Apollo-Ridge grad Jake Nulph, Edinboro football eager to start 2024 season fresh after injury-plagued '23

There might have been times last fall when Edinboro football coach Jake Nulph considered resorting to unconventional measures.

Throwing salt over his shoulder. Wearing a necklace made from garlic. Hanging a horseshoe in his office. Consulting a shaman.

Surely the Apollo-Ridge grad had run afoul of the gridiron gods. How else could he explain a spate of injuries unlike anything he had seen in two decades of coaching?

It started in the first week when, in a nonconference game against FCS opponent Duquesne, all-conference offensive lineman Gabe Hulslander suffered a season-ending MCL injury on the third series. In the same game, core special teamer Gage Galuska broke his leg covering a punt.

A week later against Shepherd, starting linebacker Wilfredo Diaz got leg-whipped while trying to scoop up a fumble he had caused, and the result was a broken leg.

By the halfway point of what turned out to be a 3-8 season (1-6 in the PSAC West), Edinboro was missing 12 starters/regulars across all three units.

“We don’t play checkers and chess. It’s a contact sport. That’s part of the game,” said Nulph, now able to look back on the season more philosophically. “It was just unfortunate. But I’ve never been part of a season where the injury bug hit like that.”

With more walking wounded seemingly every week, the Fighting Scots suffered through a five-game losing streak that started in October and stretched into the first week of November. But it wasn’t as if Nulph’s charges were getting blown off the field.

Aside from the final loss in the skid (56-18 at home against Slippery Rock), Edinboro’s margins of defeat in the other four games were no more than two scores: 11, 10, 14 and 10.

“We were finding ways to lose, and our youth and inexperience were kind of coming to fruition,” Nulph said.

The good news for Nulph and the Scots was how the season ended: a 36-30 victory over Lock Haven. It was a contest that was far from “garbage time” for the Bald Eagles. They were playing for their first winning season since 1981.

The game see-sawed until Fighting Scots running back Brian Trobel scored a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns to secure the win.

That, Nulph said, is when the 2024 season started.

Senior safety Toby Cline, a Jeannette grad who was a second-team All-PSAC West selection in 2023, sounded confident in talking about the new season. He said the travails of 2023 should serve to make the Scots stronger.

“What can we do when adversity hits?” Cline asked rhetorically. “Last year, we had two of our starting linebackers go out with season-ending injuries. We had a couple of safeties go out with injuries. We just had to battle through the injuries and go through the adversity.

“We have guys itching to get back on the field. … This year we have experience. We have depth. We also have some young guys who can provide some help.”

Several players who saw starting time last season return, including Diaz and Hulslander, whom, Nulph said, are healthy and ready to go. The group includes quarterback Isaac Bernard, who threw for 1,434 yards, nine touchdowns and only four interceptions last season.

A handful of players from the A-K Valley are expected to be lineup regulars and/or push for starting jobs, Nulph said. The list starts with All-PSAC West first-team punter Reed Martin (Plum). He finished last season averaging 39.9 yards per punt, placing 19 of 51 inside the 20-yard line.

Martin also can double as a defensive back. He had 26 tackles last season and has two career interceptions.

Springdale’s Logan Dexter, a redshirt sophomore safety, will vie for a starting job after recording 29 tackles, two interceptions and three pass breakups a year ago.

Fox Chapel grad Zidane Thomas, a redshirt sophomore running back, also will compete for time, especially with Trobel, the team’s leading rusher a year ago, transferring. As a freshman, Thomas appeared in nine games and carried 39 times for 139 yards and a pair of TDs, but he was among the injury casualties last season.

Also coming back after an injury is Plum grad Logan Brooks. Nulph said the redshirt sophomore will compete for time at receiver and also play on special teams.

Several other WPIAL players will be key pieces of the Edinboro puzzle, including Yough’s Waldier brothers, senior CJ and junior Tristan. Both linebackers and both similarly sized (6-foot-1, 205), they combined for 135 tackles, with CJ amassing a team-best 93 on his way to first-team all-conference honors.

Tristan Waldier had 42 tackles and an interception.

Cline said the group is preparing with a sense of urgency.

“My freshman year, we were 5-6, and we’ve added a loss every year since,” he said. “That’s not us. We have guys who were young that 2021 year. Now they’re stepping into larger roles.”

And after what Edinboro went through last season, Nulph said, the season opener can’t come soon enough. The negatives of 2023 have galvanized this group.

“This should be the catapult to get Edinboro football to the next level,” he said, “because of the adversity that we faced and how our guys have really come together for one common thing, and that’s the 2024 season.”