It was the third quarter of a game against Bucknell when redshirt sophomore Sonny Mannino came in for the injured quarterback Enzo Arjona. Before that Mannino had only attempted 10 passes and took a couple of reps at receiver with the Red Foxes.
Fans had no idea what to expect, but since he has taken the field for the Red Foxes in that Bucknell game he has done nothing but improve. Due to his freakish athleticism and superb arm talent, he always could give the Marist offense the spark it needed, and he did exactly that in their 40-point performance against the Stetson Hatters, accounting for a whopping 343 scrimmage yards and 4 touchdowns.
Mannino was responsible for several impactful plays in crucial moments of the game. The Marist coaching staff has been putting more trust in Mannino each week, slowly expanding the playbook to fit his rapidly developing skillset. Mannino displayed several traits that earned him the Pioneer Football League’s Offensive Player of the Week award, as offensive coordinator Bob Davies and head coach Mike Willis called several plays that optimized Mannino’s skillset and allowed him to show off these traits.
Play #1
Video courtesy Marist Athletics on ESPN+
Mannino timed this pass to Jackson Connors-McCarthy extraordinarily well. Conners-McCarthy’s release toward the sideline ultimately led to the corner Simeon White II losing the inside leverage that he had pre-snap, allowing Conners-McCarthy to redirect his route and win the inside quickly.
As this happens, Mannino is staring at the in-line tight end Jackson Willette as he runs a seam up the middle of the field. The safety, who was lined up over the top of Conners-McCarthy pre-snap, rotated to midfield to play over the top of Willette’s seam route. As the single-high safety on this play, Mohammad Toure’s play is dictated by his reading of the quarterback’s eyes. Mannino staring at the seam route ultimately leads to the safety slightly overplaying it, creating a window for Mannino to squeeze the ball into the tight window between the corner and the safety as it lands firmly in Connors-McCarthy’s reliable hands.
This play is also a beautiful display of Mannino’s ability to remain poised in a collapsing pocket. As Stetson rotates their field-side safety down to the box, Mannino remains unphased, even though this makes it easier for Stetson to blitz. They do exactly that, sending the inside linebacker who quickly wins his pass rush against the running back.
To make matters worse, the boundary-side defensive end takes a wide angle and pressures Mannino, threatening to sack him if he doesn’t move. So he does exactly that, but he doesn’t roll out to his left and go against the structure of the offense, as he would be rolling away from his second read. Instead, he steps up into the pressure of the blitzing linebacker. When a quarterback is this fearless and poised in the pocket, it is really difficult for defenses to disrupt their play.
Play #2
Video courtesy Marist Athletics on ESPN+
This fourth-down play shows Mannino’s relative maturity regarding the reps he’s had before this season. A lot of quarterbacks with athletic gifts rely on them to bail them out with their legs, but Mannino doesn’t do that here. Despite the pressure of the circumstances–fourth down in a two-point game–Mannino stays calm and stands strong in the pocket as he progresses through his reads.
The offense is lined in a four-by-one formation, with three receivers and an offset running back to Mannino’s right and one isolated receiver lined up on the left. Marist runs a mesh concept over the middle, a route combination designed to beat man coverage. A mesh concept is when two receivers run in-breaking routes going opposite directions to get the defenders responsible for both offensive players to run into one another, leading to one of the two being wide open. This concept doesn’t often work against zone coverage, as defenders aren’t responsible for a man.
Mannino quickly sees that it isn’t man coverage, seeing the defender he expected to be in the flat drop into a zone over the middle of the field. The second he sees this linebacker drop into his zone Mannino quickly and decisively looks to the right flat and locates his wide-open running back, who catches the ball with a lot of room to run for the first down.
A lot of quarterbacks would’ve simply looked at the first read, the mesh concept, then panic and try to create a play with their legs when it wasn’t open or try to force the ball downfield. Mannino’s confidence in graduate student Tristan Shannon to not just catch the ball, but also run and get the necessary yardage, is what makes a good field general.
Play #3
Video courtesy Marist Athletics on ESPN+
As great as Mannino is at operating the offense from a mental perspective, his physical traits separate him from other quarterbacks in the PFL. Mannino’s rocket right arm and explosive speed expand the playbook. The Red Foxes were down wto in the mid-third quarter when offensive coordinator Bob Davies opted to call one of his favorite types of plays out of another four-by-one set.
When on the left hash, Marist’s offense runs a lot of naked bootlegs. A naked bootleg is where the quarterback rolls out as he scans the field and delivers a pass, often on the run, without anyone going with him to block incoming defenders. They do this often from the left hash because it is easier for quarterbacks to succeed on these plays when rolling towards their dominant hand, Mannino’s right hand in this case, and Mannino has more space to roll out when the ball starts on the left hash.
Because of Mannino’s speed, they can trust him to operate these plays without taking a sack. Mannino also has the arm strength to consistently make these throws without needing to step into them.
In this specific play, the receivers are running a sail concept. The outermost receiver runs a go route and another receiver runs an “outbreaker” under it. In this specific variation, the receiver running the outbreaker, redshirt sophomore Jack Ciolino, converts goes inside as he goes upfield and then breaks upfield as he runs towards the sideline, allowing Mannino to show off his strong arm as he layers it over the defender.
Play #4
Video courtesy Marist Athletics on ESPN+
Mannino added 68 rushing yards on his 15 carries, but none of those carries were more important than Marist’s last touchdown of the game. Only up two over Stetson, the Red Foxes looked to get the ball in the endzone to give their team a multi-possession lead. Davies dials up a pass play out of a two-by-three formation with the running back offset to Mannino’s left and three receivers to his right. Mannino starts the play by reading the route concepts, but Mannino also can create for himself.
The offense was behind the chains in a second-and-13 situation. As he was scanning the field, he saw the inside linebacker blitz the right tackle’s outside shoulder in a gap exchange with the right defensive end who attempted to go inside. The left tackle can stonewall the defensive end as he tries to get inside and the left guard forces the blitzing linebacker outside. This led to a wide-open rushing lane opening for Mannino and he took off.
This play is a display of Mannino’s speed. He beats out the entire defense on foot, but he also redirects and makes it difficult for the safety, Lumpy DeWeese, to take a proper angle and bring him down before he gets in the endzone. When Mannino gets to the five-yard line he makes a quick cut making Deweese’s job far more difficult as he wasn’t expecting for Mannino to redirect. This unpredictability and elusiveness in the open field makes him a very slippery runner in the open field.
Head coach Willis is in the midst of a rebuild for this football team, but each week it is starting to seem more and more like they found their field general. Games like this one further affirm these optimistic beliefs. Mannino’s combination of athleticism, arm strength, smart decision-making, pocket poise and willingness to play in the structure of the offense were key parts of the reason he won the Offensive Player of the Week award in this game against Stetson.
Edited by Dan Aulbach
For more coverage of Marist athletics, follow @cfmarist on Instagram, X and TikTok, and sign up to receive daily alerts here.