MORRISVILLE — Through two games, Morrisville senior Raymond Holman is the leading rusher in PIAA high school football in the state.
Just imagine if he'd played two whole games.
"Raymond came up to me before halftime last week and asked if we could let other guys carry the ball," Morrisville second-year head coach Mitch Cohen said.
"That's just the kind of kid he is. He's so humble and he wants to see his teammates and his team do well. In our first two games, he's had one carry in the second half. Everything he's done so far has been in the first halves of our games."
Those first halves, which have both turned out to be wins over Montour Columbia Vo-Tech and New Hope-Solebury, have been scary good.
Morrisville's Holman on record-setting rushing pace
With just 28 carries, Holman has already piled up 406 rushing yards with six of his runs going for touchdowns. Some quick math puts his average at 14.5 yards per carry. Yes, 14.5 yards per carry.
"When I first saw him last year, you think this kid is skinny and tall, but when he runs, he runs extremely hard and can break tackles," said Morrisville assistant coach D'Andre Pollard, a 2015 Neshaminy grad and that school's all-time leading rusher with 4,658 yards.
"Raymond rarely goes down on first contact and he can fight off tacklers. And his football IQ has gotten so much better from last year to this year. He's just fun to watch. We try to get him in space and then let him go to work from there."
Morrisville's Holman piling up the yardage
Despite being used sparingly in the backfield as a sophomore, Holman already has career-rushing numbers that will be hard to top.
In his first full season as a running back in 2023, he set the Bulldogs' single-season rushing mark with 1,954 yards and single-game record with 268 yards against Jenkintown. He enters Friday's tough non-league matchup against 2-0 Pequea Valley (District Three) with a school-record 2,792 career yards (and counting).
"One of my goals is to rush for 2,000 yards," said the 6-foot, 150-pound Holman. "But we'd really like to win another district championship like last year.
"We've had a good start to the season and just need to keep it going."
Morrisville teammates saw Holman's potential early on
Even though they played on different youth teams growing up, Morrisville junior linebacker/fullback Shakur Dismukes knew that Holman was going to be different.
"Ever since we were little kids, he was always the fastest kid around," Dismukes said. "It didn't take long to figure out that he was the best player on whatever team he was playing on.
"But he does it through hard work. Raymond pretty much stays to himself and is just very humble. He loves playing football and is really good at it."
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Plenty of others have taken notice of Morrisville's Holman
Put up the numbers that Holman has, even at a school like Class A Morrisville, which has the second-smallest enrollment in PIAA District One and the 20th smallest in the state (out of 555 PIAA football programs), and word still gets around.
"The colleges have noticed and Raymond is getting more and more attention," Cohen said. "We tried to schedule bigger schools this season to help show what he can do against bigger programs. You name a (Class) 6A program and Raymond would be starting for them.
"Morgan State loves him and so does East Stroudsburg and West Chester. And Penn State just reached out to check on his transcripts and they're showing interest. Raymond is a good student and good football player and he'll bring a lot to wherever he goes.
While Holman has yet to make any official visits, he's been to the four colleges Cohen mentioned along with Rutgers.
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"Honestly, I never thought this would happen where colleges would be interested in me," said Holman, who would like to major in business. "Going into my junior year, my dad said that the colleges would start looking at me, but I didn't think it would happen.
"Now that it has, I'm not in any rush to make a decision. I'm just going to keep trying to play as well as I can."
Depending where he ends up, Holman could be a running back or a wide receiver.
"It will depend what the school is looking for," Cohen said. "Wherever he goes, that school is going to be really glad to have him as both a person and a football player.
"He's a home-run hitter on the football field with 4.41 speed (in the 40-yard dash). I've been coaching high school football for 18 years and he's the fastest kid I've ever coached. And he's an even better kid off the field."
Drew Markol covers local sports forPhillyBurbs.com. Support our journalism with a subscription.
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