Two Much: The Rumson QB Tandem of Moore and Williams Dazzles in Win Over Point Boro

RUMSON – The debut of rotating Rumson-Fair Haven quarterbacks Casey Moore and Brady Williams in the Bulldogs’ 34-0 season-opening win over Point Boro on Friday night had Rumson head coach Jeremy Schulte refuting a popular football truism. 

“There’s that old adage that if you have two QBs, you don’t have one, and I don’t think that’s really true in high school football,” Schulte said. “We have two great kids, they both bring something different to the table, and they both did a great job, especially taking over for who they had to take over for.” 

Moore, a junior, ran for one touchdown and threw for another, while the imposing Williams, a 6-foot-5 sophomore, threw two touchdown passes and ran for another in his first significant varsity action. The two were a combined 10-for-15 passing for 159 yards and three touchdowns and also ran for a pair of scores in the win at Borden Stadium. 

They are replacing Shore Sports Insider Offensive Player of the Year Owen O’Toole, who finished his career second in Shore Conference history in passing yards in leading Rumson-Fair Haven to a 13-0 season a year ago. He was the engineer of the Shore Conference’s No. 1 offense at 40.7 points per game. 

“We’ve been hearing all summer everyone saying, ‘Oh it’s a rebuilding year,’ and all this stuff that our offense is going to be our weakness,” Moore said. “We put up 34 points on them, we aired it out, we pummeled them with the run – we did everything.” 

“I wasn’t really nervous,” Williams said. “I knew that I just had to come out here and do my job. We knew that we were a top team in the Shore, if not the best team in the Shore, and we proved it. We’re here to stay.” 

The Bulldogs (1-0), ranked No. 4 in the SSI Preseason Top 12, extended their winning streak to 14 games by beating the No. 5 Panthers (0-1) for the third time in two seasons. Rumson also handed Point Boro its first shutout loss since the Covid-shortened 2020 season by limiting the Panthers’ flexbone option attack to 124 total yards.  

Moore Gets Things Started

Rumson began the game by getting a stop on defense on the opening drive, and then Moore trotted out for his first varsity start. He went 3-for-3 passing for 28 yards, and returning first-team All-Shore running back Kellen Murray racked up 36 yards rushing in a 12-play, 69-yard drive that ended with a one-yard keeper by Moore. It gave the Bulldogs a 7-0 lead with 26 seconds left in the first quarter, and they never looked back. 

“It was my first game, so I had a little bit of nerves, but going out on the field and it’s first down, first down, first down, it pumped me up,” Moore said. “Kellen’s our go-guy, so the pressure’s not really on me. I just give it to him, and he gets five yards every time.” 

The threat of Murray also allowed Moore to get easy rollouts off play-action in which he had plenty of time to throw. Murray finished with 105 yards rushing on 19 carries. 

“I feel like they were bringing a lot of people in the box, so when we went play-action, they bit on everything,” Moore said. “It opened up a lot.” 

Brady Williams Makes His Debut

A wall of Rumson defenders stopped Point Boro on fourth-and-one at the Panthers’ 38-yard line on their ensuing possession, which is when Williams got his first turn to run the offense. Eight plays later, Williams smashed through two defenders to complete a 4-yard touchdown run to make it 14-0 with 5:46 left in the half. 

“I love contact,” Williams said. “I’m not afraid of it.” 

“He’s a big boy,” Schulte said. “He knows that’s one of his strong suits, and he takes advantage of it. He doesn’t shy away from it.” 

After the collision, Point Boro All-Shore quarterback/defensive back Jake Clayton was shaken up, while Panthers senior defensive back James Bradley left the game with a knee injury and did not return. Clayton played sparingly in the second half.

“It was precautionary,” Point Boro head coach Brian Staub said about Clayton. “He was a little banged up, he’s going to be OK.” 

The Bulldogs took a 20-0 lead into halftime by making Point Boro pay dearly for a mistake late in the second quarter. Rumson was lined up to punt, but an illegal substitution penalty on Point Boro convinced the Bulldogs to send the offense back out on fourth-and-3. Moore unloaded a strike down the sideline to streaking senior wide receiver Brandon McDonald for his first varsity touchdown, a 42-yard score with only 37 seconds left in the half. 

“There were 40 seconds left on the clock, and I saw that ‘go ball’ coming,” Moore said. “I peeked over there before the snap, and I just put it out there because I knew (McDonald) was going to come down with it.” 

Point Boro had a chance to get back into the game with good starting field position at Rumson’s 39-yard line in the third quarter. Bulldogs senior defensive end Ben Roberts had other ideas as he tackled senior fullback Calvin Videon-Perino for a six-yard loss on a reverse play on fourth down. 

“Coach said, ‘Hey, they’re reaching deep in the playbook, watch for the reverse,’” Roberts said. “All I had to do was make the tackle.” 

Rumson’s defense swallowed up Point Boro’s formidable run game by consistently getting negative plays to put the Panthers behind the chains.

“We’re the best D-line and the best defense in the Shore,” Roberts said. “We can get penetration into any backfield.”

Two QBs Works for Rumson

Williams then showed he’s more than just a power running complement to Moore’s dropback passer style. 

The defensive stop by Roberts set up an eight-play, 53-yard drive that ended with a 10-yard touchdown pass from Williams to senior Grant Zimmerer for a 27-0 lead with 3:45 left in the third quarter. Rumson tacked on one more score with a 35-yard touchdown throw from Williams to senior wideout Chris Economou with 11:35 left in the game. 

Moore and Williams showed that rotating quarterbacks can be effective, rather than a disaster waiting to happen. 

“I don’t really mind it,” Moore said. “We won 34-0, that’s all that matters. We scored almost every drive. I’m just happy that we won.” 

“It’s great,” Williams said. “We’re both very good quarterbacks, and we proved it tonight.”

Schulte had prepared the two signal-callers in the offseason for the possibility of alternating series during games. 

“I think they both have seen the writing on the wall throughout the whole summer,” he said. “I’m sure if you ask them, they both want to stay on the field the entire game, but the second they come off, their biggest fan on the sideline is the other one. That’s what you want as a coach.”

The quarterback duo will get another stern test next week when Rumson takes on No. 2 Brick Memorial (1-0) in a nondivisional game on the road. Point Boro will look to regroup with a road game against rival Manasquan (1-0).

 

Box Score

No. 4 Rumson-FH 34, No. 5 Point Boro 0

	Rumson-FH	Pt. Boro
First downs	16	6
Rushes-yards	33-144	29-115
Passing	10-15-0	1-5-0
Passing yards	159	9
Fumbles-lost	1-1	3-2
Penalties-yards	4-40	5-30

 

	1	2	3	4	F
Point Boro (0-1)	0	0	0	0	0
Rumson-FH (1-0)	7	13	7	7	34

 

Scoring Summary

Moore 1-yard run (Cavise kick).

Williams 4-yard run (Cavise kick).

McDonald 42-yard pass from Moore (kick failed).

Zimmerer 10-yard pass from Williams (Cavise kick).

Economou 35-yard pass from Williams (Cavise kick).

 

Individual Statistics

RUSHING — RFH: Murray 19-105, Williams 5-17, Izzo 4-7, Moore 2-(-2), Christian 3-17; P: Spanola 4-39, Videon-Perino 17-44, Clayton 3-8, Albanese 1-4, Scalabrini 2-11, Biasi 2-9.

PASSING — R: Moore 6-10-0 95, Williams 4-5-0 64; P: Clayton 1-3-0 9, Videon-Perino 0-1-0 0, Corino 0-1-0 0.

RECEIVING — R: Zimmerer 3-27, McDonald 1-42, Najenson 1-13, Economou 3-54, Murray 2-20. P: Spanola 1-9.

INTERCEPTIONS — None.

Scott Stump is the football editor and a reporter for Shore Sports Insider. He first started covering Shore Conference football in 1999 and has covered basketball, baseball and seemingly every other Shore Conference sport at some point. 

Email: scottstump25@gmail.com