Raitt focused on lifting Bishop Guertin football to new heights offensively

[Editor’s Note: This story also appears in the 2017 Football Prospectus.]

If Sam Raitt had his way, he'd never come off the football field.

Unfortunately for the Bishop Guertin High School senior, he knows he might not get his way too often this season.

As long as he's running the show on offense, that's good enough for the Cardinals starting quarterback.

"I just love the game of football," Raitt said. "Quarterback is my favorite position, but I have no problem playing corner or safety. And I love kick return.

"I’ll definitely have more of an offensive focus, just because we don’t have as much depth (this year). It’ll be good for me to go over on the sideline and talk to Coach Moore, what kind of coverage are we seeing."

As a junior, he did just about all of it for Bishop Guertin.

Raitt won a preseason competition with Michael Allanach for the starting quarterback position, and also started in the defensive backfield. And as the Cardinals suffered injuries as the season went on last year, Raitt also saw a little bit of time on special teams.

Going into this season, the goal is to keep Raitt exclusively on offense, according to coach Jeff Moore.

"I don’t want to play him on defense," Moore said. "We’re hoping not to and we’re planning on him being a one-way guy. That’s the plan. If he wasn’t the quarterback, he’d play defense and he’d return kicks. He’s too valuable to play a lot of defense."

With the loss of Bishop Guertin's top two receivers to graduation, Moore is looking to Raitt to step to the front and be even more of a focal point of the offense. That might mean relying on having the quarterback run the ball more, or be more patient in the pocket when called upon to throw.

"We should be good on the line and we’d like to be a running team," Moore said. "He’s throwing it better. He’s that typical dual-threat guy. You can’t guess because we’ll just do the other thing. He’s bigger, but he’s just as fast, if not a little faster."

Despite losing two first-team all-conference receivers in Dylan Fagan and Sarveen Shafiyan-Rad, Ratti feels that a number of factors can get the receiving core to the same level as last season.

"My arm is so much stronger now," he said. "I definitely have a great group of receivers. A lot of guys have stepped up this year. Our passing game is going to be strong."

It took time for Raitt to get to this point. He started out as a running back when he first started playing football for the Milford Mustangs as a fourth-grader, and was moved to quarterback in seventh grade after the team's starter went down with an injury.

Raitt saw some action for Bishop Guertin as a sophomore, including leading a touchdown drive late in a game against Goffstown, but had to battle Allanach going into preseason practices last season.

"There was clearly a competition," Moore said. "We thought he’d beat out the other guy, but he had not done what he needed to do to earn that trust of the coaches and players. He wasn’t around last summer and the other guy was. I think he understands we needed more out of him if we wanted to be the quarterback and he’s done it."

And thanks to that competition, Raitt believes he's a better all-around football player.

"I kind of embraced it and tried to do the best I could," he said. "We were both motivating each other and competing every day to get better. We both made ourselves great players. That is something we preach a lot, competition. Competition is key."

Raitt hopes that the strides he's made because of that competition will help him get to the next level after he's done high school. While he'd prefer to be a quarterback somewhere, he's looking for the best opportunity.

"I definitely want to play college football," he said. "I’d have to weigh my options. I want to play quarterback, but if they say they want to try me at corner, it’d depend on the school. I feel more comfortable at quarterback."