A new coach and new outlook have helped turn Broken Bow junior Greydon Howell, a VYPE TOP 100 pick, into a big-time college prospect in the class of 2027. Last year the talented signal caller threw for nearly 2000 yards with a 60 percent completion rate and rushed for another 1000 yards and a total of 35 touchdowns-all without having played football for three years. “I played football until seventh grade and then I decided to devote my time to band until last year,” said Howell who also plays point guard for the Savages basketball team, is an outfielder and pitcher in baseball and runs tracks as well. That’s when new football coach Maverick Lang entered the picture. “So I was sitting with my mom on the first day of spring practice last year. Our old coach, quarterback and some other players had left for Idabel. Mom encouraged me to at least go to the meeting that day and talk to the new coach. So I went and coach Lang was all down with me doing both band and football and so I stayed for practice and the rest is history. At first my attitude was that I would just try to hold the quarterback job down for a year to help re-establish some Savage pride. But after my second game, I got my first college offer so I thought ‘Man, I might have to start taking this seriously.’ If you’d have asked me a year ago which sport I liked best it would easily have been basketball but now that I’ve played football for a year and been with friends and seeing the excitement of Friday nights, football has moved to the number one spot.” The new coach himself wasn’t sure what he was getting when he made the deal, but it didn’t take him long to see it pay off. “I wasn’t sure what to expect since he hadn’t played since seventh grade but in our first game against McAlester, he rushed for over 250 yards and had probably 80 more called back and even though we lost the game, we walked off knowing we were going to be in good shape. He’s a freak athletically with the ball in his hands. The game is slowing down for him now and he’s made great leaps in reading defenses and in his passing game,” said Lang. As he gets ready to start his junior year, Greydon has already received 11 college offers from schools like Tulsa, Miami, Boston College, OSU, Arkansas and SMU to name a few. The fact that he’s a great student with a 4.4 GPA and is in several school activities like student council and National Honor Society probably doesn’t hurt either. Greydon’s goals for this coming season include scoring 40 touchdowns, rushing for 1500 yards and passing for another 2500 yards and winning a district title.
