Senior wide receiver Dalton Maggard is having a big season for the Collins football team, which will play at Western on Friday in the first round of the Class 4-A playoffs. Photo by Josh Cook, Special to The Courier-Journal
About the only thing Dalton Maggard hasn’t caught for the Collins High School football team this season is a cold.
Through 10 games the 5-foot-8, 185-pound senior wide receiver has 58 receptions for 1,153 yards and 16 touchdowns (the latter two totals led Class 4-A during the regular season) for the Titans (6-4), who play at Western (4-6) at 7 p.m. Friday in the first round of the playoffs.
Q: How did you start playing football?
A: It was something I started watching on TV when I was real little and I decided to play. I got tired of playing in the backyard by myself. …I started playing in Pee Wee (at age 9), then I played through park league and decided to go to the next level in middle school, then high school.
Q: What do you like about playing wide receiver?
A: You get to make the highlight plays, you get to be the home-run guy. You can get double-teamed, but nothing really ever says you can’t make a play. As long as the ball is in the air you’re always going to have a chance to go get it.
Q: You’re not the biggest receive. How have you been so successful?
A: When I started out I thought it was going to be a big problem. It really just means if you’re 5-8 you’ve got to be as versatile as you can. Since you’re not going to be a guy that goes up and jumps with everybody, you’ve got to be faster than everybody and you can’t be scared to go in with the linebackers. I wouldn’t say it’s too big of a deal for me anymore.
Q: Are there NFL players you pattern your game after?
A: I used to love Wes Welker, but then when (Julian) Edelman came along he was more versatile, so then I kind of fell in love with Edelman.
Q: What’s the goal for the rest of the season?
A: It’s to win a state championship. That’s what the goal is every year and that’s what it still is now.
Q: You were a freshman on Collins’ 2013 state championship team. What do you remember about that?
A: That was cool because me and a friend (Sam Harrod) were the only two freshmen that dressed varsity. That whole process, playing in the playoffs, was pretty cool. We killed just about everybody we played, except for Highlands and that was a heck of a team. We knew we weren’t going to play, but we got to see a good football team play so it was fun.
Q: What about your rapport with quarterback J.R. Lucas?
A: J.R. gives me the ball as much as I want. He’s always throwing to me. Even when he shouldn’t be throwing to me he’s still throwing to me. I started throwing with him in practice after weightlifting when I was a freshman. I always had a bond starting out with J.R. Then when he started varsity we just kind of connected on the go route, and it’s been like that ever since. I’ve got to give a lot of my success to him.
Q: What have been some of the highlights for you this season?
A: This year I broke the school record (with 215 receiving yards against Franklin County on Sept. 30), without even knowing, then I broke it again the next game (with 263 vs. Central Hardin), so that was pretty cool. Then, catching the game-winning touchdown against Eastern and taking the kick return back against Bullitt East was pretty fun.
Q: You want to play in college, do you know where yet?
A: I’ve talked to Eastern (Kentucky) and UK scouted me out. UK’s wanting me to walk on, WKU’s looked at me a little bit, then a bunch of smaller schools.
DALTON MAGGARD UP CLOSE
School: Collins.
Year: Senior.
Sports: Football.
Student-athlete: Dalton, who has a 3.1 grade-point average, says his favorite subject is Psychology.
Family: Dalton lives with his mother, Marcy; father, Todd; and younger sister, Mackenzie, who is a freshman at Collins.
Collins coach Jerry Lucas says: I may be biased but Dalton has got to be one of the top receivers in the state of Kentucky. He’s 5-8, 185 pounds, runs a 4.6 40(-yard dash). He’s strong, he can bench press 320, he’s a great route runner and he’s got great hands. … He’s a fierce competitor. He’s just one of those kids that is a playmaker. We just have to get the ball in his hands.