Peyton Montgomery has helped lead Central football team into uncharted territory

Following Central's 34-14 state quarterfinal win over Affton earlier this month in St. Louis, one of the referees approached Central coach Nathan Norman to praise the kid wearing No. 10.

It wasn't one of Peyton Montgomery's more memorable performances, but he didn't disappoint, by any means.

The senior quarterback finished 4 of 4 passing for 91 yards and a touchdown and also added 29 yards on the ground, but that didn't stop the official from recognizing that Montgomery was "the best field general [he had] seen all year."

"What a great compliment," Norman said. "That's awesome, and that comes from an official. He didn't have to tell me that."

But the 17-year-old Montgomery has done more than just lead the Tigers on the field this season.

In his first and only season wearing orange and black, Montgomery has helped lead Central to a place it's never been, the Class 4 championship game.

It's been a long road for Montgomery, who spent three seasons at Chaffee before transferring to Central for his final season. Throughout the season, he's continued to recover from shoulder surgery on his throwing arm, but it's his feet that have been the hardest for teams to defend.

"His ability to make plays and good, smart decisions are No. 1, and his feet will kill you," Norman said. "... It's a defensive coordinator's nightmare. When you cover all your bases, and then you've got that one left. And he beats you. That's so frustrating."

Montgomery has 832 rushing yards and is averaging 8.1 yards per carry in his final varsity season, which will come to an end at 11 a.m. Saturday against Webb City at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, but Montgomery isn't concerned about what he'll do when he wakes up Sunday morning.

He's still got one more game left.

The Chaffee years

Chaffee quarterback Peyton Montgomery looks for a receiver during the first quarter against Grandview Friday, Aug. 30, 2013 in Chaffee, Mo. (Fred Lynch)

As a freshman at Chaffee, Montgomery's varsity career began as a backup quarterback to Jordan Yahn.

Montgomery had been playing football since the second grade, so it was only a matter of time before he took the reins as the Red Devils' starter. During his freshman season, he took note of one particular player in Tyson Estes.

"When I was a freshman, he was a senior, and he was a role model to me," Montgomery said. "His whole mindset and work ethic really changed my life on everything. He's taught me the technique of lifting, how to prepare yourself mentally before a game and how after a game handling success or not having success. He's probably the biggest influence on my sports life."

Estes scored 19 touchdowns and averaged 7.1 yards per carry his senior year at Chaffee. He was named 2011 Southeast Missourian Player of the Year and finished the season with 1,431 rushing yards before walking on at Southeast Missouri State.

"He taught me all about competition. You have competition in the weight room and competition within yourself," Montgomery said. "He's pretty much a guru at that stuff, so I'm kind of like his protege. He takes pride in that, and I just can't thank him enough for being like an older brother to me."

Montgomery molded his work ethic around Estes, and as a sophomore in 2012, Montgomery took over as Chaffee's starting signal caller.

"We had a really young team. I think we only had one or two seniors," Montgomery said. "I really got chemistry with those boys and really just saw the vision then that if we kept working hard, we'd have a chance next year. We knew we were a really young team, so it started there."

The Red Devils went 3-6 but followed it up with a historic campaign in 2013.

As a junior, Montgomery was 99 of 173 passing for 1,404 yards, 15 touchdowns and eight interceptions. He also carried the ball 97 times for 712 yards and 18 scores.

Chaffee finished the season 9-2, claiming its first SEMO South Conference title in 34 years.

"We had a stacked, skilled team for a [Class 1] school," Montgomery said. "We took one game at a time and had a lot of weapons at the skill positions. ... It was more of a learning step there because you play in the playoffs for the first time, really, and you play in a big game and end up getting beat. Just from that last game, I knew I never wanted that to happen again."

Between the end of basketball season his sophomore year and the start of football season his junior year, Montgomery focused his attention on getting stronger in the weight room and working on agility drills.

Montgomery also credits Chaffee coach Charlie Vickery for molding him into a well-rounded quarterback.

"He prepares kids well and really makes kids better than they are," Montgomery said. "He takes the talent at Chaffee and makes them two or three times better than they normally are by just installing a hard work ethic and just being a great all-around coach."

The injury

Cape Central quarterback Peyton Montgomery will bring his speed to Saturday's State championship game against Webb City in St. Louis, Missouri. (Laura Simon)

The date was October 18, 2013, and the Red Devils were on their way to an impressive 8-0 record against visiting Jefferson.

Near the end of the third quarter, Montgomery took the snap on a quarterback read option. He vividly remembers the play.

"The defensive end crashed in on the fullback, and I kept it," Montgomery said. "It was pretty slippery that night, and I slipped. I tried to stay up, and I put my arm on the ground. It just popped back, and I fell down.

"I knew something was up. I didn't think it was too serious."

Montgomery played another series and engineered a touchdown drive, and with a comfortable lead, the starters were removed from the game.

"I told our trainer, Matt Holder, 'I feel something kind of awkward in my shoulder,'" Montgomery said. "He took a look at it, and he thought it was serious."

His shoulder didn't bother him until the next day, when he went to Carbondale, Illinois, to watch a Southern Illinois football game.

"It was hurting me throughout the whole day, and I kept ice and heat on it all day," Montgomery said. "We tried to throw that next Monday, and I couldn't throw. I ended up ordering a shoulder brace."

The Red Devils' only regular-season loss that year came the next week in a 43-28 decision against host Charleston. Montgomery didn't play but returned the following week to lead Chaffee to a 34-12 victory over Hayti in the district opener.

Thayer ended the Red Devils' season with a 28-22 win in the district semifinals, a game in which Montgomery said he felt "100 percent fine."

"I felt like I could throw," he said. "That was probably one of my best games of the season, both running and passing. I didn't think anything really was up, so I played with it through basketball."

Montgomery said he felt limited throwing the football in his spare time, so he got an MRI immediately following the Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournament.

"It came back that it was shredded completely," Montgomery said. "It was one of the worst labrum tears you could have, a 180-degree tear, so I played my last basketball game. That was probably the best basketball game of my career."

Montgomery drained six 3-pointers and scored a game-high 28 points in a 76-72 road loss to Advance before undergoing surgery in late January by the same surgeon that repaired former University of Missouri quarterback James Franklin's torn labrum.

A full recovery for a torn labrum typically takes 12 months.

"You've just got to take it a day at a time, really," Montgomery said. "Even with weights, I don't bench. I don't do any upper body, really. I just stick to lower body and do resistance bands. It's been a long process, but it's been worth it. Mentally, you've just got to look at the positives through it."

Coming to Central

Central's Peyton Montgomery outruns Jackson s Ethan Isakson in the first quarter Friday, Sept. 26, 2014 at Cape Central. (Glenn Landberg)

After his father resigned from a position at Chaffee, Montgomery and his family were faced with a tough decision -- either pay a tuition and remain at the school he'd spent three years or start over fresh in the city he lived.

They eventually chose the latter.

"We didn't really know what to do from there," Montgomery said. "My dad knew a lot of people at Cape and said, 'Well, this could be a good opportunity for you.'"

Despite all the new faces at Central, Montgomery said he was welcomed with open arms.

"I knew Jalen [Reddin] and Al [Young] and some of the kids I met through summer, like Andre [Statam]," Montgomery said. "Really from there, they just accepted me as a teammate. We really hung out all summer, went on vacation with some of the guys and built good team chemistry."

On the football field, it hasn't been an easy transition for Montgomery, who said one of his biggest obstacles was adjusting from Class 1 to Class 4 competition.

"I think if I would have played here my sophomore through senior year, it wouldn't be that big of an adjustment, but I could definitely tell the first game vs. Vashon that it was a much quicker team," Montgomery said. "That was one of the quicker teams we've played all season. I could definitely tell then. It's just an all-around quicker game, and the kids are much stronger. ... It took a lot more commitment and just getting mentally prepared, especially with the shoulder injury."

He's not completely recovered from his shoulder surgery and believes it'll remain at about 80 percent until he's finally allowed to let it completely heal.

"I've stayed real healthy in my lower body," Montgomery said. "I think that's a big thing that coach Norman and our trainers emphasize. If you stay in the weight room and keep lifting weights, those injuries will stay away."

Switching from the up-tempo, spread offense he ran last season at Chaffee to the more ball-control, pro-style offense he runs at Central has also been a challenge.

"All summer was hard for me. It was a big transition going to a huddle," Montgomery said. "Even our cadence, we have a totally different cadence at the line of scrimmage. We don't do our normal down, set, hike. We call out our colors and do some different things. It's a big transition. My brain's wired to go, go, go, go, go. That's kind of how I play. From slowing it down to kind of settling yourself and running it and maybe going to passes, it was definitely a big transition, but I know in college or anything, you've got to be coachable."

Montgomery has shown perhaps the most improvement this season in his decision making. He's completed 60 percent of his 87 pass attempts for 1,058 yards, 17 touchdowns and only five interceptions.

"We as coaches were patient with him, but sometimes I don't think the kids were early in the year. It was hard for them to realize that he had shoulder surgery," Norman said. "He's not where he needs to be yet throwing the ball. It took time for him to get confidence in that. Now, sometimes I wish he would have less confidence in throwing and would run more, but that's me as a coach. I'm a couch coach with him, the sideline guy. It's easy to sit over there in a rocking chair and make decisions, but when you're out there, it's a little bit tougher. ... I'll tell you what, he does a lot better of a job out there on the run than I would, so I'm happy with what I've got."

And Montgomery knows his limits as well.

"The coaches set us up to succeed," he said. "... I kind of know with my shoulder that I can't make some of the throws I made last year, so I've got to make more smart decisions and just dump it to our athletes. ... You're a lot more confident in the pocket when you have an Al Young and a Kway'chon Chisom and a Braion Owens and a Jalen Reddin."

As for inspiration, Montgomery prefers the shorter quarterbacks, such as Drew Brees (6-foot), Russell Wilson (5-11) and Johnny Manziel (6-foot).

The 6-foot Montgomery understands he doesn't have prototypical size at his position but tries to make up for it in other ways.

"I wouldn't say it's really a chip on my shoulder, but I just know since I'm not as tall as maybe 6-2 or 6-3 that I have to work on things like footwork," he said. "I'd say my foot speed is really good, and that's what you have to have. You can't be slow and be 5-11 or 6-foot. ... It really doesn't matter about height. It matters about heart."

Saturday's opponent will be a familiar foe for the Tigers. The four-time defending state champion Cardinals defeated Central 46-0 in last year's semifinal.

But the Tigers bring in a new weapon this year in Montgomery, who believes Central hasn't shown its full arsenal all season.

"That's kind of the mystery behind our offense. We haven't let the chains off yet, really," Montgomery said. "... They need to forget about last year because they came into an environment going to Webb City. It was kind of their time, going to the state championship. We'd never really been there, so I think last year really helped this year for some of the players. They don't need to look at those players last year and say they're superheroes. They're 17 years old. They put their helmets on and their shoulder pads just like we do, and I think we work just as hard as anybody.

"I know they take pride in their work ethic, but we have athletes. If we have athletes plus 100 percent effort and we play as a total team, I don't see any team that could really beat us."