In a career of records, Bernhard closes in on another

By Doug Haidet

ASHLAND – After beating Madison in Week 6, Ashland senior quarterback Nathan Bernhard

was handed a pair of game balls by AHS athletic director Jason Goings for posting the

100th and school-record-breaking 101st touchdowns of his career.

Bernhard, an Appalachian State commit, has since bumped that number to 111 (64 passing,

47 rushing). Had Goings waited until the end of this season to give out such recognition for massive career numbers, he would have needed a bag the size of Santa Claus’s toy sack to hold all the footballs.

Bernhard has been picking off milestones as if they were target practice at an amusement

park.

Career completions? He’s got the Ashland record (572 and counting).

Career yards on offense? That one’s in the bag, too (9,634 and counting).

Rushing yards? He’s already the all-time leader among AHS quarterbacks, needing just 106

more for 2,000.

But when the undefeated Arrows travel Friday to face Lexington (8-1) in one of the biggest

Ohio Cardinal Conference games this century, Bernhard will have one of the holy grails of

AHS records in his sights: career passing yards.

The 6-foot-6, 240-pound senior needs just 109 more to surpass Marcus Fuller, whose 7,848

total has been the Ashland standard for 15 years now.

“If I end up playing in college, it’s crazy to think that, in college, I wouldn’t have as good of a

quarterback as I do now,” senior Arrows wide receiver Gabe Baith said. “We’re fortunate to

have him. … Wherever you’re at on the field, he can get it to you.”

Bernhard’s progression from competing to start as a freshman to becoming a senior stud has

been profound.

Statistically, he put together the best junior season in the history of Ashland quarterbacks last fall, accounting for 4,116 yards and 46 touchdowns in a 12-1 campaign.

He threw just four interceptions on 299 passes. By the time the Arrows finish their first playoff game this year (a home game to be determined), Bernhard likely will have surpassed 10,000 career yards on offense.

If he gets to that total, his name almost surely will be among the fewer than 50 quarterbacks

in Ohio history who have passed for more than 8,000 yards.

Bernhard said being able to commit to Appalachian State in the spring has helped him play

more freely as a senior.

“(Picking a college) took away the weight of, ‘I’ve got to worry about recruiting and I’ve got to worry about (stats),’ and also how I performed,” he said. “Not thinking about how mistakes you’ve made affect your recruiting.

“There’s historical things we’re trying to accomplish here with this season and a lot of things in that aspect (come with pressure). But the whole recruiting aspect, that’s all gone.”

Things that fall under the category of “historic” for Ashland with Bernhard at the helm?

How about the current 19-game regular-season winning streak – second-only to a 21-game

streak for AHS from 1950-52.

And what about the current 14-game home winning streak? Last week’s 52-7 obliteration of

Wooster broke a tie with the 13-game home streak from 2006-08 for Ashland’s longest since

at least the 1980s (perhaps the longest ever).

This is the third consecutive season Bernhard has thrown for at least 1,700 yards and 13

touchdowns.

Arrows head coach Scott Valentine – now 156-67 in 20 years leading the program – said the

senior has shown his development this season in being able to throw on the move as well.

“When he moves on, he’s gonna have to be multi-faceted in a lot of things, and we’re pretty

much a pocket (passing) team,” Valentine said.

“So he worked in the offseason on doing bootleg and those types of things outside of the pocket; he knew that, to be a college quarterback, you’re gonna have to be able to do a lot of different things.

“Within our system, it’s not as much, so those are things that are showing up this year when

he gets out of the pocket. He’s really put the time in on that.”

Bernhard said he made perhaps the best pass of his career in a 42-7 thumping of Marion

Harding in Week 2.

Rolling to his left on fourth-and-5 from the Harding 25, he slung the ball around an oncoming defender to standout junior receiver Killian O’Brien, who was streaking across the end zone in the opposite direction and snagged the pass for a touchdown.

“I haven’t had a ton of passes where I’ve had to do something like that,” Bernhard said. “As a quarterback, to be successful you have to believe you can make whatever throw you need to make.”

Having completed 116-of-171 passes for 1,801 yards and 19 touchdowns through nine

games, Bernhard has been more accurate this season (68 percent completion rate) than any

other as well.

That makes sense, considering he has yet to throw an interception in 2025.

In fact, Bernhard has gone more than 15 consecutive games dating back to last season – a

total of 311 passes – without a pick.

He said he never thinks about the possibility of throwing this year’s first interception when he

sets up to let the ball fly.

“You don’t want to have the mindset that you’ve got to be super careful in any game because that’s not a good spot to be in,” Bernhard said. “I think you just want to play free and play the game you want to play.”

“It’s all about processing the defense,” Valentine said. “There are things before the snap,

you’re looking for things after the snap; and he’s able to process it and know where he’s

going.”

At this time last year, Bernhard was being counted on to shoulder much more of the load in

the running game.

Entering Week 10 in 2024, he had 900 yards and 17 touchdowns on 138 carries.

This fall, he’s got another 17 rushing scores, but just 394 yards on 107 carries.

He said the emergence of junior running back Grayson Baith (506 yards, 9 TDs on 77 carries)

has helped a ton in that regard.

“I’m a little less tired and a little less beat up after games,” Bernhard said. “That’s a big thing.”

“(Last year), I was able to get some huge runs because of teams playing man coverage,” he

added, “whereas now, teams are a lot more zone, sitting back a lot more and trying to keep

things in front of them instead of allowing those huge plays.”

Bernhard also has focused on improving his leadership this season, knowing he’s now among

the oldest players on the team with the most experience.

He likely would have had the career passing record already had the Arrows not been

annihilating teams on a weekly basis. Only once this season has Ashland not beaten its

opponent by at least 27 points, leaving the starters to watch much of the second half each

week from the sideline.

But Bernhard said the number he’s most focused on lies in the win column. And there’s

another record looming there as the biggest games of his career arrive.

If the Arrows beat the Minutemen on Friday, Bernhard will improve to 29-8 as a starting

quarterback – the exact same record former star QB Taylor Housewright finished his AHS

career with in 2007.

Those 29 wins are the most ever by an Ashland signal-caller.