Mt. Lebanon will open the WPIAL Class 6A playoffs with a semifinal game at North Allegheny on Friday, a moment the Blue Devils have been building toward since the preseason.
First-year coach Greg Perry, as lead architect, has been one of the central figures, and so has junior Patrick Smith, a dual-threat quarterback who doubles as a hard-hitting linebacker.
“He’s more of a hammer than a nail for sure,” Perry said.
Perry might have hit the nail on the head.
As for the aforementioned hammer, well, he hopes to help Mt. Lebanon pound two-time defending champion North Allegheny right out of the playoffs.
Smith is a big kid (6 feet 3, 220 pounds) who is somewhat quietly having a big season for Mt. Lebanon (3-7), which won its final two regular-season games to earn one of the classification’s four playoff spots. The No. 3-seeded Blue Devils will now try to reach the final for the first time since their 2021 PIAA championship season against a North Allegheny team (9-1) that handed them a 28-21 defeat on Oct. 4. The Tigers are trying to become the first team to three-peat as WPIAL Class 6A champions.
“We have a chance here to prove something to everyone,” Smith said.
Smith has spent the fall proving to everyone that he’s a very talented quarterback. And while he has passed for 1,472 yards and 11 touchdowns, it’s what he has done on the ground that has been even more impressive. Smith leads all of Class 6A in rushing, running for 972 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Perry has coached many standout quarterbacks in his coaching career, including quite a few dual-threat talents. To Perry, there’s something about Smith that stands out above the others.
“He’s probably the thickest kid I’ve had, which allows him to be a pretty good dual-threat kid because he takes some hits and he delivers hits,” Perry said. “He starts at outside linebacker and plays almost every play of the game, which is rare for a 6A kid. He’s a pretty good linebacker, so we can’t keep him off the field. We were worried a little bit that he would wear down a little, but he’s hit another level and another gear. In 6A football, that’s pretty damn good.”
Smith wasn’t just good, he was excellent over the second half of the regular season. The majority of Smith’s rushing production has come in the past five games, with him totaling 825 yards and 11 touchdowns. He both passed and rushed for more than 100 yards in each of those games. And after throwing nine interceptions in the first five games, Smith has tossed just one in his last five.
“Coach Perry tells me to just take what the defense gives me,” Smith said. “I felt like at the beginning of the season, I was trying to force things to happen. But things have slowed down.”
Said Perry, “We knew it was going to take some time to get used to our passing offense, the four- or five-receiver sets and multiple reads. The [quarterbacks] that I’ve had, every single one of them has struggled as juniors. But when it clicks, it clicks. And then they have a great end-of-junior season and then a great senior season.”
Smith is in his first season as a starter. As the primary backup a season ago, Smith attempted only 24 passes. He did, though, make some waves running the ball when he ranked second on the team with 251 yards on 55 carries.
Defensively, Smith starts alongside senior Dom Huff and fellow juniors Kris Kambitsis and Grayson Beck. Smith has collected 20 tackles, including four for loss.
Smith owns the most common surname in the United States, but when it comes to athletic bloodlines, the abundance of standouts in his family tree is anything but ordinary.
Smith is the second youngest of his parents’ six children. Each of his four older siblings are Division I athletes — Patrice runs track at Columbia, Jack plays baseball at Harvard, and Gina and Jenny compete on the track team at Villanova. But the athletic success runs even deeper than that. Smith’s cousin, Leah Smith, is a former Olympic swimming gold medalist, while his great uncle, Billy Conn aka The Pittsburgh Kid, was a gifted boxer who once held the title of world light heavyweight champion.
Patrick Smith could have an Ivy League future, as well. Penn offered in September. The Quakers are recruiting him to play linebacker. Smith has a 4.3 GPA and is thinking about majoring in biology.
“Playing for an Ivy League school is a big goal of mine,” said Smith, who said he has also received interest from Harvard, Cornell and Michigan State.
Smith passed for 130 yards, rushed for 112 and accounted for three touchdowns when North Allegheny topped Mt. Lebanon a month ago, and his coach believes the athletic junior is one of the biggest keys to victory Friday.
“Patrick has to have a game and we have to slow down their run game. We can’t allow them to have 13- or 14-play drives,” Perry explained.
One day, Smith could be on a team building toward an Ivy League championship. But the focus now is on his Mt. Lebanon team and the large project they have on their hands in trying to take down the two-time defending champions.
“It’s all I’m thinking about right now,” Smith said. “I go to bed thinking about it and I wake up thinking about it. We have to be united and we have to focus on the little things.”
Brad is a sports writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but he's currently on strike. Email him at beverett@unionprogress.com.