WPIAL & City League Football Player Preview: Thomas Jefferson's DeRon VanBibber Wants To Repeat
Thomas Jefferson's DeRon VanBibber listens to pregame speeches in the locker room before facing Belle Vernon Area on Sep. 6th, 2019.
SOURCE: (TWITTER, @MikeDarnay)
One in a series on motivated high school football players in the WPIAL and City League.
Last year in 2019, DeRon VanBibber had to watch his Thomas Jefferson Jaguars football team on the sidelines when they won WPIAL and PIAA 4A football titles. This year, he doesn't want to stand on the sidelines again. In a game against Connellsville last season, VanBibber had torn his ACL, Lateral Meniscus, and Medial Meniscus. Those injuries cost VanBibber the rest of the 2019 season, but at least he ended the season with some hardware.
Even though he missed the last 10 football games of his junior season, colleges took notice of what VanBibber did in the six games he played as both a running back and defensive back. Since the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown in the middle of March, Van Bibber has received offers from Baldwin Wallace, Washington & Jefferson, and Wooster College. VanBibber, an All-Conference running back and defensive back, has also been having conversations with other schools such as Heidelberg University, University of Buffalo, Duquesne University, Ithaca College, and California University of Pennsylvania.
VanBibber is enjoying the recruiting process and really hopes that whichever school he goes to, that he will be playing football.
"Most of the schools [that have recruited VanBibber] haven’t talked to me about what position I’ll be playing but as long as I’m playing football I could care less," Van Bibber said.
With all the work that trainers have done to help VanBibber recover his injuries from last season, it might have had an influence on the fact that he wants to major in physical therapy in college.
Now for VanBibber, he is focusing on his senior year of high school football and wants to end with a bang. He has always loved football since he started playing when he was in four years old and the fact that he is already a 2x WPIAL and PIAA football champion is awesome, but he knows that it would be awesome if his Jaguars can repeat as WPIAL and PIAA champions in 2020.
"We [The Thomas Jefferson Jaguars] have so much to prove. With a challenging schedule this season should be a lot of fun," VanBibber said.
This upcoming season, the Jaguars have to face teams such as Gateway, South Fayette, McKeesport, Laurel Highlands, Belle Vernon, and West Mifflin. All these teams have star players that will be challenging Thomas Jefferson in the upcoming games.
With the COVID-19 pandemic making summer practices and workouts have some precautions, it is not affecting VanBibber.
"Practice has been going well, we just need to make up a lot of time that we missed and fine tune the small things before we get into camp. There are a lot of precautionary measures that we have to follow," said VanBibber.
Even though the Jaguars lost some key players from last year's state champion that include players such as Shane Stump, Daniel Deabner, Bowen Dame, Dylan Mallozzi, Logan Danielson, and Mac Duda, VanBibber is not worried. However, he knows that his fellow teammates, from Thomas Jefferson's Class of 2021, need to take charge for this upcoming season.
"We can’t let down the seniors before us [Class of 2020 Thomas Jefferson football players] that set that standard. We are determined to do everything in our power to try and repeat," said VanBibber.
Expect VanBibber to get more carries next season as a running back. Last year, before his injury, he rushed for 290 yards on 38 carries. His 290 yards was tied for third most rushing yards on the team in 2019. The two leading rushers on the team last season were Dylan Mallozzi and Shane Stump. With those two graduated, it would make sense for VanBibber to get more handoffs.
The Jaguars will have to find a new quarterback with Stump graduated and incoming senior Jake Pugh could be the starting quarterback after throwing three touchdown passes on eight passing attempts last season. The Jaguars do have some receivers coming back in Ian Hansen and Preston Zandier, who both had over 450+ receiving yards in 2019 and will both be seniors in the fall.
In an offense that could consist of playmakers such as Pugh, Hansen, Zandier, and VanBibber, the Jaguars know that there are no excuses of why they cannot score a lot of points again for this upcoming season which can perhaps lead the team to back-to-back WPIAL and PIAA 4A titles.
Brentaro Yamane: bkyamane@gmail.com and Twitter/Instagram @BYHilton13