As I was sitting in Maryland Stadium watching Ron Cook Jr. (St. John's College) run the ball and James Patterson (St. Vincent Pallotti) make tackles for Buffalo, I scanned the school's roster and there are a significant number of players from local schools: Brian Plummer (Quince Orchard), Nik McMillan (Dr. Henry Wise), Janik Ogunlade (North Point), Caelan Shepard (Broadneck), Logic Hudgens (Archbishop Spalding), Devin Morgan (St. Frances Academy), Cornell Evans (St. Frances Academy), and Dylan Powell (St. Vincent Pallotti). And there are another four players on Buffalo's roster from the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference (WCAC): George Wolo (Our Lady of Good Counsel), Jalen McNair (Our Lady of Good Counsel), Cameron Ball (Gonzaga College), and Robbie Mangas (Gonzaga College).
Five players from one football conference in the DMV populating one college team in the Mid-American Conference seems kind of remarkable. There are ten football schools in the WCAC -- DeMatha; Archbishop Carroll; Bishop McNamara; Bishop Ireton; Gonzaga College; Saint Mary's Ryken; Our Lady of Good Counsel; Saint John's College; Bishop O'Connell; and Saint Paul VI. There are at least 118 alums of these ten schools currently on Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) rosters.
Some statistics:
There is at least one WCAC alum playing in every FBS conference -- both the Power 5 and Group of 5: 34 in the Big Ten; 24 in the ACC; 12 in the American Athletic; 12 in independent FBS schools; 10 in the Sunbelt; 9 in the Mid-American; 7 in the SEC; 4 in the Big 12; 3 in the Pac-12; 2 in the Conference USA; and one in the Mountain West.
One out of every six of the WCAC alums (16.1%) in the FBS plays for Maryland (19). Other teams with multiple WCAC alums: James Madison (7); Pittsburgh (6); Navy (6); Michigan (5); Penn State (5); Notre Dame (5); Buffalo (5); Wake Forest (4); Virginia (3); Boston College (3); Temple (3); Ohio University (3); Georgia (2); University of Southern California (2); Vanderbilt (2); West Virginia (2); Louisville (2); Syracuse (2); UConn (2); Marshall (2); and UMass (2). Alabama, Army, Boise State, BYU, Charlotte, Duke, Georgia Tech, Kent State, Liberty, Louisiana State University, Middle Tennessee State, Minnesota, North Carolina State, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Purdue, Rutgers, South Carolina, Southern Methodist University, Stanford, Texas, Tulane, University of Central Florida, University of Louisiana-Monroe, Virginia Tech, and Wisconsin each currently have one WCAC alum on their roster.
Of the 118 WCAC alums, 29 were from DeMatha, 27 were from St. John's College, 25 were from Gonzaga College, 21 were from Our Lady of Good Counsel, 6 were from Bishop McNamara, 5 were from Archbishop Carroll, 2 were from St. Mary's Ryken, 2 were from Bishop O'Connell, and one was from Bishop Ireton.
Crazy numbers.
