In Week 4 of the 2025 season, Nazareth traveled to Freedom and the Blue Eagles improved to 4-0 that night with a 56-21 rout of the Patriots.
In that game, Peyton Falzone looked unstoppable.
Nazareth scored on its first six possessions and racked up 472 yards of offense and the Blue Eagles took a 42-21 lead. Falzone was 16 of 22 passing for 336 yards and threw two TD passes while running for another.
But on his last pass just before halftime, he short-armed it into the ground. Something was noticeably wrong. Tests taken later revealed a fractured clavicle on his left side. Falzone’s season was suddenly over and realistically, so was the Blue Eagles’ championship hopes.
Enter sophomore Cooper Madson, a promising young quarterback who expected to take over at quarterback in 2026 but was forced to do it in Week 5 and while he played admirably, there were growing pains to get through.
Now 2026 is here and if there was a silver lining to Falzone’s fantastic career coming to a premature end, it was that Madson got a jumpstart on becoming a varsity quarterback. He’s ready to take the reins this season and has a lot of weapons around him as Nazareth looks to improve on last year’s 8-4 record and make a run at the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference’s Northampton Division title.
“It was very unfortunate what happened last year losing Peyton like we did, but with that happening it was a blessing in disguise because Cooper got the chance to take the reins early,” coach Tom Falzone said. “Last year he was just a young pup thrown into the fire with a bunch of seniors and trying to rally everybody around him. This year, he’s a different kid. He comes into the season knowing he’s the guy and this is his team. He worked like crazy and his confidence level is through the roof right now.”
Madson finished the year with 1,523 passing yards and 13 touchdowns. He threw just three interceptions in 176 attempts.
While Nazareth graduated star running back Marquez Wimberly, who ran for 1,723 yards and 23 TDs, the Blue Eagles do return their top receivers from last year. Matt Leluga (34 catches for 546 yards, 8 TDs), Luke DiPietro (53 catches for 843 yards, 8 TDs) and Lance Zuercher (13 catches for 231 yards and a TD) are all playmakers. Mason Marinelli is a quality tight end. Austin Christine and Marques Taveras return on the offensive line.
Both Zuercher and Marinelli have received college offers from FCS programs.
“Wimberly is a huge one to replace and we’re going to do that by committee at the start of the season,” Falzone said. “Several guys are taking snaps at running back right now.”
Middle linebacker Cooper Wenrich, who led the league with 148 tackles last season, is one of the running backs in the mix along with Will Bacolo.
Meanwhile, Wenrich heads an inexperienced defense.
“There’s a complete overhaul on the defensive side and that’s where we have a lot of new faces,” Falzone said. “We have just three returners and pound-for-pound, Wenrich at 145 pounds is the toughest guy on the team. He had an option to move back and play in the secondary, which is what he’s going to do in college, but he said, that he wanted to remain at middle linebacker so that’s where he will stay. Zuercher played safety for us last year and he got hurt at the end of last season, but he’s back and we should be solid up the middle. But the outside linebackers, the ends, the corners, everyone else is new. We’re a work in progress. It may take time for everything to settle in.”
As usual, Falzone said the key is to stay healthy.
“Last year, when we started losing guys, it became very difficult,” Falzone said. “It could have been a very special year last year, but we lost some major guys. Now, we just have to move forward and go through this thing the best we can.”
3 tidbits on the Blue Eagles
(1) A new DC
Longtime Catasauqua and Nazareth assistant Jim Schaffer has retired, meaning Falzone needed a new defensive coordinator. But Schaffer’s right-hand man, Jeremy Eberhardt, stepped into the role.
“Jeremy slid right in and has done a great job with them,” Falzone said. “He is a lot like Jim and is very analytical and is putting tons of time with it and brings the energy and intensity. We’re very young on defense and you’re going to see a lot of two-way players. And a lot of those guys are actually three-way players because they stay out there for special teams, too. I don’t think Mason Marinelli comes off the field.”
New coaches include Chris Shannon, a former Easton and Wilkes player, and Tim Hutchison, who played at Nazareth and Rowan. Both of them will coach the outside linebackers. Andy Millen, who has been at a variety of schools over the years and most recently at Parkland, has joined the staff on the offensive side.
(2) Triple trouble
Falzone, who is 87-49 in 12 previous seasons at Nazareth after going 47-18 in five years at Catty, has been vocal from the start about the league structure. Even though this is the third year of the format, he hasn’t changed his mind about the three open dates at the start of the season. He doesn’t like having his school being forced to find opponents in the first three weeks.
In that vein, the program reached out and scheduled Garnet Valley from District 1 for Friday’s opener. Garnet Valley is coming off an 8-4 season.
The Jaguars run the triple-option on offense which makes Game 1 even more of a challenge for Nazareth’s young defense.
“Now we have to bang our heads about 500 times right away just preparing for them and that offense,” Falzone said. “It’s mind-numbing getting ready for it. It’s repetition after repetition and it’s all assignment football. Add in about two-hour going toward Philly and it’s going to be a challenge for us.”
Falzone likes playing other former EPC South teams and he’s got two of them lined up for weeks 2 and 3 with Whitehall on the road and Allentown Central Catholic at home. The team’s cross-division games are not easy — against Emmaus and Stroudsburg.
(3) The numbers game
Falzone said he has about 68 kids out in grades 10-12 and those numbers are bolstered by a large freshman group of 40 kids. The middle school program has about 60 kids.
“They all want to play, but maybe they’re not all players,” Falzone said, laughing. “I’ve spent my entire life coaching at smaller schools, Catty and here. We don’t have what the big dogs have, but you find ways to compete with what you have and be competitive. We try to put our kids in a position to have success. That’s all we can do. I always feel like we have to find a way to outcoach people because we don’t have the same numbers others do. We’re always trying to find new things we can do … new schemes, new wrinkles, new things. If you stay stale, they can figure it out and you’re not going anywhere.”
Schedule
(All games at 7 p.m.)
Friday: at Garnet Valley
Sept 4: at Whitehall
Sept. 11 host Allentown Central Catholic
Sept. 18: host Freedom
Sept. 25: host Emmaus
Oct. 2: at Stroudsburg
Oct. 9: host Liberty
Oct. 17: at Bethlehem Catholic
Oct. 23: host Northampton
Oct. 30: at Easton