Turpin hasn't won the ECC since 2019; Devan Nigam hopes to lead them there again

Turpin football's second-year head coach Bryan Walker knew his quarterback Devan Nigam was a student of the game pretty soon after he met him. If you like football you know, one of the easiest ways to break the ice is a simple couple of questions:

"Who's your favorite team?"

"What about your favorite player?"

Walker asked Nigam early on in their relationship, and the quarterback said he's a Dolphins fan. His favorite player is Dan Marino.

"That's when I knew he watched a lot of ball," Walker said. "He kind of plays like Marino, a big gunslinger."

The senior signal caller, who has already thrown for 820 yards and 10 touchdowns through three games, is actually bigger than the 6-foot-4 Marino. Nigam is listed at 6-foot-5, 225 pounds (and Walker thinks he might be pushing closer to 6-foot-6).

His size and big arm are the first things you'll notice about him if you show up at a Turpin game, but the first thing Walker mentioned when talking about his QB was Nigam’s football IQ. Second was his ability as a leader. Walker says he has sneaky touch too, and he knows how to use it to lead his receivers away from trouble and into open field.

Nigam is quiet by nature, but he's earned the respect of his teammates through hard work and a conscientious attitude. As a senior, he's the leader of Turpin's offense, even the team as a whole. Sometimes it takes a wink or a nod from a coach (sometimes it doesn't), but Nigam picks his spots to speak up, and when he does, people listen.

Last year, in Walker's first year at the helm of the Spartans, Turpin finished 3-8 (still an improvement over their 1-9 record in 2022). One of the things Walker respects about Nigam most is that he never got down on himself or his teammates during the tough season in 2023. If a receiver had a drop or an offensive lineman blew an assignment, Nigam was always encouraging.

This season, Nigam and Walker hope to lead Turpin back to relevance in the Eastern Cincinnati Conference (ECC). In the 2010s, the Spartans consistently hung around the top of the ECC and won it multiple times, most recently in 2019. Since 2020, the team hasn’t seen that same success.

In Walker’s second year at the helm, the Spartans are 2-1 so far. Week 1, they lost a heartbreaker to Oak Hills. The game ended with a walk-off 34-yard field goal from the Highlanders’ Jaxson Dorsel. Last week, they earned a commanding 34-14 win over Little Miami.

On Friday, Turpin had a further breakout performance with a dominant 30-7 victory over Walnut Hills.

Nigam completed 11-of-18 passes for 116 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. He also added 76 yards on six rushes. Turpin has already nearly reached its win total from last year and even the last two years combined. With senior Devan Nigam under center, people around the program believe they're poised to continue that success.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Turpin hasn't won the ECC since 2019; Devan Nigam hopes to lead them there again