Jake's Take | Friday night to be legacy-defining moment for Bodpegn Miller, Brayden DeVito

MANSFIELD — No one should ever peak in high school.

That really isn't the goal in life. The best years are ahead for every single high school student and athlete, but that doesn't mean things that happen in the classroom or on the athletic field can't create a lasting legacy that can propel a kid to greatness once he or she turns the tassel and walks across the graduation stage.

Friday night is one of those moments for two exceptional student-athletes. Shelby's Brayden DeVito and Ontario's Bodpegn Miller are already some of the best (if not the absolute best) football players to ever play in their respective programs. But on Friday night, they square off against one another one last time as their team's starting quarterback with so much on the line that Shelby High School put tickets for the Friday night showdown up for sale online on Monday morning.

It is a game that is sure to live up to the billing as both teams come in undefeated, and the winner will walk away with a at least a share of the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference championship and the opportunity to go 10-0 with a win in Week 10.

But for Miller and DeVito, individual glory is at stake. The winner will likely be named the Mid-Ohio Athletic Conference Player of the Year and every single postseason honor debate will come down to who beat who in Week 9. Who should be the Division IV Northwest District Offensive Player of the Year? Who should be considered for first team All-Ohio? Who should we nominate for Ohio's Mr. Football Award? The winner, of course.

It's a legacy game for the two best players in Richland County.

And they are players with legacies that might already be cemented as the greatest to ever put on a football uniform at their respective schools.

Bodpegn Miller the G.O.A.T at Ontario?

Miller has a very strong case as the best Ontario football player of all time. And maybe the most influential. On Friday night after his Warriors beat Marion Harding behind his incredible 267-passing-yards, 186-rushing-yard, four-total-TDs performance, it was tough for him to field all of the post-game interviews without having a youngster come up just wanting a fist bump from their favorite player. Of course, he made time for each of them and even spent Monday morning speaking to a group of middle schoolers at Ontario, each one of them as starstruck as the next.

And it is all because of his play on the field. Miller already owns nearly every passing record in the program's history. He currently has 5,450 passing yards for his career. Mix that with 47 total touchdowns and he owns both of those records and is on pace to take over the career completion percentage record when its all said and done.

He is the only quarterback in Ontario history to have three 1,000-yard seasons. His 2,328 yards in 2023 is a single-season record and if he can throw for nine more TDs this year, he will take the single-season record there, too.

And he is much more than a passer. Miller is one of the best running quarterbacks in Ohio, which is probably why the Buckeyes love him at wide receiver despite having never played the position on a full-time basis. On Friday night, he eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark for the season, currently sitting at 1,182 yards. He became just the third player in program history to have two 1,000-yard rushing seasons joining Chase Studer, James Robson and Alvin McKnight.

And none of them appear on the passing yards list.

And, he is a winner. In his four years as a starter at Ontario, Miller and his teams are 27-14 with seven of those losses coming his freshman year when the Warriors were putting together the pieces of what is now considered the golden era of Ontario football. There are only two other four-year stretches that are better. In 2000, the Warriors went 7-3 followed by 11-1, 8-2, 8-2 and 8-2 seasons. And from 1963-1969, the Warriors went 7-3, 10-0, 9-1, 5-4-1, 6-3-1, 9-1 and 6-3-1.

But Miller is still playing and is guaranteed three more games during his senior year after the Warriors clinched a playoff spot and at least one home game. He has an outside chance at leaving as the winningest player in program history.

That is quite the legacy.

Brayden DeVito on the Mount Rushmore at Shelby?

It definitely isn't in his nature, but DeVito deserves to brag about himself a little bit. Especially after what he did with a simple 10-yard pass in a Week 7 game at Highland. With the pass, he broke the program's career passing yards record that was previously held by arguably the greatest Shelby football player of all time, Brennan Armstrong. He had 7,386 yards in his four-year career and DeVito smashed that record before his junior year was over.

DeVito went into last week's Clear Fork game with 7,773 passing yards for his career. After throwing for 490 and four touchdowns, he now has 8,263 yards on his right arm making him the first 8,000-yard QB in Shelby history and it qualifies him for a spot in the Ohio High School Athletic Association's all-time passing yards record book. He would be No. 40 right now.

And he has at least three more games of his junior season (the Whippets clinched a playoff spot, too) and his entire senior year to go.

As it stands, to go with DeVito's passing yards total, he also has 70 total passing touchdowns and is just 13 away from Armstrong's career record of 83. He is now eligible for the OHSAA state record book for TD passes in a career and is currently 70th on the list.

He needs just 30 more completions and 61 more attempts to break Armstrong's career records in both categories and 29 more rushing TDs to own that career record, too.

He likely won't catch Marshall Shepherd's insane record-setting single season marks of 270 completions, 415 attempts, 4,273 yards and 48 TDs as DeVito is currently 116-for-177 for 2,244 yards and 18 TDs, but he does have his senior season left to challenge those marks.

Like Miller, DeVito is a winner. In his three seasons at QB, DeVito owns a 23-9 record and the wins are still piling up in his junior year and are sure to explode during his senior season. Armstrong went 31-16 in his four years at QB. The best four-year stretch has to be from 1965-1968 when the Whippets went 36-2-2 with three 10-0 seasons under Bill Wilkins.

If DeVito can help the Whippets win Friday night, run off a 10-0 regular season and win a few games in the playoffs, he puts himself in position to challenge that 36-win stretch and leave his career with three league championships.

What better legacy could you possibly leave?

Is Friday night a defining moment for Miller and DeVito?

It's a tricky question. What would a win and a loss do to the legacies of Bodpegn Miller and Brayden DeVito? The answer is just as complicated as the question.

A lot and very little.

It will label one the winner of the game and the other the loser of the game, but in the grand scheme of what the two kids have done for their schools and communities, it will just be a blip on the screen of a long list of great things they have accomplished in their careers. But that isn't going to stop either of them from doing everything they possibly can to win the game.

They have already influenced the youth of the community to want to be Warriors and Whippets. They have shown what hard work and dedication can do for a program and for an individual. Their legacies as all-time greats are cemented.

But a win on Friday night would be a nice feather in the cap.

Jake Furr is the sports reporter for the Mansfield News Journal and has been covering high school sports in Richland County since January 2018 after starting his career in 2015. He is also the vice president of the Ohio Prep Sportswriters Association.

This article originally appeared on Mansfield News Journal: Jake's Take | Friday night to be legacy-defining moment for Bodpegn Miller, Brayden DeVito