Postseason football coverage continues this weekend, West Plains still alive after the Zizzers beat Carl Junction last week for the Class 4 District 5 title, moving to 10-1 on the season. A big part of the Zizzers’ success can be credited to senior Titus Seley.
“Well, he can do everything,” said Zizzers head coach Matt Perkins.
The summer before Titus Seley’s junior year, Coach Perkins threw him in on offense, just for fun.
“We knew at the time we didn’t really need him to be that guy, but you could tell that we had something special just kind of waiting in the wings behind another really special back in Braden,” Perkins said.
Brayden Lidgard finished the 2019 season with All State honors as a running back, while Titus balanced the scale as an All-State Linebacker. But his senior year, he’s flipping the script. Filling the shoes of his former teammate, Brayden, as one of the Zizzers go-to running backs.
“We’ve always been good firends and I always play around with him because he had some amazing stats, and it’s just something I look up to and try to do,” said Seley.
And he’s done a heck of a job in this offensive role, 134-yards shy of 2,000 yards-rushing, with 25 rushing touchdowns. And Titus has 406 receiving yards on just 16 catches, for 3 touchdowns… that’s an average of 25-yards a catch.
“We had a feeling this was going to be an easy transition for him, and we were right,” Perkins said.
Titus brings the best of both, his offensive and defensive abilities, together to form something almost unstoppable.
“Titus actually goes to them, he runs to that contact. You kind of know that there’s running backs that do that, but Titus does it so fast and with such violence that I think it catches the tackler off guard,” Perkins said. ” You can’t replace that kind of a mindset. I wish we could clone him, but just can’t. He’s different.”
And when asked to choose between playing offense or defense…
“Oh, I don’t know. I love to score touchdowns, but I love to hit people on defense too. It’s probably 50/50, but I’d have to lean toward offense,” Seley said.
His total offensive numbers are just shy of Brayden Lidgard’s last season.. but Titus is more concerned about getting the win against Helias Catholic.
