Senior Garrett Cora is on pace to become Franklin College’s career rushing leader sometime this fall.
Submitted photo | Chad Williams
At this point, it might feel as though Garrett Cora has been playing football at Franklin College since the days of Red Faught.
Amazingly, he’s just a regular old fourth-year senior. Cora has just managed to pack a decade’s worth of production and accolades into his first three seasons.
The 5-foot-11, 175-pound running back, a 2021 Tri-West graduate, heads into Saturday’s season opener at Ohio Northern in position to leave his name all over the Grizzlies’ record book.
He’s already in there once, having tied the single-season mark for rushing touchdowns with 17 last season, but with 3,108 career yards rushing he’s also on pace to surpass Rick Etienne’s standard of 3,952 yards that has held up for nearly three decades.
Cora acknowledges that “it is cool to see my name up there,” but he’s not in the business of chasing individual records. His sole focus right now is leading Franklin College to an HCAC championship for the first time in nine years — and he and his classmates have a heightened sense of urgency this season, because there isn’t another shot after this one.
“We have a lot older group of guys, and it just feels like the seniors and upperclassmen, we know that this is our last chance at doing what we really want to do — which is win conference,” Cora said. “We know that the coaches put us in the best position to win that, and we also understand that it’s on us now. … We have to go take what’s ours.”
Franklin coach Alan Hensell has seen that now-or-never push from his 26 seniors — more attention to detail, a little extra emphasis on everything. He’s even seen the normally soft-spoken Cora step into a more visible leadership role.
“He’s always been a lead by example guy,” Hensell said, “but I really feel this past spring and this training camp so far, he’s more vocal than he’s ever been. That’s not always his personality, so that’s something that he’s really worked on, and I’m really proud of what he’s been able to do so far.”
Cora says that he’s making more of an effort in this last year to leave the program better off than he found it, and one way to do that is to set an example for his younger teammates in the classroom, on the field and everywhere else.
“How I work out in the weight room, I feel like all eyes are on me a lot of the time,” he said. “So that keeps me in check.”
Keeping Cora in check is something that opposing defenses have never quite figured out. Thrown into the deep end as a freshman, he rushed for 700 yards and seven touchdowns, adding 16 receptions for 205 yards and four more scores. He ran for 989 yards during his sophomore season before exploding for 1,419 yards — including a career-high 318 in a win over Defiance — and those 17 TDs on the ground last season. He caught 22 passes and even threw one, completing it for a touchdown.
Cora isn’t the biggest guy on the field, but he seems to almost take offense at the idea that he’s strictly an open-field runner. By all accounts, he’s worked hard this offseason to get stronger and better handle life between the tackles.
“I feel like a lot of people don’t think that I can run you over, necessarily, because of my size,” Cora said, “but I think I have a lot of power and speed, and with that power and speed I have the ability to kind of run really hard.”
“Garrett’s a very dynamic runner,” Hensell added. “He’s a guy that has shown his ability, once he does get in the open field, to finish runs, and I feel like with how he has trained this offseason, this is the strongest he’s been, and I think you’ll see the most physical runner out of him that you’ve seen.”
Cora and his teammates have always put in the work, both in and out of season, but there’s a reason that they’ve ratcheted up the intensity since last fall.
It all goes back to that urgency that comes with being a senior and realizing that your days of competitive athletics are coming to an end.
“I think the difference is just the mindset of knowing that, for the upperclassmen, this is it,” Cora said. “This is our only chance. We won’t ever play football again. It should always be that way, because you never know when it’s going to be your last opportunity to play — but I think knowing that this is it, it resonates with a lot of us.”
SCOUTING THE GRIZZLIES
Coach: Alan Hensell
Last season: 4-6, 4-3 HCAC
Who’s back?: RB Garrett Cora, OL Ethan Corwin, OL Andy Daugherty, P Adam Guth, OL Parker Hacker, WR Hunter Hatfield, DB Kahari Jackson, RB Kam Jennings, WR Andre Johnson, DL Jake Jones, WR Malachi Joy, LB Hayden Kermode, WR Mitch McElfresh, LS Braden McGowan, TE Matt Nealy, DB DeMarion Newell, LB Keegan O’Neill, QB Kai Ross, OL Josh Sanders, OL Corbin Smith, DL Brock Thurman and OL Brock Veatch, seniors; LB Riddick Bolton, DL DeVonte Brown, DE Carter Edney, DB Michael Loehmer and DB Luke Stento, juniors; DL Trevon Bell, DB Haidyn Bulmer, OL Isaak Fischer, LB Amari Gittings, OL Will Hagan, DL Kollin Leap, DB Luke Lyons, DL Max Malone, DB Jason Pierre-Louis, OL Ben Roembke, DB De’Marriea Stephens, WR Owen Wright and DL Adam Young, sophomores
New faces to watch: LB Makhai Reed, senior; LB Haden Durnil, junior; QB Devlin McGee, sophomore; OL Jacob Carroll, TE Elijah Flowers, K Dakota Foerg, WR Austin Ganaway, K Charlie Overton and KR Brayden Wilkins, freshmen
What to look for: The most experienced and perhaps best squad of Hensell’s five-year tenure. The backfield tandem of Ross and Cora have been racking up meaningful snaps since they were freshmen, and with three starting linemen back (Corwin, Hacker and Sanders) in front of them, they lead what should be a potent and balanced offense. Defensively, the top two tacklers from last fall return in Kermode (61) and Newell (53), along with veterans Bulmer, Stephens and Pierre-Louis.
A challenging nonconference slate that opens with road trips to Ohio Northern and Hope should prepare Franklin for what it hopes will be a run at its first HCAC championship since 2015. The coaches voted the Grizzlies fourth in the preseason poll behind Mount St. Joseph, Hanover and Rose-Hulman; the hope is that they’ll be ready to compete with — and beat — all of those favorites by the time league play comes around.
