When Stevenson’s Brandon Hersh has the ball, teammates ‘get excited.’ Big plays come in small packages.
Stevenson senior Brandon Hersh is not only aware of the well-worn adage that looks can be deceiving on the football field.
He’s also a fan.
The 5-foot-10, 170-pound Hersh has learned to lean into the fact that some people might doubt him at first glance.
“Size definitely does have some limits, but I’ve always tried not to use that as an excuse,” he said. “I know what I can do and what I can’t. Like, I don’t run a lot of fade routes in the end zone. But pretty much anything else is fair game.”
Indeed, Hersh is the most impactful offensive player for the Patriots (1-5, 1-3), and his limitations are few. As the season has progressed, the team’s play callers have found new ways to utilize him.
Hersh is listed as a wide receiver, and he has 30 catches for 400 yards and four touchdowns. But where he lines up, where he’s going after the snap and who might be tasked with tracking him can vary significantly. In a new wrinkle, he was the H-back in certain packages during the Patriots’ North Suburban Conference loss to Libertyville last week.
“I find that part of it really fun, getting to play new positions every week,” Hersh said. “I even ran the ball inside once on Friday. It’s all designed to get the ball into my hands.
“I’m glad that my coaches and teammates have trust in me to do it in multiple ways.”
Hersh’s coaches and teammates recognize the physical trait in his favor: He’s very fast.
“When you see him, he’s a little unassuming, but he makes things happen,” Stevenson coach Brent Becker said. “We definitely try to move him around to get him the ball in different ways.
“He changes direction really well, and his acceleration is elite. That’s how he gets open and then makes plays after he has the ball.”
There are even times when Hersh can make a change at the line of scrimmage if he thinks it will give the Patriots a good chance at a big play. He harks back to instances in games against Zion-Benton and Lake Zurich when he and junior quarterback Eli Sigal worked together to gain a last-second advantage.
“Last year, I definitely had set routes, but this year there are times I get to choose which route to run depending on the defense that’s shown,” Hersh said. “There’s a sign I give to the quarterback presnap after I see which route I’m running. In both of those games, I chose to run a post and got two big plays out of it.”
Hersh, who showed his home run ability on that season-long 66-yard touchdown against Lake Zurich, believed he would be more productive this season after getting acclimated to the varsity level last year.
“I started out last year third-string and worked my way into the starting lineup for Week 3,” he said. “For the first game, I was definitely nervous when I got the ball. Everything was moving really fast, and I didn’t have time to think. But after I was starting, I was finally able to think about what I was going to do.”
Teammates noticed Hersh’s rapid development during the offseason. Junior offensive lineman Alexander Murillo remembers one instance vividly.
“They were testing the 40 times, and I saw him line up against an older receiver, and Brandon just smoked him,” Murillo said.
That eye-opener was a preview for this season.
“I’ve learned to get excited whenever the ball goes to him because it can end in a touchdown,” Murillo said. “A lot of his receptions don’t end with just a few yards. He always gets some extra yards, and if he’s not doing what we’ve learned to rely on him for, we usually struggle.”
Despite Stevenson’s struggles this season, Hersh believes a playoff berth is still possible. If the wins do start coming, there’s no doubt Hersh will be one of the main catalysts.
“The end of the season is definitely starting to be in the back of my mind because no matter what happens, we only have a few weeks,” he said. “We know what we’re capable of, and the coaches have talked about trying to get one extra game at a time. Just try to go 1-0 each week so we can play together for as long as possible.”