FORTVILLE — When the all-state lists came out, Rylan Cole didn’t see his name.
He figured he didn’t make it. Just a sophomore, Cole had a standout season on both offense and defense, but maybe it wasn’t good enough.
The reason he didn’t see his name was simple. The sophomore was looking at the wrong list.
“At first I didn’t think I made it,” Cole said. “I was looking at the 6A and I didn’t know there were different lists. My brother called me and he was like, ‘Congrats on all-state.’ It was awesome.”
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It was almost fitting that Cole’s older brother, Dylan, was the one to tell him he made the all-state team.
While Rylan Cole made all-state as a defensive back, his regular position to start the season, the sophomore had an impressive season in a second position, which earned him all-county honors in both spots.
That second position was the vacated starting running back spot that Dylan Cole had held to start to the season.
Five games into the 2018 campaign, Dylan Cole was carrying the load for the Marauders, running for over 400 yards. Rylan Cole had 17 carries for less than 100 yards as one of his backups.
In the second quarter of a Week 6 game against state-ranked Pendleton Heights, Dylan Cole stayed down on the field after a play. He sustained one of the toughest injuries for a running back to deal with, a high ankle sprain.
In stepped his younger brother. The rest, as they say, is history.
“Over the next five and a half games, he rushed for 900-plus yards and 14 touchdowns,” Mt. Vernon coach Mike Kirschner said. “Just kind of made it his own. It was neat — we kind of knew he had it in him. He has a little bit of the vision we talk about, where he kind of anticipates the next move as it’s happening. Really a gifted kid. We were trying not to play him both ways.”
With how good Cole was on both offense and defense, the coaching staff didn’t have a choice.
He finished the season with 47 tackles, five interceptions, two fumble recoveries and two defensive touchdowns in his main defensive back position. He rushed for 968 yards on just 135 carries, scoring 14 touchdowns, and caught 12 passes for 120 yards.
“I’m not going to lie, I started out the season pretty rough,” Cole said. “I was not playing too well, just wasn’t into it as much. Then it just hit me. I came to do this, I put in all the work in the off-season, so I just started stepping up and trying harder in practice.”
Turning point
Cole was excelling on defense already. That’s his niche. That’s his forte.
He hadn’t really played running back before this season. It was always defense, and he was fine with that. He liked it.
He was used as a backup running back in the first five games of the season. Then, he saw his brother get hurt. He knew he needed to rise to the occasion.
“When Dylan got hurt, I could tell everyone was down,” Cole said. “He did good when he was running. I really felt a lot of pressure that I had to do good, I had to step up.”
He embraced that sudden change immediately.
That led to a big turning point for the Marauders. The team was sitting at 2-3, fresh off blowout losses to New Palestine and Delta. They were facing a team who had cracked the Top 10 rankings in the state, Pendleton Heights. A third-straight loss wouldn’t have been a big surprise, given what they were facing there.
Then, Rylan Cole provided a spark, and everything kind of changed.
“The play that really kind of triggered it was a 57-yard touchdown run against Pendleton Heights where he caught the edge, made a guy miss, got up the sideline,” Kirschner said. “It was a little bit what we were missing in our offense was that big play out of the running back. Dylan is what I call a blue-collar running back. He’s gonna get you four, going to get you six, he’s going to move the chains, he’s going to pound you. But that extra burst, that extra wiggle that all of a sudden becomes a big play … All of a sudden when your offense has that kind of big-play potential, when you have a guy who can make a big play, it makes the offense a little more energized, a little more upbeat. They know every play is a potential home run.”
As his younger brother started having success, Dylan Cole was right there at practice, wearing a boot for about a month. He’d show up to practice and he’d help coach the running backs, including his younger brother.
He was a consummate team player, as he was all year, Kirschner said. That helped the younger Cole make the transition into playing full-time both ways.
“He was actually really supportive,” Rylan Cole said. “He was supportive the whole entire time. He liked seeing me out there, seeing me do pretty good out there.”
That doesn’t mean there wasn’t some sibling rivalry, though. When Dylan get healthy late in the season, he was back in his other position, linebacker, lining up across from his little brother.
“They tried to run over each other,” Kirschner said. “Typical brothers, they’d exchange pleasantries on the field. But at the end of the day, they were each other’s biggest fans.”
Getting to share a field with his brother is something Rylan Cole had hoped to do for a long time. He started football when he was young, playing flag football with Dylan’s age group.
When Rylan got to eighth grade, his brother, then a sophomore at Mt. Vernon, told him that if he kept working hard, they might get to play together for one year, when Rylan was a sophomore and Dylan a senior.
His older brother was off by a year on that prediction. Rylan Cole cracked the varsity lineup in his freshman year, giving the brothers two years of high school football together.
“It was awesome,” Rylan Cole said. “It was one of the greatest experiences ever. I’ll for sure remember that for the rest of my life.”
Big player
As the Mt. Vernon coaches look ahead to the 2019 football season, they know that their sophomore standout is going to play a big role again.
It doesn’t make sense to keep him off the field. Their plan of not playing Rylan Cole both ways may have officially gone up in smoke as Cole zigged and zagged his way through defenses this fall.
“There’s no question. On paper, he’s one that’s got to be in the secondary because he’s a great range cover guy,” Kirschner said. “And he’s got to carry the ball on offense. He’s got to get the ball in his hands. He’s a playmaker.”
If all goes well, there will be some changes for Cole by next season, though.
Namely, he’s looking to bulk up a bit, get a bit bigger. At 170 pounds, Cole is a fairly small ball carrier. He’s hoping to move up to 185 or so by next football season, while also increasing his overall speed.
He’ll utilize the weight room, and he’s going to start running track, to try to get faster, stronger and gain weight.
He knows he has work to do. He wants to be a big-time player for Mt. Vernon. His ultimate goal is the next level, and he knows he needs to continue to impress on the field to make that happen.
Something one of Mt. Vernon’s assistant coaches said to Cole pushed him throughout this season. It gave him direction moving forward, something to work toward.
“In practice, I was running a route as a wide receiver and I dropped the pass," Cole said. "Coach (Toby) Jacobs goes, ‘Big players make big plays in November.’ That really motivated me. It was pretty much calling me out, saying I wasn’t a big player. That really motivated me later in the season, to really make those big plays.”
His older brother is doing his part to help out. Dylan is helping Rylan with school, and the younger Cole said he’s really happy with where his GPA is. Dylan helps him with his homework and drives him to zero-hour lifting in the mornings.
They are close, and they are taking advantage of these last months together at Mt. Vernon High School.
“It’s going to be different. He was a leader for the team. He always motivated me,” Rylan Cole said of his older brother. “I would always see him going hard in the weight room, and that would make me want to go just a little bit harder, go harder than him. He would always push me in practice. We always had that rivalry in practice. It’s going to be different, but I think I’m going to like it, being the only Cole brother out there.”
Already a standout as a sophomore, the future is bright for Cole.
What he did in 2018, earning all-county, all-conference and all-state honors, is just the start for him, if everything goes to plan. This season was already special. The idea is to translate that into two more years of success at Mt. Vernon as the team pushes toward a sectional championship and beyond.
“He’s a 170-pound kid that when he actually starts to mature physically, and fill in that body in a weight room setting, he can be a special ball carrier at Mt. Vernon,” Kirschner said. “We’re looking forward to the next two years with him, to be honest with you.”