direct route to Franklin might be enough to sway coach Leonard in his decision, although Leonard had never indicated that such a thing would be a factor. Through the 2009 preseason camp, Ray and Purichia went through all the drills and routines in hopes of getting the head coach’s blessing.
Ray and Purichia were competitive during 2009 summer camp in different ways, Sears said. For one, he said Ray was good at running the quick offense that the team had been practicing. “He owned it. Nick knew it (the quick offense), but Kyle owned it.” Purichia was a little better running the base offense – the traditional offense in which play calls are conveyed to the offense in the huddle, Sears said.
Second-year
quarterback Nathan Ellis agreed. He said Franklin had
nicknames for its various offensive formations. The fastest, he said, was
called NASCAR, as in the stock car racing organization. “You just call the play
and go” when running the NASCAR, he said. Then there was a hurry-up
offense, which wasn’t as quick as NASCAR, but it also required rapid execution. Ray ran those two offenses very well, he said.
Indeed, Purichia would be sidelined temporarily at least twice that season because of injuries – one to a cut finger on the throwing hand, the other, a bit more serious, to a recurring shoulder issue.
Sears and Ellis said neither Ray nor Purichia said anything negative about the other throughout the season. Both always were model teammates, always supporting each other. Jokingly, Sears added that this didn’t necessarily mean the players didn’t find some fault with Sears or any of the other coaches.
But importantly, Sears emphasized, coaches made a point to talk to their players.
“We were way more communicative with them that they would have gotten anywhere else,” Sears said, “although they wouldn’t have had a frame of reference for that because they didn’t play anywhere but Franklin College.”
Ellis mentioned that coach Sears had the quarterbacks over to his house for dinner once a week in an effort to keep open the lines of communication. “I thought that was pretty cool … the guys just hanging out.”
Sears credited coach Leonard with persuading all players to buy into the concept that the team – not egos, personal agendas or individual goals – came first, and Sears said Ray, Purichia and Ellis embraced that.
Asked whether they felt one or the other junior quarterback had the advantage over the other, most teammates interviewed struggled to answer. Most said they felt both athletes were talented enough to lead the offense and that it was simply a matter of whether either one could exhibit the most consistency to win the job permanently. And what unfolded during the season seemed to support that notion – and suggest that neither did enough to make the decision easy.
One teammate who answered a bit differently was Luke Floyd, a sophomore at Franklin College in 2009 and a teammate of Purichia’s at Cardinal Ritter High School in Indianapolis.
Floyd said that if Purichia had been 3 to 4 inches taller, which would have put him level with Kyle Ray, “it would be an easy decision.” It would have been Purichia. “I think the coaching staff always wanted Kyle to be the guy. If you look at Kyle Ray, he’s the archetypical quarterback: He’s tall, and he has the arm strength.
“Nick wasn’t that tall, but he can make very good reads and throws. I think a lack of height caught up with him anytime we played teams with big defensive linemen. I will say that I loved him being our quarterback in high school. I wish I would have been in his grade.”
Franklin College football rosters for the 2009 and 2010 seasons are not available online to verify Purichia and Ray’s heights those years. But there are prep/high school football websites such as MaxPreps ( maxpreps.com ) that track that kind of data for high school players. MaxPreps lists Purichia’s height as 5-feet-10 and Ray’s as 6-feet-2 in their senior years of high school.
Luke Floyd had come to Franklin College because he liked how it was relatively close to his parents’ home in Avon, a growing suburb west of Indianapolis.
Also, he liked the fact that the college had a very good football program, and he liked that Purichia was there, someone he knew and respected from high school. In addition, a cousin of Floyd’s was enrolling at Franklin at the same time, and it helped that Luke’s girlfriend (and future wife) was going there, too.
Floyd had given thought to attending and playing football at Wabash College, but he said the head coach there who had recruited him was leaving for a Division II job that fall. As it turned out, Floyd said, he did not pick a football program that matched his primary interest – which was running pass routes and catching passes, something he had done a lot of and had enjoyed at Ritter. Although Franklin College would use him at tight end, coaches wanted him to primarily block in that position.
“I enjoyed it,” he said of his time at Franklin, “but it just didn’t work out the way I had hoped. If I had to do it all over, I might not even go to college.”
Purichia surmised that Floyd might have come a couple years too late to Franklin if his hope was to be involved more in running pass routes. He said the Grizzlies’ “base personnel” on offense was four receivers and one running back.
“Our freshman year (2007), we had a very good offensive line that was predominantly seniors,” Purichia said, “so we got a lot into those running back and tight-end sets. But after that, we didn’t utilize the tight end (on pass plays) nearly as much.”
Even though Franklin’s offense did not avail Floyd to the volume of pass routes he had hoped to run, he said he never contemplated leaving or transferring.
“I wasn’t going to quit,” he said, noting that Franklin’s football program was a top-notch organization with excellent coaches and training regimens.
A sculpture of Ben Franklin (left) is available for strollers in Franklin College's Dame Mall to sit on the bench and pose for pictures with Ben. (Photo by Joe Konz)
While Franklin coaches went back and forth in training camp on the question of who would start as quarterback in 2009, the Grizzlies’ defense was getting a new look. The 2008 defensive “anchors” of Dan McManus, Levi Smythe and Nick Ruban were gone through graduation. Stepping in to replace them were Josh Bales, Rex Olds and David O’Rourke.
Interior linebacker Nick Cochran credited McManus, Smythe and Ruban, as well as the rest of the Class of 2009 seniors, with “strong leadership” the previous two years.“I felt lucky to have been close to all of those older guys,” said Cochran, who was entering his junior year in 2009. “It was left to us – me, (offensive lineman) Seth Qualls and (linebacker) Teddy Henkle as (new) captains to continue that leadership. It was asking a lot; we returned only two (starters) on offense, and both were linemen. And when you lose somebody as good as Chad Rupp (at quarterback),” challenges had to be expected, he said. “We were concerned as captains to carry on that leadership.”
The Grizzlies’ 2009 opening game at Baldwin-Wallace kept getting closer and closer, and Ray and Purichia still were awaiting word on which of them would be named the starter. Coach Leonard confirmed that in its many discussions over time about who to name as offensive leader, the coaching staff reached no consensus right up to the final days before the trip to Barea, Ohio.
Sears noted that one of the struggles throughout 2009 was that the Grizzlies lacked the identity that an established starter – like Chad Rupp the previous seasons – gave a team.
“The (2009) team was playing behind a strong senior-led (2008) team that was now gone,” Sears said, echoing Nick Cochran’s observation. “So we had a lot of young, inexperienced kids. We had to figure things out. We had growing pains. We grew up that year.”
“We had no ‘one’ quarterback,” he added. Indeed, they had three – Ray, Purichia and Nathan Ellis. And even though Ellis was a year behind Ray and Purichia and didn’t pose a threat to supplant the two others, he would show during the season that he was a talent not to be forgotten or overlooked.
Just days before the opening game, Leonard made the decision about the quarterback position, but it was not what Ray or Purichia had expected. Leonard told them he was going to use both quarterbacks, and that they would take turns, alternating every two offensive possessions.
“It was one of the few years that we did that,” Leonard said. “I was never sure who was our leader, our quarterback leader. It’s like a president – that’s the face of the program. We just didn’t have a face of the program.
“When a team believes in that face, it just makes everybody more confident. And we just didn’t have that confidence level, even as coaches. We knew we liked both of these guys, but boy, unless they got super-hot and competed consistently … ” His words drifted off, rendering his thought to an incompletion.
Leonard suspected correctly that Ray and Purichia also were uneasy those last days before the opener, although both kept it to themselves. “But what they showed to their teammates,” the coach said, “at least from what I saw, was nothing but being supportive of the other guy, and that’s why I always respected both of those guys.”
What the coach said next falls into line with what pretty much everybody knows about Mike Leonard, which is that you rarely find him being negative or harshly critical about anything or anyone. He prefers to approach everything – including problems – by accentuating the positive.
He extolled the virtues of what Purichia and Ray have become today, the 2020s – Purichia as athletic director at Monrovia High School in Morgan County, Ind., and a former coach and teacher at Beech Grove and Plainfield, both high schools in metro Indianapolis, and Ray as head football coach at Heritage Christian High School in Indianapolis, a fourth-grade teacher at Heritage Christian Academy and, as of the 2023-24 academic year, assistant principal of the academy’s elementary school.
“They’re
leading youngsters as well as parents,” Leonard said. “They’re leading a lot of
people. And so that’s the beauty of intercollegiate and high school athletics
with adolescents. They’re going to think back on their playing days and how
they were treated. I hope they look back and think that I treated them well,
even when they weren’t playing, and therefore, they’ll do the same for the
those under them now.”
(A Ray family
photo shows Ray and Purichia chatting on the bench during
the 2009 season opener at Baldwin-Wallace.)
Rotation quarterbacking is exactly how the Grizzlies began the 2009 opener at Baldwin-Wallace University. The game marked an important milestone in the Ray family: It was the first time Kyle would play football for a school without his father present on the field with him or watching in the stands. And because of that “first,” his mother, brother and sister – the latter now living out of state – made a point to attend.
It was a day when the Grizzlies wore their maize tops – not a frequent “look.” Today they call these “alternate” jerseys, used instead of their traditional white traveling jerseys. It would turn out to be a game that would give Kyle Ray optimism that he could ride the wave of fatherly inspiration and become the team’s offensive leader.
“I thought I could have a great year in honor of him,” Kyle said.
Purichia took his turn behind center with Franklin ahead 14-7. His first series of plays ended with a punt, but the Grizzlies scored in the second series to go up 21-7. Baldwin-Wallace scored quickly on a 56-yard pass play on its very next possession to narrow the deficit to 21-14.
The Yellow Jackets kicked off, and Franklin’s Isaac Davis caught the ball at Franklin’s 36 yard-line and returned it to the Baldwin-Wallace 44-yard line, ideal field possession for Ray to begin his next two offensive possessions.
But on a first-down pass play, the Yellow Jackets’ Corey Hildreth intercepted Ray’s throw and returned it to the Franklin 24 yard-line. Seven plays later, the Yellow Jackets crossed the goal line, and the score was tied at 21.
Ray came out onto the field for his second shift and led the Grizzlies 64 yards on eight plays, the final one a 13-yard TD strike to Mitch Downs, putting them ahead 28-21, which is the way the score stood at halftime.
The Yellow Jackets took the second-half kickoff and moved 73 yards on 14 plays – mostly on the ground, although a 29-yard pass completion was a huge gainer – before reaching the end zone, tying the score at 28. The drive chewed up more than 6 minutes of clock.
Ray got the nod to start the first shift of the second half for the Grizzlies. The first possession ended on a punt, but the second, which started at 4:29 in the third quarter, encompassed 12 plays and 45 yards before stalling at the Baldwin-Wallace 25-yard line as time expired in the quarter. Machy Magdalinos kicked a 43-yard field goal to open the fourth quarter, giving Franklin a 31-28 lead.
The Grizzlies got the ball back on only the second play of the Yellow Jackets’ next offensive possession when David O’Rourke intercepted an Anthony Gardner pass at the home team’s 49-yard line and returned it 4 yards to the 45-yard line.
Purichia came out for his turn behind center. In seven plays, he had the Grizzlies in the end zone on a 1-yard quarterback run. The Grizzlies led 38-28. That’s when the Franklin defense came up big, stopping the Yellow Jackets on fourth-down plays on consecutive offensive possessions in between a Franklin punt on Purichia’s second shift at QB.
Ray had no luck when he came out again, and the Grizzlies punted. The Yellow Jackets returned the kick 25 yards to the 50-yard line. Baldwin-Wallace quarterback Anthony Gardner got lucky immediately with a first-down pass for 41 yards to Terence Davis, putting the ball on the Grizzlies’ 9 yard-line. But after two short runs sandwiched around an incompletion, and the clock at just over 1:30, the Yellow Jackets decided to try for a field goal, hoping afterward to also try an onside kick to get the ball back in hopes of scoring a quick, tying touchdown.
The Yellow Jackets succeeded on the first part of the plan; Brad Pollock’s kick from 23 yards out was good, and the Yellow Jackets now trailed 38-31. But on the onside kick, the Grizzlies recovered the ball, and the offense ran out the clock to secure the opening-game victory, 38-31.
At the end of the game, head coach Mike Leonard gathered his team along the sideline, pointed to the sky – a gesture Kyle and his mother and siblings immediately recognized as a nod to Rob Ray. Leonard then announced that the game ball would go to Kyle. He said he knew Kyle had made his father proud and that Rob was smiling up in heaven.
“That was an awesome moment,” Kyle remembered, “and such an amazing start to my career. I got a plaque for that game for offensive player of the game.”
Ray said
Leonard put his arm around the quarterback (see first Ray family photo below),
and again pointed to the skies. “My mother and brother were in tears. Just a
great memory.” So was the congratulatory embrace from his mother, brother and
siblings (see additional family photos below).
2009 would prove to be a rare banner year for Bulldogs football, even without junior quarterback Matt Kobli who had given Butler Nation some hope in 2008 by leading the Pioneer Football League in total offense and the Bulldogs to their first winning season since 1997, although they lost their last four games.
Kobli – whose Whiting High School team had crossed paths with Eric Watt’s South Newton High School team in 2004 – was suspended from the Bulldogs for all of 2009 for breaking a team rule. He would return in 2010.
Stepping in to take Kobli’s place was sophomore Andrew Huck, and he had a stellar day on the Faught Stadium gridiron. Huck completed 33 of 48 passes for 316 yards and four touchdowns. He also ran the ball eight times for 45 yards, second-most on the team that day.
“Most of us on the team would say that the (2009) Butler game was the worst game in our high school and college careers,” Nick Cochran said.
Cochran also said he thinks that the 49 points Butler scored was the most by any opponent in the years he played at Franklin … until his final college game, the Grizzlies’ opening-round contest in the postseason tournament the following season. He was correct.
In the Sept. 12, 2009, game against Butler, Franklin head coach Leonard used Purichia on the first two possessions and then had Ray take over for two possessions. The “two on, two off” switch continued through the first half. Butler led at that point, 23-7, and the Bulldogs got the ball to open the second half and went 78 yards on 10 plays in scoring to take a 30-7 lead.
It would be pointless to look at the rest of the game in similar detail. Butler never allowed the Grizzlies to get close and won going away, 49-19. The Bulldogs finished 2009 with a record of 11-1 (7-1 in the Pioneer Football League) and won the postseason Gridiron Classic by beating Central Connecticut State, 28-23.The loss was a stunning reality check for Franklin College. The only saving grace was the fact that the Grizzlies had the next weekend off. They’d have plenty of time to both recover from the demoralizing loss and to prepare for their next foe.
On Sept. 26, newly renamed Trine University, led by a phenomenal junior quarterback, Eric Watt, who this season abandoned jersey No. 7 in lieu of his favored No. 13, would come to town for the sixth and final game of the two teams’ non-conference series.
Trine came into the 2009 season with high hopes of repeating as Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association champion. The Thunder won their first two games, both non-conference tilts, but the opener at Manchester University was an inexplicable struggle against a mediocre team that would finish the season 5-5.
Trine fell behind early in that game, 14-0, and needed almost every minute the rest of the way to pull out a 16-14 win. The margin of victory came on a Jeremy Howard field goal in the final quarter.
In their second game, two weeks later, the Thunder rolled over another non-conference foe, HCAC member Defiance (Ohio) College, at home, 40-9. That rout gave pollsters enough confidence to reward Trine with a national ranking of 22 among NCAA Division III teams on the Monday before the school’s next game at Franklin.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Foototes:
1 - Sears said that the play-calling assignment lasted only a few weeks into the season before head coach Leonard retook that task.
Tomorrow in Chapter 12: Sept. 26, 2009
Previously in "On Hoosier Gridirons":
Chapter 2: Mastering the Spread
Chapter 3: The Kicker With the Ever-Present Smile
Chapter 4: Like Father, Like Son
Chapter 5: Where Legends Played
Chapter 6: A Moonlight Graham Moment
Chapter 7: 'Clearly the Best' Small-School Teams in Indiana
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