MONROE CITY, Mo. \u2014 Wyatt DeGrave grew as a quarterback in his first season as a starter with Monroe City last year.<\/p>\n
It was a learning experience for the then-sophomore quarterback who will be entering his junior campaign with much more confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe game was definitely way faster than I thought it would be,\u201d said DeGrave. \u201cI\u2019m learning to read defenses and actually be smart about the game instead of just going out there and winging it.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeGrave made plenty of strides last season and is looking to improve as he prepares for the 2025 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m super excited,\u201d said DeGrave of the upcoming season. \u201cI cannot wait for it to start. I\u2019ve been working all summer for the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeGrave gave Panthers head coach David Kirby a solid passing option on a run-heavy team that relies on the Wing-T offense.<\/p>\n
DeGrave completed 48-of-87 passes for 983 yards, 15 touchdowns and just four interceptions. He completed 55.2% of his passes on his way to earning second team All-Clarence Cannon Conference honors.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy start to last year to my end of last year was a great jump,\u201d said DeGrave. \u201cThis offseason has been really good for me, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Monroe City signal caller also won the confidence of his teammates, with DeGrave being the first Panthers quarterback since Kyle Hays from 2019-21 to start in successive seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cWyatt\u2019s my best friend,\u201d said Panthers senior running back Quincy Mayfield. \u201cWyatt\u2019s phenomenal for his age. There\u2019s nowhere else to go but up from where he\u2019s at right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayfield was Monroe City\u2019s leading rusher last year, averaging 8.7 yards per carry after running 131 times for 1,143 yards and 16 touchdowns. He also caught 13 passes for 270 yards and three additional scores.<\/p>\n
Monroe City graduated its other 1,000-yard rusher in Dylan Ross, but will return senior fullback Jayden Holland to the backfield, who carried 99 times for 543 yards and five touchdowns in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Our running backs) are some of the best in the state,\u201d said DeGrave. \u201cSo it makes my job easier.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other options in the backfield include South Shelby transfer Payton Hetheriton, as well as Blaize Kauble, Collin Potterfield and Daviere Holland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think me and Jayden play well off each other,\u201d said Mayfield. \u201cCredit to Dylan too, but with me, Jayden and whoever fills Dylan\u2019s spot, I think we will be pretty dynamic on offense. There\u2019s not really that many people we play against that are going to be able to compete against us, speed wise. Everybody in the backfield has good vision too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Panthers will also utilize senior Abram Smyser in a variety of roles offensively after he scored four touchdowns in 2024.<\/p>\n
After starting some underclassmen on the offensive line last year, Monroe City will enter the 2025 season with four of its five starters returning up front.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a pretty young group last year with some sophomores in there,\u201d said Mayfield. \u201cNow they know what they\u2019re doing. So they\u2019ve been thrown into the fire at the pretty early stage of their football careers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Monroe City graduated first team All-Conference offensive lineman Lane Willard, but returns senior standouts Blake Pfanner and Toby Sapp to the line. Sapp was a second team All-CCC selection last year, while Pfanner was honorable mention.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have almost everyone back,\u201d said DeGrave. \u201cEven though we lost Lane Willard, I think we\u2019re going to be able to fill that spot perfectly fine. So we\u2019re going to be better than last year on the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a year of varsity experience under his belt, DeGrave will look to help out his younger teammates looking to make a similar jump to varsity like he did last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey watched it last year and lived it last year,\u201d said DeGrave of younger players coming up. \u201cThey will step up and there\u2019s some freshmen out there ready to play some good reps for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONROE CITY, Mo. \u2014 Wyatt DeGrave grew as a quarterback in his first season as a starter with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2075],"tags":[265,648,235,260,2567,639,67,68,7,5446,636,122,633,634,63,6,41592,646,236,1257,3007,632,635,9,638],"class_list":{"0":"post-192715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-carolina-panthers","8":"tag-american-football","9":"tag-american-football-bowls","10":"tag-carolina","11":"tag-carolina-panthers","12":"tag-carolinapanthers","13":"tag-champion-seasons-in-american-football","14":"tag-college-football-conference-seasons","15":"tag-college-football-seasons","16":"tag-football","17":"tag-gridiron-football","18":"tag-gridiron-football-variants","19":"tag-national-football-league","20":"tag-national-football-league-seasons","21":"tag-national-football-league-teams","22":"tag-ncaa-division-i-fbs-football-teams","23":"tag-nfl","24":"tag-option-offense","25":"tag-outdoor-sports","26":"tag-panthers","27":"tag-quarterback","28":"tag-running-back","29":"tag-seasons-in-american-football","30":"tag-seasons-in-american-sport","31":"tag-sports","32":"tag-team-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}