MOLDING A CHAMP: Schor's Journey To James Madison Guides Him To Success

HARRISONBURG — Dave Baker can point to the exact moments he knew his young quarterback was destined for success.

“I looked at Schor and he starts to warm up, but he goes to run out on the field and he catches his cleat in the ground and it comes off,” Baker said. “I was thinking to myself, how could it start any worse than this?

“Within two series, he had thrown a 60-yard touchdown pass and I guess the rest is history.”

From the time Bryan Schor took varsity snaps as a freshman in his first game at Delaware Valley High School in Milford, Pa., where Baker is the quarterbacks coach, the now James Madison University signal-caller was taught never to react to what happened and instead always prepare for what’s next.

Along his path to helping JMU capture a national title last year, the quarterback learned to overcome setbacks and deal with failures.

Now, it’s how he handled those shortcomings that have constructed an experienced senior primed to manage pressurized expectations as the top-ranked Dukes open the season Saturday at FBS East Carolina.

“I told him, you never get too high and you never get too low with whatever happens,” said Baker, who has known Schor since Schor was in the seventh grade and watched the quarterback develop into a college prospect.

Schor calls Baker “the most influential” coach he’s ever had in his football career.

Schor said when he was in high school he viewed himself in one way — the prototypical recruit looking to be college football’s next big thing.

And that’s where Schor’s story begins.

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Baker had some connections across football having spent some time working with the Washington Redskins back in the 1980s before moving on to coach high school teams in Florida and Pennsylvania.

One of Baker’s contacts, ex-Southern Cal assistant quarterback coach Yogi Roth, actually helped Baker get Schor into the Elite 11 — a nationwide quarterback competition for the top high school players at the position.

“I was talking to Yogi because I had coached Yogi in a high school all-star game,” Baker said. “But I asked where do you think Bryan can play?

“He said he didn’t think Bryan could play at USC yet, but if he had greater experience in high school, he could have, so I said how about the MAC? He said that would be perfect.”

The summer before his senior year a Mid-American Conference school, Miami University, became the first to offer Schor a scholarship.

“I had an FBS offer and that was all I thought about,” Schor said. “I had a lot of attention from smaller schools — Lehigh, Towson, Villanova.

“But I had the FBS offer, so I thought why would I go down to FCS?”

Schor committed and agreed to greyshirt — when a high school prospect postpones enrollment until the second semester — but he didn’t know Miami would fire coach Don Treadwell midway through the 2013 season.

Chuck Martin, the former Notre Dame offensive coordinator, was hired to replace Treadwell, but he didn’t have a place for Schor on the roster.

Baker said Martin called him to tell him that Schor couldn’t operate as a dual-threat quarterback. Martin thought Schor was only a drop-back passer that wouldn’t fit the RedHawks’ new offense.

The scholarship once offered to Schor was revoked.

“He was kind of like a man without a home,” said Michael Behr, the quarterbacks coach at Lackawanna College.

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From Harrisonburg, if you get on I-81 and drive about 300 miles north to Scranton, Pa., you’ll hit Lackawanna College — a football factory.

Led by coach Mark Duda, Lackawanna has sent its fair share of talent such as Bryant McKinnie and Kevin White onto top Division I programs and eventually to the NFL.

Schor was local and at the time, Lackawanna needed a quarterback.

“Our spring practices are like a carnival,” Behr said. “We have 10 to 20 Division I college coaches that come in every single practice, from USC to Baylor and everyone on the east coast.

“It’s a neat situation, so we knew we wouldn’t have him very long.”

Before Schor went to Lackawanna, Baker said he sent Schor to San Diego to work with renowned private quarterback coach George Whitfield, who’s trained some of the best current pros like Andrew Luck, Cam Newton and Jameis Winston.

Plus as Schor was acclimating to what the student athletes at Lackawanna call the ‘LackLife’ he began plotting his next step.

“When I went to junior college, I emailed every single school in the country to open my recruiting back up as much as I could,” Schor said. “I really tried to find a spot for me.

“Something you realize is that kids are constantly emailing coaches. So you think how do you get yourself to standout? I don’t really have a good answer, but I was lucky, and it’s the way I got hooked up with JMU.”

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When ex-JMU quarterback Michael Birdsong decided to transfer, a domino effect took place.

“I had emailed [former JMU quarterbacks coach] Drew Mehringer when I was reaching out to different schools,” Schor said. “I didn’t know too much about JMU, but I looked him up and figured I’d send him an email anyway.

“About a month later, he got back to me when Michael Birdsong left. He talked to me a little here and there and said they’d get me down to a camp at the school to visit.”

At the time, Schor was gaining interest from other schools like Old Dominion to go along with an offer from Towson.

“What happened to him through the recruiting process, he wasn’t satisfied,” said Mehringer, who’s now the wide receivers coach at Texas under Tom Herman. “But Bryan was great with all the circumstances and excited for the opportunity.

“You kind of felt this humble, servant-based leadership.”

But if Mehringer wanted to land Schor, he had to move quickly and offer the quarterback more than Towson coach Rob Ambrose had promised.

“I had already visited Towson,” Schor said. “I had talked with them and I really had hit it off with Coach Ambrose. I really liked Coach Ambrose a lot, but once I got to JMU I knew I wanted to be here.”

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Schor arrived to JMU knowing he’d be the backup to Vad Lee, who transferred from Georgia Tech.

He played when Lee got hurt late in 2015, but it wasn’t until Lee graduated and coach Mike Houston arrived in 2016 that Schor knew he had a shot to win the starting role.

“A lot of times, when you have something happen to you, you get that chip on your shoulder,” Schor said. “And everybody wants to talk about how that chip on the shoulder got him there. To a point, it got me to JMU, but a lot of people don’t talk about what happens when you achieve the goal you set.”

Schor wanted more than the backup job.

To do what Schor wanted to do, he leaned on the one constant that never changed throughout all the off-the-field ups and downs of how he got to Harrisonburg — his on-field demeanor.

All Schor’s former coaches say he maintained the irreplaceable intangible of leadership, which JMU is hoping will guide the Dukes back to Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas, where they won the FCS title last season.

“When we talk, we talk philosophy and how to deal with things,” Baker said. “And if you’re going to be the quarterback, you’re not better than anyone else. You’re just different. The position is different and he took hold of that.

“He doesn’t believe he’s better than anyone else, but he believes he’s different. He’s got to manage the play. He’s got to manage the game and do whatever it is. He ran with that and that’s been his deal.”

Baker said Schor understood that idea beginning the first Friday night of his high school career.

“So our senior quarterback blew out his knee opening night and we’re playing a big 4A school,” Baker said. “Our head coach turns to me and says ‘Dave, is Schor ready?’ I said ‘Yeah, Schor’s ready.’”

That’s when Schor lost his cleat before throwing the reassuring 60-yard touchdown pass.

Behr said Schor’s command was no different at Lackawanna despite the confident passer only staying the one semester at the JUCO.

That spring Schor ran Lackawanna’s offense, which featured receiver Ka’Raun White, who’s currently at West Virginia, tight end Julian Allen, who went onto Southern Miss and offensive linemen Paris Palmer, who moved onto Penn State, and DeLonte Murray, who plays at Cincinnati.

Graduated JMU defensive tackle Martez Stone was on that Lackawanna team, too.

“Bryan walked in and he was a true leader,” Behr said. “When all the guys found out that he was supposed to go to a MAC school, they looked up to him almost immediately. And the charisma, he’s just a great kid.”

JMU offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Donnie Kirkpatrick said as soon as Schor realized he had a chance to win the job when Houston’s staff arrived, he showed some of that leadership.

“The very first day I got here, he was standing in the meeting room waiting on me to get there,” Kirkpatrick said. “He came over to meet me. It was a Friday afternoon and a lot of kids were gone by then because it was the weekend in the offseason, but he was here to meet me.

“He made a very good impression on me from the get-go, so I understood why all the coaches from the previous staff said they liked him.

“But I just think the thing that’s made him better is that he’s worked so hard. I think last year at this time, he was still trying to earn that respect from the team. I know the wide receivers weren’t sure if he was going to be the guy, and I would say when [ex-South Carolina quarterback] Connor Mitch transferred in, most people thought Connor was coming in to win that job, but I told Bryan it doesn’t have anything to do with Connor and that if you do what you’re supposed to do, you’ll be the guy.”

Schor ended up being the guy.

He threw for 3,002 yards and 29 touchdowns and rushed for 569 yards and 10 scores en route to being named CAA Offensive Player of the Year and leading his team to a championship.

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So what’s next for Schor?

With a preseason conference player of the year accolade already plus external expectations to return to Frisco, Texas on Schor, Baker said to expect more of the same.

“His demeanor doesn’t change,” Baker said. “Did he enjoy winning the national championship? Absolutely.

“Was it a low point when he lost his scholarship to Miami and then I sat in a meeting with Mark Duda at Lackawanna College, when he called Charlie Weis at Kansas and Dana Holgorsen at West Virginia, and they said no? Yeah, but Schor didn’t change. He just worked at it.”

Houston said just working at it is all Schor has done since the purple and gold confetti rained down on the quarterback and his teammates in January.

“He’s the guy that I can go to when I need to get the offense going in practice,” Houston said. “All I have to do is say a few words in his ear and he knows how to respond.”

“I know I can go to him if there are issues with the team or if there is something going on that I want his advice on what direction to go, I know I can go to him. He’s got a level head on his shoulders and I know he’ll have the team in mind on anything he says.

“I really appreciate him for the person that he is.”

And Schor, well, he’s just ready for the season to begin.

“I’m a confident player, but I’m not confident just because of my ability,” Schor said. “I’m confident because I know I’m going to over-prepare for games. I’m going to out-prepare the opponent I’m going to face.

“And I think that’s what gives me my confidence.”