St. Edward has savvy offensive leader in quarterback Joe Mullen

St. Edward senior quarterback Joe Mullen and coach Mike Rolando seem to have found that ideal place all coaches and their signal callers seek to attain.

The goal is for the quarterback to know the offense so well that the two seem to read each other’s mind.

Mullen’s 25 touchdown passes to three interceptions over his last eight games testify to his talent level and mastery of Rolando’s offense, as the Green Wave (9-0) head into Saturday’s Class 4A home playoff game (1 p.m.) against perennial state power Rock Island Alleman (5-4).

“It’s like having my eyes out there on the field,” Rolando said. “He knows why I called a certain play, why we ran a certain motion, which route might be a dummy route to run some guys off and which one we’re trying to hit, and which defensive guy we’re trying to fool. All of those things Joe and I have been on the same page with.

“We went into the season opener and we were able to run our entire offense out of no-huddle if we wanted to. For us, that’s definitely a first. That’s rare, but Joe’s talent level is very rare.”

The 6-2, 190-pound Mullen has played with the varsity since his sophomore year, but became first-team quarterback last year after an early-season battle with Bryan O’Neill. He completed 58-of-120 for 957 yards with 10 touchdowns and seven interceptions then.

After a torrid finish to this regular season — 18 TD passes and one interception the last five games — Mullen is 83-off-148 for 1,526 yards with 25 TD passes and six interceptions. Thanks to this, and running back Dwayne Allen’s 1,253 rushing yards, St. Edward averages 42.7 points per game.

“The whole thing about this offense is it’s so well-balanced that we can run it to open up the pass or pass to open up the run,” Mullen said.

Mullen has a lot to do with the balance. He favors no one receiver.

Four Green Wave receivers have between 13 and 22 catches. Nick Duffy, at 6-4, has emerged the top possession receiver with 22 catches and 299 yards, but Petey DeWindt has 18 catches and 248 yards. Santos Gomez (13-280) and Trevor Loewen (16-432) are the big-play guys.

“It’s all just pre-snap reads (of the defense) which one of them I want to go to; if I want to go to Nick and use his height, or Trevor’s speed,” Mullen said. “Coach Ro is good at making the offense adjust to what the defense is showing us.”

Rolando recalled his own quarterback experience at Larkin under former coach Bob Krieger, and the advantage once his own understanding of the offense became a strength.

“We only had one year together and I was very inefficient at first, but about the middle of the year we started getting on the same page and he had me audible many different calls by the playoffs,” Rolando said. “When you can be a quarterback and you’re able to look at the defense and say I’m going to something else that will work better, that’s a pretty powerful thing.

“Most of the time high school defenses are probably not going to change out of what they’ve called.”

Whether St. Edward can operate this way and beat an Alleman team that defeated four teams with enrollments of 1,353 or more is the question.

“I think we have a monumental task in facing Alleman,” Rolando said. “That’s a seasoned team that’s been to state.

“We know we have our work cut out for us, but we think we’re a pretty good football team, too.”