Scratching the surface: Talented Cougars QB has led team to 4-0 start

After last week’s column on area football players and their success in future endeavors, I started thinking.

Thinking about the next one to join their ranks, the next piece of gold waiting for a prospector to sift through the muddy riverbed and find it. (I’ve also been watching a lot of “Deadwood” lately.)

It didn’t take long to come up with a potential answer. Of course, there’s plenty of players in town with college offers. But there’s also a player without an offer who’s been downright deadly this season, in his first year as a varsity starter. One whose coaches believe possesses the talent to reach the big time. One whose Ivy League-bound teammate says makes everything on the field easier.

Cardinal Mooney High junior quarterback Ryan Bolduc, standing 6-foot-1, 192 pounds, certainly has the size big-time colleges require. He’s putting up the stats, too. Against Lemon Bay High on Sept. 21, Bolduc went 11-19 for 258 yards and three touchdowns, all three to senior Sam Koscho, a Dartmouth College commit. It wasn’t a fluke: Bolduc threw four touchdowns in a 41-6 rout of IMG Academy White on Aug. 31 and two Aug. 24 in a 28-25 win against Bishop Verot High.

The Cougars knew he was going to be good. During the preseason, Cardinal Mooney offensive coordinator Chris Conboy, who coached the quarterbacks at Manatee High from 1992-1998 and 2006-2014 under Joe Kinnan, winning state titles in 1992 and 2011, told me Bolduc had the potential to be the best quarterback he’s coached, and that Bolduc has a “Division 1 arm.” That first statement is yet to be determined (though he’s led the Cougars to a 4-0 start), but the arm part? Watching Bolduc throw speaks for itself in that regard.

The junior played youth football in the Sarasota Redskins league, he said, and won championships in all three of the leagues’ age divisions. The first came as a member of the Paiute team, in Bolduc’s second year playing tackle football. His team was down three with the championship game winding down, Bolduc said, and since there were no field goals being kicked at that age, the team knew it had to score. With Bolduc at the helm, it did just that. In fact, Bolduc himself scored on the game’s final play. To this day, Bolduc considers that game his favorite, because of the path it sent him down. 

“Having that early success, it motivated me to keep it up,” Bolduc said. “I don’t ever expect to lose. You can’t get cocky, but games are the time to make the hard work pay off — time to let it show.”

Clearly it was an effective motivator. Bolduc continued to shine and find immediate success at every level until last season, when as a sophomore he rode the varsity bench behind senior Jack Koscho (Sam Koscho’s brother), who now plays safety at Carnegie Mellon University.

“It was my first time not being the starter,” Bolduc said. “I used the time to watch and learn so it won’t happen again.”

Bolduc, who did enter a handful of games as a backup to gain experience, said he picked up the speed of the game and the preparation required at that level of football, as well as the atmosphere. When he was named the starter this season, he felt prepared, he said, and it’s shown.

His favorite target thinks so, too.

“It’s fantastic,” Sam Koscho said, on having a quarterback like Bolduc. “Just knowing every ball will get there on time. You’re confident he can make all the throws. Not every team has that guy. It’s easy to catch his passes and make plays out of them.”

Bolduc doesn’t have any concrete scholarship offers yet, though he said he’s received a few letters in the mail. Just last year, the Cougars sent running back Bryce Williams to the University of Minnesota, so big schools know Mooney produces good players. If Bolduc keeps up this level of play, it’s only a matter of time until he’s the next one.

The team’s next home game is at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 5 against Southeast High, if you’d like to see Bolduc, Koscho and the rest of the undefeated Cougars play.