DANVERS — When told that his demanding, trying and sometimes punishing physical practices might be considered crazy by some in the modern football world, St. John’s Prep head football coach Brian St. Pierre chuckled.
“I am a little crazy,” said St. Pierre, the architect of what is now the most bruising, and perhaps most intimidating, high school football program in Massachusetts.
At a time when football is morphing into ‘basketball on grass’ with an emphasis on spread offense, spacing and timing patterns, unbeaten St. John’s Prep is bucking the trend and turning back the clock. In practice, the Eagles hit each other. A lot … perhaps more than National Football League teams do in their laid back training camps these days.
If that’s crazy (and it’s a debatable point), then the large crowd in attendance for Saturday’s Homecoming win over two-time Division 2 state champion Catholic Memorial saw that there is a method to the madness.
“When we play them, we’re going to find out who’s the tougher team, who’s the more physical team. I think that’s what happened,” said St. Pierre, whose Eagles thoroughly dominated the line of scrimmage in their 19-8 victory.
The old saying goes that if you want to get tough, get tough players. But St. Pierre doesn’t so much get tough players as he creates them, molding talented young athletes into hardened, leatherneck football types the old fashioned way: through hard work.
Yes, there’s the possibility of wear-and-tear and an injury risk that comes with full-contact drills; St. Pierre said his practice sidelines sometimes resemble a M*A*S*H unit on the beaches of Normandy. He and his coaching staff are uber-conscious of balancing that risk while making sure his players get the reps the need to build the toughness needed to compete with the likes of Catholic Memorial (who hadn’t lost to an in-state opponent since before COVID-19 broke out).
“We practice very physically. We limit it … but we have to do it to beat people like that,” said St. Pierre. “And we do pride ourselves on it.”
Most times, rushing yardage totals show which football team was the bully and which one got picked on. Saturday, St. John’s Prep ran for 305 yards and the Knights (4-2) managed a mere 54. Running behind a tremendous offensive line and an explosive lead blocker in fullback Gael Garcia, Prep senior Cam LaGrassa rumbled for 254 yards.
Afterwards, the Brown University baseball commit from Middleton credited those hard, physical practices for much of his success.
“Those days can be tough, but it’s a mindset thing. The only thing we can do is work harder than the other team … and a win like this shows how hard we work,” said LaGrassa, who carried a season-high 25 times and frequently withstood big CM hits to gain yards after contact.
“All throughout practice, the mentality is just to run hard and build up conditioning. We do 9-on-7 drills where the defense has the advantage, and I think that helps the skills guys develop that physical edge.”
Tough practices also build discipline. It should be noted that poise and discipline essentially put the game away in the fourth quarter when the Eagles got Catholic Memorial to jump offside on 4th-and-4 by shifting its ‘direct snap to Jimmy Nardone’ package into a tightly packed formation and inducing movement.
There were a number of loud thuds delivered by Prep defenders Matt Callahan and Marquise Avery in Saturday’s win, the 12th straight at Cronin Stadium and state best 14th consecutive victory overall.
It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of a St. John’s Prep team being the roughest and toughest in the state might have drawn groans from the South Shore.
With complete buy-in to St. Pierre’s vision of a rust belt mentality that resembles where he played pro ball for Pittsburgh, though, no one’s laughing now.
“It’s everything we do, from practices to being in the weight room three times a week,” said St. Pierre.
“I just believe there’s a certain way to play football: Physical, on both sides of the ball. That’s our formula.”
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Matt Williams has covered football for The Salem News since 2007. You can contact him at MWilliams@salemnews.com and follow along on Twitter/X @MattWilliams_SN.