Portland’s Cole McGregor, right, attempts to tackle Lansing Catholic’s Tony Palmer, left, last season. McGregor, now a senior, is the leading tackler for the Raiders.
PORTLAND – When junior Austin Allison was named the starting quarterback of the Portland Raiders this summer, one of the first people to congratulate him was Cole McGregor.
McGregor, a senior, not only helped recruit Allison to the varsity team — as the two-sport athlete was considering quitting football to focus solely on baseball — but he was the one, along with senior Nicolas Spitzley, who would eventually take a back seat with the arrival of Allison.
The two seniors split time as the starting quarterback in 2015 and helped Portland to a 10-1 season and CAAC White title, a year after the program posted a 4-5 record.
“Ever since I was little, I always played quarterback,” McGregor said. “It was hard for me to (accept not starting), but I was OK with it. I’m down for what’s best for the team. I knew I could still contribute to the team by doing other stuff, and I knew Austin was a good quarterback going into it.
“Obviously, now, it was a great move by coach. I’m not going to sit here and complain a little bit.”
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McGregor hasn’t had a need to gripe. The Division 5 No. 1-ranked Raiders are 9-0 heading into Friday’s playoff opener against Grandville Calvin Christian, they won the CAAC White championship for the second straight season, and McGregor, who is also a three-year starter at safety, has a team-high 78 tackles.
“He’s a leader, no doubt,” said Allison, who is close friends with McGregor. “He does whatever he needs to do to help our team out. He’s shown that all year.”
Portland coach John Novara said it was difficult to break the news to his two seniors when he chose to go with a first-year varsity player as his signal-caller, but he knew McGregor would latch on to any role the team needed of him.
“When we voted at the beginning of the year for team captain, Cole was almost unanimous,” Novara said. “Every kid on the team has a lot of respect for him, his work ethic and his effort. He’s a leader of our football team.
“He wanted Austin to be a part of this football team, even though there was a possibility that he would take his job.”
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McGregor’s time at quarterback has allowed him to become an orchestrator of the defense, he said. He’s able to help put his teammates in the right position and, at times, have a good idea of what play the opponent is running. McGregor often acts as an additional linebacker for the Portland defense, which held five of its nine opponents to under 10 points, and has made an effort to perform more in the trenches.
And with last year’s defensive standouts Jalon Simpson, Mark Brooks and Kyler Simon gone to graduation, he knew coming into the season that his team would look to him to fill some voids on that side of the ball.
“I feel like I’ve put myself out there to make more tackles and be more physical,” he said. “I’ve tried to have a little bit more of a hard-nose instead of playing soft and being a last-resort guy.”
The senior is hoping his defense can carry its dominant play into districts. The Raiders have only conceded 101 points all season, which is the program’s lowest total since 1981.
Portland has qualified for the postseason 14 times since Novara took over in 1999, and the team has only made it past the district tournament once — the Raiders won the Division 5 state title in 2012.
“We want to take it one game at a time, but, obviously, we would like to keep going past districts,” McGregor said. “That’s a huge goal — we almost feel like we have a curse on us because we can’t get past districts.”
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Contact James L. Edwards III at jledwards@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @JLEdwardsIII.
Cole McGregor, right, attempts to tackle Lansing Catholic’s Tony Palmer, left, last season. McGregor is the leading tackler for the Raiders in the 2016 season.