Thanksgiving hero Nate Caldwell hopes to lead North Quincy football back to playoffs
QUINCY -- How was your Thanksgiving last year?
Did you score the winning touchdown inside the final two minutes to win one of the state's oldest holiday rivalries?
No? Well, then your Thanksgiving wasn't as quite good as Nate Caldwell's.
The North Quincy High receiver caught a 15-yard TD pass from Cooper Hansen with 1:22 left to lift the Raiders over city rival Quincy High, 15-12, at Veterans Stadium in the latest installment in a series that dates back to 1933. The score capped an epic, 96-yard drive.
"It was a great time. It was a blast," Caldwell recalled some nine months later. "I was pretty happy. Went over to my grandparents (after the game), had a great lunch. Told a bunch of happy stories and memories from the game. Then went over to my cousins for dinner and same thing. (I was) having a good time with family and enjoying it."
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What does he remember about that play of a lifetime?
"Not throwing any shade at the quarterback," he said with a laugh, "but I remember being open for a few seconds waiting for the ball to come and then finally he threw it. And the rest (is history). Big celebration after the catch."
There was no big crowd whooping and hollering at Cavanagh Stadium last Friday, but emotions were still high as NQ went through its paces on the first day of practice for the 2022 campaign that begins Saturday, Sept. 10 with a home game against Somerville.
With NQ having graduated 17 seniors, Caldwell, now a senior himself, is front and center as the Raiders attempt to build on the momentum of back-to-back strong seasons -- they went 4-2 in the pandemic-rescheduled Fall 2 season in the spring of 2021 (almost winning the Patriot League Fisher Division in the process) and then were a better-than-it-looked 5-5 last fall.
Caldwell, who led NQ in both catches (29) and tackles (72 as a free safety) last season, is one of four senior captains -- the others are two-way linemen Dylan Clifford and Brian Nguyen and tight end/defensive end Grant Murphy (team-high 8.5 sacks) -- and fifth-year head coach Ryan Craig has big plans for him.
"He's going to do that every game," Craig said of Caldwell's Thanksgiving heroics. "He catches everything you throw at him. Just the consummate player. He's probably one of the best athletes I've seen. He can do whatever you ask him."
Craig is a particularly big fan of Caldwell's mental approach to the game, saying, "He knows his job and he knows everybody else's job, too."
Caldwell's brain should come in handy as NQ lost a lot of institutional knowledge since many of the departed seniors were three-year starters.
"It's always a good thing to hear that," Caldwell said when told of Craig's praise of his football IQ. "I'm definitely more of a thinker on the field. I like to be able to use my mind to navigate everything."
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Caldwell is confident that NQ can build on the 2021 season in which four of its five losses came against playoff teams, including Div. 4 Super Bowl champ Scituate and Div. 6 runner-up Abington. The Raiders also boasted their highest-scoring offense since 1996.
"I'd say we're definitely heading in the right direction," Caldwell said. "I think a lot of these younger guys have the potential to keep moving us forward."
Clifford, at right guard, is the lone returning starter on the offensive line, so the trenches definitely will have a new look.
"We've got guys who can play," Clifford (6-3, 220 pounds) said. "They've just got to get ready. It's not an easy position to play; it's not an easy position to learn. The varsity level goes fast. There are big guys that we play against and they're not easy to block. We need four new guys who can get the job done. I know four guys who can do the job here, so we've got it."
There will be a new face at quarterback, too, as Hansen has graduated. Junior Charlie Baker is the front-runner right now with sophomore Mike Galligan in the mix.
"Cooper was a good field leader out there," Craig said. "He knew what everybody out there was supposed to do, like most good quarterbacks. He had confidence in himself, and the team had confidence in him. When he came into the huddle and called the play, they didn't question anything, they just did it."
Ideally, the Raiders again will lean on a punishing ground game. NQ rushed for a total of 616 yards in its 2-0 start last season, and the winning drive on Thanksgiving was heavy on handoffs -- six of them to graduated star Matt Craig, the coach's son.
"We're a smashmouth team. We're kind of old-school," said Ryan Craig, who will lean on junior running backs Cydney Green and Jordan Mahoney.
At wide receiver, Caldwell will be joined by juniors Nate Sampson, Ben Walinjom and Will Conley. Caldwell also will anchor the defense at free safety.
What will it all add up to? Well, the Raiders hope it translates into the program's first full-season winning record since the 2010 team went 6-5. NQ also would like to make the playoffs, something that hasn't happened since 2017.
North Quincy's losses last year were painful. The Raiders fell, 27-21, to Abington in Week 3 after throwing an INT inside the Green Wave 5-yard line in the closing seconds. They went to-to-toe with Scituate in Week 5, leading 21-14 in the first half before the Sailors ran away for a 41-21 win. They were competitive in losses to Div. 3 quarterfinalists Plymouth South (17-6) and Hanover (21-14) and then blew a 20-7 lead against Bridgewater-Raynham and lost 21-20 in their final consolation game before Thanksgiving.
Said Clifford: "A lot of games came down to the wire and there were one or two plays that we didn't make or they did make and it didn't go our way."
"We feel like we can play with anyone," said Ryan Craig, who had 72 players (a robust number) at Friday's opening practice. "(Against) Abington, we just ran out of time. B-R, we kind of ran out of gas at the end. It's all part of (the learning process). If we can figure a way to turn those games around, now you've got two more wins added to your total. Now you're 7-3 instead of 5-5.
"That's what we're looking for -- we want to turn the corner on some of the close games and try to be on the other side of that."
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NORTH QUINCY SCHEDULE
Sat., Sept. 10 -- vs. Somerville, 7 p.m.
Fri, Sept. 23 -- vs. Malden Catholic, 7 p.m.
Thu., Sept. 29 -- vs. Abington, 7 p.m.
Fri., Oct. 7 -- at Scituate, 7 p.m.
Fri., Oct. 14 -- vs. Pembroke, 7 p.m.
Fri., Oct. 21 -- vs. Plymouth South, 7 p.m.
Fri., Oct. 28 -- at Hanover, 7 p.m.
Thu., Nov. 24 -- vs. Quincy, 10 a.m. (at Veterans Stadium)
This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Previewing the North Quincy High football's team upcoming season
