Seneca’s Brody Rademacher is the 2024 Times Football Player of the Year

If the Seneca Fighting Irish football program needed to choose a poster child for its recent resurgence back into a powerhouse, a big, meaty offensive lineman, his face and helmet caked with mud, his fingers wrapped in once-white tape lightly smeared with blood, quite possibly not his, might come to mind.

For someone chosen to represent the success of the 2024 Fighting Irish specifically, however, senior fullback Brody Rademacher – the 2024 Times Football Player of the Year – might fit the bill.

A year ago, Rademacher was a small cog in the larger machine that was the Seneca power-T rushing attack. On the depth chart behind other backs such as 1,250-yard rusher Asher Hamby, duel QB/RBs Paxton Giertz and Nathan Grant, and directly behind senior fullback and 750-yard rusher Nathen Neal, Rademacher did the most he could with limited junior-year opportunities, turning his 14 carries into 205 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

“Every chance I got in,” he said, “I tried to make something happen.”

Giertz took over at quarterback full-time, and Hamby, Grant and Neal all graduated, as did the entire offensive line that paved the way for them. It created uncertainty, true, but it also created opportunity for the players who served as understudies on that 11-1, conference-championship team.

Opportunities the 2024 Fighting Irish took advantage of, winning their first eight games, repeating as Chicagoland Prairie Conference champions and finishing the season 9-2.

No one player better personified “stepping from a bit part to a leading role” than Rademacher. He became the big-play fullback head coach Terry Maxwell was looking for on his way to rushing for 1,471 yards and 17 touchdowns with a per-carry average of – get this for a fullback, a position traditionally known for its 3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust reputation – 15.0 yards per carry.

“This year, I just came in ready to go,” Rademacher said. “The offseason, I really worked hard, and it got me to where I am this year. ... We all knew from last year that we’d lost a big part of our team and that we had to come work hard this season.

“The linemen who came up this year really stepped up too and made a big impact for us. The holes were always there. I just found one and hit it, ran as hard as I could to get through there.”

Maxwell, for his part, wasn’t 100% sure what he could expect. He had an idea Rademacher could be a good fit, but even his coach wasn’t expecting his new starting fullback to have the breakout season he put together carry after carry, big play after big play.

“You know, we’d hoped,” Maxwell said. “We knew he had some explosiveness, and he showed that when he got a chance after we got up a little bit and Nathen Neal came out of the game. ... We’d hoped that could translate, and we knew with how he run our fullback that he could get some big plays.

“He just does a great job finding a seam, and he really stepped into our offense well and [gave us] way more than we ever thought we would’ve got from that position. It was incredible. Fifteen yards a carry, right on the nose, which is amazing over almost 100 carries, just incredible production.”

“It definitely surprised me a little bit,” Rademacher said of his own statistics. “I didn’t think I was going to do that well, but I definitely worked as hard as I could to make a big impact and try to get my name out there.”

“Toughness” is a word synonymous with the fullback position, and Rademacher is definitely that. He’s also a smart runner with great vision who’s surprisingly fast – ask opposing defensive backs trying to find an angle to run him down. In addition to his fullback’s physical traits, there’s another aspect to Rademacher’s story Maxwell believes allowed him to have a special senior year.

“Brody is a great example of kids who come through our program and work hard in Coach [Dan] Baker’s strength and speed program, play multiple sports, learn to compete and are coachable,” Maxwell said. “We have a lot of those kids who develop into key pieces on teams by their senior year who maybe didn’t stand out right away in their freshman and sophomore years.”

As the stats, the wins and the honors show, the fullback position in Maxwell’s throwback offense and a hungry-to-prove-himself Rademacher turned out to be a match made in power-T heaven.

“I love [the offense], because everyone on the defense is just lost,” said Rademacher, who shared credit for his success with his linemen, his coaches and his fellow backs. “Faking is a big part of our game, and they don’t even know where the ball is. Half the time they’re looking at the wrong person while someone else is scoring the touchdown.”