![\"Haverford](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/DTD-L-HAVERFORDFOOTBALL-01-1.jpg\")
Haverford High center Emmet Gillespie has a laugh during practice in August. (PETE BANNAN\/MediaNews Group)<\/p>\nHAVERFORD \u2014 Thanksgiving at Haverford always comes with two givens: A morning football game with Upper Darby, and at least one major storyline to watch.<\/p>\n
The spotlight this year is on seniors Liam Taylor and Emmet Gillespie, two longtime teammates playing their final high school football games with a record chase and a family legacy to think about.<\/p>\n
Taylor has grown accustomed to rewriting the record books. He set the Delco single-season rushing mark last fall with 3,006 yards, taking down a record that had stood for three years. The 2024 Daily Times Player of the Year, Taylor has broken several Haverford records the last two seasons. Now he sits 79 yards from the Delco career rushing record of 5,790, a milestone that has been untouched for 25 years, set by former NFL running back and Cardinal O\u2019Hara star Kevin Jones.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m super excited about it,\u201d said Taylor, who has piled up 1,949 yards and 27 touchdowns this season. His career totals sit at 5,712 yards and 70 touchdowns. \u201cAs Doc (coach Luke Dougherty) said, the record is not just mine, it is everybody else\u2019s who have been blocking for me. The nine people blocking for me last year and the nine people blocking for me this year. I\u2019ve got them to thank.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gillespie, the last of three brothers who played on Haverford\u2019s line, will be Taylor\u2019s center one more time. Older brothers Henry and Kevin came before Emmet, and Kevin was the center for 2019 Daily Times Player of the Year Trey Blair, who had one of the greatest all-around seasons in county history.<\/p>\n
Haverford High center Emmet Gillespie has a laugh during practice in August. (PETE BANNAN\/MediaNews Group)<\/p>\n
Emmet jokes that he and Kevin argue over who is the better runner behind them, Blair or Taylor. Truth is, you can\u2019t go wrong with either. Both are among the most dominant playmakers the county has ever seen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s awesome blocking for him,\u201d Emmet said. \u201cEvery lineman dreams of having a great running back like Liam.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taylor feels the same about running behind Gillespie and his athletic 6-0, 245-pound frame.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a beast,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cHe\u2019s been our biggest player this year, strongest in the weight room. We\u2019ve got great chemistry \u2013 we\u2019re good friends outside of football \u2013 and it\u2019s been a great journey playing with him and the entire offensive line.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both Taylor and Gillespie were \u201crecruited\u201d to stay in the district in middle school by Dougherty when he took over as head coach in the spring of 2021. He knew he had two seventh graders he wanted to keep in the fold as future Fords.<\/p>\n
After a rough one-win sophomore season that ended with a Thanksgiving loss at Upper Darby, Taylor and Gillespie helped lead a Haverford resurgence in 2024. The team went 11-2, won a District 1 Class 6A playoff game and claimed a share of the Central League title thanks to a 40-0 Turkey Day shellacking of Upper Darby.<\/p>\n
\u201cI coached Emmet and his two brothers all the way back when they were in little league baseball. I\u2019ve been good friends with their dad for a long time,\u201d Dougherty said. \u201cWhen I took over the program, I hand wrote about 40 letters to middle school kids to convince them to come to Haverford. It was the first thing I did, and the first two I wrote were to Liam and Emmet. I remember looking at that grade and saying, all right, we need all these guys to stay here, but those two especially. And I had taught in the middle school, so I knew these guys. We want you to stick around, you\u2019ve had siblings in the program, and Liam\u2019s dad played in the program. And they\u2019ve meant everything to us.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you go 1-9 as sophomores and you come back last year\u2026 those juniors we had, especially Liam and Emmet, were so bought in. When we move Liam from quarterback to running back and he doesn\u2019t say boo and ends up rushing for over 3,000 yards \u2026 he was awesome. Coming into camp this year, they were great. It\u2019s all of their hard work and effort. They are both quiet guys, but they lead by example on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n
This fall the Fords (7-4) fell short in their bid to repeat as Central League champs. They dropped competitive games to champion Springfield (14-0), Penncrest (8-4) and Ridley (7-4), but they also knocked off perennial powers Garnet Valley (8-4) and Strath Haven (10-3). Losing senior athlete Shane Durkan to an injury in September was a major blow, but the group stayed together and enjoyed another winning season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe feel like we could have won every one of those games, but we made too many mistakes. The good thing is that these guys, Liam and Emmet, have led us through all of that and there\u2019s not been a moment where I felt like our team isn\u2019t together,\u201d Dougherty said. \u201cIt\u2019s really cool to have this rivalry with Upper Darby, and I know (Upper Darby coach) Darrell Dulany feels the same way. He loves his group. They\u2019ve had a tough year, but every game they\u2019ve been in has been a battle. They\u2019re physical and they have great players. They are well coached, and Darrell has done a great job over there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haverford hopes the final chapter of the season ends with Taylor making more history. The Fords and Royals meet for the 103rd time in the longest-running Thanksgiving rivalry in Delco, a series that began in 1921. Haverford leads 51-45-6, and the teams have traded wins since 2021. Upper Darby comes in at 3-7 but aims to finish on a three-game winning streak. Kickoff at Memorial Field is 10 a.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely a meaningful game for all of us,\u201d Gillespie said. \u201cWe know it will be a tough, physical game, but I think we\u2019re all excited and ready for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HAVERFORD \u2014 Thanksgiving at Haverford always comes with two givens: A morning football game with Upper Darby, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[212,305,725,28,726,210,147,149,148,150],"class_list":{"0":"post-46185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upper-darby","8":"tag-delaware-county","9":"tag-high-school-sports","10":"tag-pa-prep-live","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-top-stories-dtd","14":"tag-upper-darby","15":"tag-upper-darby-headlines","16":"tag-upper-darby-news","17":"tag-upper-darby-township"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}