Nashua North's Wagner gives Titans stability on football field

When Deric Wagner arrived at Nashua High School North, no one knew his name.

Before the start of his sophomore year, Wagner and his family moved to the city from Ellenville, N.Y., a town near the Catskill Mountains.

He missed out on the football team’s preseason, but once he began practicing with the Titans, it didn’t take long for the coaches to take notice of Wagner. And when they couldn’t remember his name, they gave him one.

“We couldn’t remember his name so we just kept calling him Upstate,” North coach Jason Robie said. “That kind of stuck.”

Although Wagner liked the nickname, it didn’t last long, and neither did his time on the sideline. He’d played junior varsity football as a freshman in New York, and as a sophomore, he got plenty of time on the defense of a varsity team that advanced to the Division I championship game.

Now, as a senior, Wagner is hoping to help North get back to the playoffs after missing out last year.

“It was very frustrating, but it was more of a wake-up call,” Wagner said. “Coming in (his sophomore year), that senior class knew they were going to be good. When we came back for junior year, everybody was gone and we realized that we needed to step up and put the work in in the offseason.”

As sophomore, Wagner worked his way on to the field, rotating at defensive end with senior Tim Croteau and sophomore Mike Lynch. During the Titans’ 14-7 loss to Pinkerton in the championship, Wagner was on the field for most of the second half.

“He was playing one of the defensive ends,” Robie said. “During the championship game, Mike wasn’t having his best game, so we stuck Deric in there to see if we could get a different look. He played pretty much the whole second half, and caused a fumble and did a great job.

“The two of them ended up being the bookends at defensive end for us last year. He’s quick off the ball. He works very hard in practice. He’s a weight room kid.”

This year, Wagner goes from being a bookend on the defensive line to a linebacker, a position that he believes will help him have a shot at continuing to play in college.

“I went to a few camps and they had me playing linebacker,” Wagner said. “I get to run around a little more. Instead of pass rushing, I’m dropping back into a zone. I’m not just going crazy, I’ve got to make sure I stay in my lane and do my job.”

The move has also been beneficial for the Titans.

“It was out of necessity for us, but I think that’s probably where he projects as a college player if he decides to play,” Robie said. “He runs fairly well and will be a linebacker. He’s playing linebacker for us, but in certain packages, we could put him at a rush end if we needed to. He plays tight end for us and at times slot receiver. He does a lot of stuff for us. We would love to get him off the field, but we don’t have the kind of depth that affords us that.”

Wagner, along with Lynch, has provided North with steady leadership since the end of the last season. After watching how the senior class handled things two years ago, Wagner has tried to lead his class to do the same things, even though this year’s group of seniors is much smaller.

“Their class is so small, they really need to lead by example and be positive because there isn’t a lot of them,” Robie said. “There is a bridge that connects those successful teams that we’ve had to the younger teams that are trying to find their way and learn how to play and how to do things the right way off the field.

“They bridge that gap. These are the last guys who played significant minutes who played on that team. To start as a sophomore and get playing time is a huge thing. A lot of kids would let it go to their head and not improve. (Wagner) didn’t let it.”