{"id":462361,"date":"2025-12-21T14:39:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T14:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/462361\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T14:39:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T14:39:12","slug":"the-times-football-back-of-the-year-luke-fahey-of-mission-viejo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/462361\/","title":{"rendered":"The Times&#8217; football back of the year: Luke Fahey of Mission Viejo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The fact quarterback Luke Fahey of Mission Viejo High signed with Ohio State is impressive enough. Then look at his 2025 statistics and you begin to realize he\u2019s going to be next in line to continue Southern California\u2019s success in developing top quarterbacks.<\/p>\n<p>Over 11 games, he only had three passes intercepted while completing 71% of his passes. He threw for 3,199 yards and 25 touchdowns. He ran for six touchdowns. He had a school-record 569 yards passing against Los Alamitos. He made a clutch touchdown pass in the second half to beat eventual Southern Section Division 1 champion Santa Margarita 7-6 in the season opener.<\/p>\n<p>He clearly performed at his best when the pressure was on and Mission Viejo needed him to lift up his teammates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s the best leader I\u2019ve had in 25 years of coaching. He\u2019s the total package,\u201d coach Chad Johnson said.<\/p>\n<p>Fahey has been selected The Times\u2019 back of the year.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Jack Junker catches 33-.yard TD pass from Luke Fahey. Junker used to play at Santa Margarita. 7-3 Mission Viejo with 1:31 left in third. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1MAx5shs2q\">pic.twitter.com\/1MAx5shs2q<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 eric sondheimer (@latsondheimer) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/latsondheimer\/status\/1959102728527126971?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">August 23, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Before this season, he was <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/sports\/highschool\/story\/2025-09-17\/wait-your-turn-option-era-of-prep-football-transfers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">sharing time at quarterback,<\/a> showing incredible unselfishness while putting his trust in the process that everything would work out when it was his time to be the full-time starter. And it did.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s always been real good,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cHe was sharing reps and didn\u2019t allow everyone to see his greatness and what he could be. Ohio State saw it. It\u2019s going to be crazy what he can do at the next level.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s one memory Johnson won\u2019t soon forget. It was in the visiting locker room after a game at St. Paul. Fahey stayed behind as the last person to pick up trash to leave the locker room clean. Then he headed to the bus. Only the head coach saw it. The best player on the team doing work others ignored.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRemarkable,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fact quarterback Luke Fahey of Mission Viejo High signed with Ohio State is impressive enough. Then look&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":462362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,210848,1318,1910,48218,2961,123228,224,5337,210846,65742,17946,103594,6620,637,210847,50647,80883,1628],"class_list":{"0":"post-462361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-eventual-southern-section-division","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-game","13":"tag-johnson","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-locker-room","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-losangeles","18":"tag-luke-fahey","19":"tag-mission-viejo","20":"tag-pass","21":"tag-season-opener","22":"tag-time","23":"tag-times","24":"tag-top-quarterback","25":"tag-touchdown","26":"tag-yard","27":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115758077557726877","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}