Valor Christian football masters success early in Colorado

Undoubtedly, the goal was to become as competitive as humanly possible as quickly as humanly possible. Other than that, the blueprint for assembling the Valor Christian (Highlands Ranch, Colo.) football program didn't contain any specifics.

No goals such as, "Win a league title by year No. 3" or "Capture a state championship by Year 5."

Well, the installers of the Eagles program must have made a mistake. Seems they put the Eagles' timeline of progress on light speed.

Valor Christian played its first varsity season in 2008, and it's been nothing but heaps of success and jealousy of their prowess ever since. The Eagles won the Class 3A state championship in 2009 then moved up to 4A last season and won it again.

This season, the Eagles have blown away the field so extensively that it is fair to wonder if they are the best team in all of Colorado's five classes.

"We don't look at things like classification," said standout sophomore running back Christian McCaffrey, one of two sons of former NFL receiver Ed McCaffrey on the team. "We just try to be the best we can be each week and not worry about the things we can't control. But yeah, I would put this group up against anybody."

It's a fair assessment considering Valor stands at 8-0 and has outscored opponents 316-61. MaxPreps dubs Valor the No. 1 team in the state spanning all classifications and No. 15 nationally. Colorado's top spot generally belongs to 5A Mullen, but the Mustangs had their 34-game winning streak snapped this season with a 12-7 loss to Grandview.

Now for the fine print: Valor Christian routed Grandview 45-17 two weeks earlier in the season opener.

"I wouldn't say I'm surprised," Valor Christian coach Brent Vieselmeyer said of his team's rapid ascension. "Some things went a little quick, but our kids have been so dedicated for the last four years that you knew good things were going to happen to them. People had said that kids won't work that hard for you these days. They won't dedicate or be selfless. It's been kind of neat seeing the exact opposite happen."

In fairness, Valor Christian is a heavily funded school (students pay tuition) in an affluent neighborhood with facilities that are on par with a small Division I college. The press box contains live-time stat and play-by-play monitors like NFL games, and all parts of the football operation are first-class. From that standpoint, it is a very appealing school to attend and serious football players might spurn their neighborhood school for a chance to play at Valor.

For that reason, the predictable complaints from opponents are commonplace, and, just like when Mullen wins, the debate rages as to whether Colorado should separate public and private schools. Valor Christian, though, trudges forward with purpose and blocks out the periphery issues.

It's a fair measuring stick of how well your season is going when the worst things that have happened involve missteps by opponents. In Week 4, Valor matched up with 5A powerhouse Pomona to try to get a further gauge of how it stacked up against the big-school elite. Pomona suspended about a dozen players for the contest for drinking, many of them key contributors. Valor won 38-0 but didn't receive the expected jolt of competition.

Then, just last weekend, Littleton forfeited to the Eagles – which usually is unheard of in 4A football – only hours before the game. It was Valor's senior night and the Eagles had a showcase planned. Littleton claimed it was too beat up to play after losing junior varsity players to injury in a lopsided JV loss to Valor the night before.

Otherwise, the season has been a nonstop flow of gaudy numbers. McCaffrey has scored 11 touchdowns on the ground and five through the air. Co-quarterbacks Cody Thibault and Wes Tabor have completed 70 of 99 passes for 12 touchdowns and two interceptions (the tandem replaced intensely recruited Brock Berglund, who decommitted from the University of Colorado last season to play at Kansas).

McCaffrey's older brother, Max McCaffrey, is a standout defensive back/receiver bound for Duke. Max McCaffrey will play in the Semper Fidelis All-American Bowl on Jan. 3 in Phoenix, a new all-star game with close ties to the Fiesta Bowl that will be televised on CBS.

Valor's lines boast almost pro-like size, with players such as the heavily recruited Alex Kozan (6-foot-4, 295 pounds) and Javaughn Johnson (6-0, 285) leading the way. Many of Valor's key players were sophomore starters on the 2009 title team.

"The thing I'm most amazed with is how well our young talent has played," Vieselmeyer said. "Most the teams we play, it's typically a senior-led deal. We're a bit more senior-driven this year, but if you look at the past few years, we were young. If you look at the success we've gotten from our sophomore classes, it's pretty phenomenal."

Vieselmeyer, 36, was a defensive coach at immensely successful Orange Lutheran (Orange, Calif.) from 1999 to 2006 with childhood buddy Rod Sherman, and the two were a package deal for Valor Christian. Sherman is Valor Christian's offensive coordinator and athletic director, the same posts he held at Orange Lutheran. The tandem deserves as much credit as anyone for building the Eagles from the ground up.

"In all organizations you hope and dream for success, but until it becomes reality, it's just a dream," Sherman said. "It lets us know, as coaches, that we have to keep working just as hard. It's a short trip from the penthouse to the outhouse."

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