Stay? Or quit? Two summers ago, that was the choice that confronted Madison’s backup quarterback George Cripe.
There would be no in-between.
He chose to stay with the team and he is glad he did.
So are the Dodgers.
The senior came off the bench and engineered an epic late drive that helped Madison to a wild 22-21 victory over previously undefeated Bernards in a North 2, Group II first-round game Friday night..
In training camp two years ago, Cripe taking center stage in a Madison playoff victory was an impossibility. He was nosed out of the starting quarterback role by fellow junior (and good friend) Luke McGuire.
So when that happened, Cripe wasn’t thinking about any game-winning drives.
He was pondering his future, and whether football would even be a part of it.
Many thoughts crossed Cripe’s mind: Leave football, concentrate on basketball, move on with his life.
But he chose to stick with football.
It came down to this: George Cripe is no quitter.
“People get rewarded for working hard and staying true to themselves,” he said.
Those words sure rang true at Bernards, where he staged one of the most clutch comebacks in Madison’s football tradition-rich history.
“George is a very different kind of kid,” Madison coach Chris Kubik said. “Most backup quarterbacks aren’t team captains. He accepted his role. What he did every week was he got himself ready for this exact moment. He is a high character kid. He is a hard working kid. He loves his teammates and he just wanted to be part of something. He was in a tough spot, especially the way Luke was playing, but he accepted his role. He is our punter, but being a leader was his main role.”
Once the disappointment of losing the starting role sunk in, Cripe chose to take the high road, so he became a vocal leader. No wonder his teammates chose him as one of the team captains.
Against Bernards, he’d become an onfield leader, leading a game-winning drive that any quarterback – on any level – would be proud of.
Madison faced an uphill battle in the second half against the homesteading Mountaineers when Maguire went down with a shoulder injury.
Little did anyone know that Cripe would show that he is more than capable.
With 2:39 left in the game, the Dodgers took over on their 38, trailing 21-14.
With Cripe at the controls, the odds were stacked against Madison. Especially when you consider this: The Dodgers first- and second-team offensive units, which usually walk through their two-minute drill the day before a game, couldn’t rehearse outdoors the day before thanks to a driving rainstorm in New Jersey. The team was forced indoors and never had a chance to brush up on their hurry-up offense.
Fortunately, Cripe and the Dodgers used muscle memory.
“Hug the sidelines, get out of bounds,” he said. “Try and get the ball out quick, a lot of designed rollouts, left or right. Save the timeouts for when we needed them. One play at a time. It’s not over till it’s over.”
True to form, he got the ball out quick and used receivers Max Curry (3 catches, 26 yards during the march) and Carter Ferris (2 for 11) before the drive’s key play, when he connected with a wide-open Liam Melvin on a screen for 35 yards to put the ball at the Bernards 1.
“That is one of our base plays from Day One of mini camp,” he said. “We haven’t gone to it at all. Luke is so elusive in quarterback power so we didn’t need to. We have Liam Melvin out there. We knew they’d bring the house and their secondary was backing up. Our O-Line (tackles Sam Kest and Dylan Staar, guards James Doehner, Hudson Flemming and Jack Graham), center Alex Arndt, tight end Titus Green) hadn’t repped it all week but we executed it. No one questioned the call. We were all on the same page.”
After Cripe and Melvin tried running the ball in from the 1 but for no gain, Melvin powered ahead for a touchdown to pull the Dodgers to within 21-20.
“I’m celebrating after scoring, but we have to get everyone in, snap the ball, and catch them when they’re not ready,” Cripe said. “The job was not finished. Looking back, we ran a routine play. We did it quickly. No one was thinking too much about it. We are a team, no one had any doubts.”
Javier Izzo then bulled in for the two-point conversion and a 22-21 lead with 20 seconds left.
Going for two was a foregone conclusion.
“The game was flowing a certain way, so if we had that chance, we take it,” Cripe said. “We have a great kicker (Mac Russo) but … they missed their last field goal at the end of the game and they had a good kicker. The wind was not on anyone’s side. So we scored and it was a credit to our O-Line. We liked our matchups inside the 5. Madison is a running team, so we went back to our roots. We had all the confidence in the world that we’d get in.”
“It was a quick hitter, we were running a lot of inside belly, out of the same formation. They moved guys to the left because they thought we’d run belly again and we went to the other side. We wanted to catch them before they made the adjustment. We switched it up with the same formation.”
Madison’s longtime offensive guru Marty Horn, up in the box, orchestrated the drive and the two-point conversion.
“That is all Coach (Marty) Horn, a great mind,” Cripe said. “He knows what the defense likes to do. It was the right call. It was the same formation as the touchdown, where we went left to Melvin, but we went right to Izzo.”
That’s when Madison’s on-field party began.
“What more could you ask for?” Cripe said. “That was really fun. I give the credit to everyone around me. It was pretty dramatic and theatrical but I was happy we found a way to win and keep the season alive for the seniors.”
One of those seniors happens to be Cripe, the guy who almost didn’t stay with the team when he was nosed out of the starting QB job.
When seventh-seeded Madison travels to No. 6 seed Becton in the next round of the playoffs, there is a chance that Cripe will get the call again if McGuire is not cleared to play.
At the end of the Bernards game, Cripe was thrilled with the comeback win but felt for his fallen teammate.
“It was great for me, but the first thing I was thinking about was Luke,” Cripe said. “To see him go down after everything he has done for us. To have my situation and success based on something like that … the nature of it stinks, even though I’m happy for the team. I’m so glad we got the job done and we’re gonna keep it going for him.”
To think that none of this would have been possible if Cripe handed in his jersey to Kubik.
“I had a tough decision to make last year,” Cripe said. “I wasn’t motivated. I play basketball too. Basketball does a lot in the fall, so where would my time be more valued? But I wanted to finish what I started. You never know what could happen.”
Indeed, you never know. George Cripe is living proof.
