Home Grown: Drue Chrisman Comes to Ohio State As Two-Time State Champion Thanks to Rapid Rise of Cincinnati La Salle

CINCINNATI — The door to Jim Hilvert’s office, located down a few flights of stairs on the bottom floor of the workout facility at La Salle High School, opens shortly after 1 p.m. on a Tuesday. Hilvert emerges alongside an assistant coach from Boston College. The two shake hands, exchange a few departing pleasantries and go their separate ways.

Another college coach is scheduled to come see Hilvert around 1:30, so there’s a brief window here for the head football coach of the Lancers to catch his breath — this whole recruiting thing can be a lot of work for the coaches, too, you know?

Hilvert doesn't mind, of course, because he is well-aware this type of busy offseason comes with the territory when you're the head coach of the two-time defending state champions in Ohio's Division II.

“Right now in spring recruiting we’re already at 70 coaches and we’ve still got a week and a half left,” Hilvert says. “But that’s great for the program. People know they’re going to get recognized for their hard work and with team success comes individual success, not the other way around.”

It wasn’t always like this here at La Salle, though. There were always good individual players, sure, but the team hadn’t achieved a ton of success on the field prior to 2014. It hadn’t exactly been as popular of a stopping point for college football assistant coaches as it is now despite being in one of the premier areas of one of the premier states in the country for prep football.

The Lancers had never won a playoff game in school history prior to that 2014 season when they won their first state title. Now, after a dominating run through the 2015 playoffs they’ve won back-to-back state championships in Ohio’s second-largest division.

Things have changed and changed quickly.

“People come and see that we do things the right way, there’s that culture and coaches know they’re going to be coached hard and you’re not going to make a huge adjustment for that,” Hilvert said. “I think the culture that we have set here is going to help them be successful when they go on to college.”

That’s the La Salle way. The new La Salle way, anyway.

After leading La Salle to its first-ever state championship, Nate Moore opted to leave the program to become the head coach at Massillon Washington — Ohio’s all-time winningest program. All of a sudden, the defending state champions were without a head coach.

Enter Hilvert.

After spending eight seasons as the head coach at Thomas More College — a Division III school located in northern Kentucky just a short drive from Cincinnati — Hilvert made the move back to the high school ranks where he took over a team fresh off a state title.

No pressure, right?

“Oh yeah, there was definitely pressure,” Hilvert said. “And everybody around the school, around the community kept telling me, ‘Oh, it’s going to be so easy. They won a state championship last year and you got all these guys coming back.’”

“Obviously, nothing is ever easy especially when you’re trying to repeat. I think it’s way tougher to stay on top of the mountain.”

But behind a strong senior class, La Salle went 8-2 in the regular season and, thanks to a grueling schedule, earned the No. 1 seed in Region 6. The Lancers had signature victories over fellow Cincinnati programs Colerain and Moeller and also knocked off out-of-state powers Carmel (Ind.), East Central (Ind.) and Christian Brothers (Tenn.).

Up next were the playoffs and the Lancers made things there look somewhat easy.

La Salle won its five playoff games by an average of 34.4 points. The Lancers knocked off Massillon Perry in the state championship by a score of 42-0 and their closest playoff game was a three-touchdown victory over Perrysburg in the state semifinals.

There was little doubt who was the best Division II team in the state last season.

“We played a very, very tough schedule and I think that gets our guys ready for the playoffs,” Hilvert said. “They know what competition is all about, how to compete and how to play a full 48 minutes. For us, there are times probably in games where we were down, but we never flinched.”

La Salle had three players in its 2016 class earn Division I scholarship offers, two of which are headed to the Big Ten. Running back Jeremy Larkin signed to play with Northwestern while punter Drue Chrisman will be making the two-hour drive north from Cincinnati on Interstate 71 to play for Ohio State.

A quarterback during his freshman year — “I’m no 12-gauge but I can still sling it a little,” Chrisman jokes — Chrisman doesn’t consider himself the average specialist. He enjoys lifting and working out in the weight room, he’s tall and fast, and Hilvert said he enjoyed “smacking people around” as La Salle’s kickoff specialist last season.

The plan is for him to grayshirt during his first year at Ohio State as he sits and waits behind the Buckeyes’ senior punter Cameron Johnston, but after Johnston departs following the 2016 season, Chrisman will take over as Ohio State’s punter in 2017.

After Tommy John surgery sidelined Chrisman following his freshman season at La Salle and he was unable to throw the ball, Chrisman took up punting. It seems like he made the right decision.

“I really found a passion for it and just kind of focused on that aspect,” Chrisman said. “Once you start getting the technique down — and my size helped — but you can see that you can really start exploding with the technique and the ability I have.”

Chrisman admits he didn’t have to punt a ton during his days at La Salle as the offense was dominant at times. But he wound up becoming an Army All-American anyway and was rated the No. 1 punter in the 2016 class by 247Sports.

The biggest play he made during his senior season, however, came as a field goal kicker. La Salle’s starting kicker suffered an injury early in the season and in Week 3 against crosstown rival Colerain, Chrisman was called upon to attempt a game-winning 41-yard field goal.

He nailed it.

“What a kick he made that day against Colerain, in the rain no less,” Hilvert recalled. “Unbelievable.”

There are quite a few powerhouse programs residing in Cincinnati, ones with longstanding traditions of competing for state championships. Moeller, St. Xavier, Colerain and Elder — just to name a few — make the Cincinnati area one of the strongest in the state.

The way these last two years have gone, though, La Salle might soon be mentioned in the same breath as those others.

That’s the goal anyway, and winning back-to-back state championships is certainly a great way to start things off. More college coaches are stopping by now and more kids are getting looks to play big-time college football. And because of La Salle's recent success, they’re ready for what comes next.

“I don’t think the moment becomes too big for them,” Hilvert said. “When they go onto college, it’s the same way. They’ve played in big games before, they’ve been part of those big weeks of practice where the intensity has been cranked up. That doesn’t get too big for those guys.”

The new La Salle way.

“La Salle football, the brotherhood and playing for each other, La Salle teaches that a lot,” Chrisman said. “Just really coming together as a team and just knowing that if somebody makes a mistake you have a guy behind you that’s able to pick you back up. Somebody is always going to be there to pick you up.”

In sports, everyone always wants to know what comes next. And for La Salle, it will be difficult to match the end result of the last two seasons.

But competing for state championships has quickly become part of the new normal around here and Hilvert is hoping that sticks around for awhile.

“Everybody is thinking state championship every year now. Is that possible? I don’t know,” Hilvert said. “Obviously, every program goes through peaks and valleys and stuff like that, but I just think it’s the culture created.

“Even if you might not be the most talented program that year, whatever year that might be, at least as long as you give a great effort and play La Salle Lancer football and let the chips fall where they may, you still can have a successful year.”