MENTOR, Ohio — After Scotty Fox found himself on a varsity field by the third game of his freshman year against Ohio’s state football champions, the introduction could have been too much.
Fox could have found himself back on the bench the next year.
Instead, Mentor coach Matt Gray stuck with his young quarterback, who has since grown into a West Virginia commit and the leader of an undefeated Mentor squad, which is 6-0 for the first time since 2019.
“Scotty, he loves this game,” Gray said Saturday after the Cardinals’ 47-21 win against Michigan’s River Rouge. “He’s a junkie.”
Fox has thrown for 1,268 yards and 17 touchdown passes, and just two interceptions, with a 61.6% completion rate as a senior for the Cardinals, who are ranked No. 2 in the cleveland.com Top 25. They have risen to the top of the Division I, Region 1, playoff standings with their start.
Mentor has steadily improved in each of the last three years along with its quarterback. The program’s success, which includes seven state final four appearances since 2006, has been tied to its prime position.
When Fox arrived as a freshman, backing up then-junior Jacob Snow, the Cardinals were coming off their second straight OHSAA Division I state semifinal run and third in four years. Then came Fox’s crash-course introduction to varsity football, inserted into the lineup in Week 3 of the 2021 season at St. Edward after Snow broke his hand.
Fox has been the starter ever since.
“It’s hard as a freshman, but it really made me who I am now,” Fox said, “especially the seniors when I was a freshman.”
Sam Kish, Evan Harper and Michael Norwood were the senior receivers on that team Fox credited for easing his first weeks of adjusting to varsity football. He also remembered the leadership of tackle Brandon Ryan, who played on a line that missed three starters for the St. Edward game that year because of COVID-19 protocols.
That had a domino effect that thrust Fox into the lineup, as Snow faced a pass rush with multiple Division I college prospects without his normal starters to block them. Snow broke his right throwing hand while it hit a defender’s helmet that night in Lakewood.
He eventually returned, but moved to receiver and safety while playing quarterback only for special sets the following season. Gray and his staff saw enough in Fox to stick with him as a sophomore in 2022.
“No. 1, he’s got obvious talent,” Gray said. “He’s got legit arm talent, and he is a football junkie. He’s a kid that we wanted to be able to get our best 11 guys out there, and Jacob was an unbelievable player for us.”
Mentor rebounded from its first 5-5 season since 1997 to win nine games and reach the regional finals with Fox starting as a sophomore. Last year, the Cardinals finished 7-4 with all of their losses by no more than three points. Fox even missed their biggest game, a 14-13 overtime loss at Cleveland Heights, because of an injury.
That made his return, and a 35-27 victory two weeks ago against the talented Tigers, so much more sweet. Fox, who threw for 266 yards and rushed for 37 more with four total touchdowns in that game, noted before the season how he and his teammates wanted it.
“We’ve got our losses on the board,” he said. “It gives us motivation.”
Fox took his leadership responsibilities as a quarterback to another level this year, Gray said. During the offseason, following Fox’s commitment last November to West Virginia, the coach noticed his growth in how he interacts with his teammates and other coaches.
“Taking responsibility in a way that we haven’t seen throughout his first three years,” Gray said. “He is incredibly consistent, playing at a high level because he’s taken those reins and understanding how we’re trying to attack what we’re doing.”
Fox has grown not just mentally but physically into a 6-foot-2, 215-pound quarterback. He picked the Mountaineers last year over the likes of Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan State and Minnesota. Two of his top receivers, junior Justen Hodge and senior Austin VanHuss, also now have Division I scholarship offers.
Hodge, who leads the receivers with 31 receptions for 564 yards and five TDs, has interest from Michigan State and even Fox’s future school in West Virginia.
“It starts in the offseason,” Hodge said. “We’ve been up at the field all the time, working. After practice, working. It’s not just us, but Austin VanHuss, Marcus Sierputowski, Dom Baroni, they’re all doing their thing.”
VanHuss, who has played with Fox since they were 7 years old and up to their time at Memorial Middle School in Mentor, now has an offer from Colgate. His connection with Fox was interrupted only briefly, when the quarterback was called up as a freshman.
“He was nervous, obviously, but he played the best he could as a freshman,” VanHuss said. “I think he learned it better as a freshman because he had to step into that spot.”
That spot produced a future pro in Mitchell Trubisky, who won Ohio’s Mr. Football in 2012 for then-coach Steve Trivisonno, who then had Connor Krizancic a year later for a run to the state finals. Then, there was three-year starter Tadas Tatarunas, an All-Ohio quarterback who also got the Cardinals to the state finals.
Then came Ian Kipp, a three-year starter who got the Cardinals to two straight state semifinals while the program transitioned its leadership from Trivisonno to Gray.
Looking back, Gray chuckled at the stress-induced 2021 for him and Fox. It was his second year as head coach and just the start for Fox.
“I think it got some of that motivation of where he could get to,” Gray said. “It’s hard to play quarterback in this program. There’s a lot of guys that have been in it, and he’s been pretty special.”
Contact sports reporter Matt Goul on X (@mgoul), Threads (@mgoul) or email ([email protected]).
