Brad Mossor saw just about all he could from opposing defenses throughout his senior season.
Primarily a wide receiver offensively, Mossor was often bracketed, drawing multiple defenders on the perimeter in an effort to mitigate his impact.
A switch to running back to help ensure touches drew plenty of attention but was anything but problematic for Mossor, who also made a major impact as a defensive back and return specialist in guiding the Tigers to an unbeaten campaign and the Class AAA state championship for the program’s first title.
For his efforts, Mossor is the recipient of this year’s MetroNews Football Player of the Year, as voted upon by media representatives statewide.
“It’s still unbelievable what we’ve done this season and that we won a state championship is kind of crazy. I want to shout out my offensive line, because if it wasn’t for them, I wouldn’t have done what I did,” Mossor said.
Mossor finished with 93 receptions for 1,512 yards and 14 touchdowns. He rushed 125 times for another 914 yards and scored on nearly one-quarter of his carries, registering 28 rushing TDs. Mossor added seven other touchdowns by way of return on special teams or defense.
“When I took the position, I knew how great of a wide receiver he was,” said Tigers’ head coach Nathan Tanner, who wrapped up his first season at Princeton with a 14-0 mark. “I felt maybe he could win the Moss Award, and as the season progressed, people were bracketing him, trying to neutralize touches and get him out of games. Whenever we started using him as a running back, his workload changed, and as his workload increased, the more I saw his competitive spirit and will to win come out.
“That’s what makes him so special. He’s a great route-runner and great with the ball in his hands, but his will to win is unreal. It got put in the spotlight in the championship game the other night.”
It did indeed.
In the Tigers’ 36-35 come-from-behind win over Nitro last Saturday in the AAA final, Mossor scored all five Princeton touchdowns and accounted for 34 points.
He saved his best for last with three fourth-quarter TDs and a pair of two-point conversions on rushes to score all 23 PHS points in the frame as the Tigers overcame a nine-point deficit to edge the Wildcats.
“I’ve always had confidence,” Mossor said. “I told the guys when we went into halftime and it was 7-7, if we go down, we are that talented that we can come back. We faced adversity this whole year.”
Mossor rushed for 115 yards and four touchdowns on 24 carries and caught five passes for 132 yards and a score in the final. He was in on three tackles, one for loss and responsible for a pair of pass breakups in a contest where every play proved vital as there was next-to-no separation between teams that were within 9 total yards of one another (360 for PHS, 351 for NHS).
Princeton’s Brad Mossor. Photo by Will Wotring
“We’re down nine in the fourth quarter, and he says to me, ‘I don’t care how I get it, but just get me the ball. I want to win more than anybody, so let’s do whatever it takes,’” Tanner said. “We scored and on the first 2-point conversion, we were deciding what to do and I was going to run a counter with Alex Cox. He demanded the ball. I told him everybody knows you’re getting it, and they’re going to trigger on you, but he still got in. Moments like that are really special and help separate him from everybody else.”
It was the ideal way to cap a postseason season full of many memorable moments, including 221 scrimmage yards and three touchdowns one week earlier in a semifinal victory against Spring Valley and 244 scrimmage yards with five touchdowns, one of which was a TD reception on fourth-and-16 in a six-point quarterfinal round win over Herbert Hoover.
There was also an 11 reception, 182-yard effort with three offensive scores in a resounding win over eventual Class AA runner-up Bluefield, a six-touchdown showing in a 21-point win over Woodrow Wilson that included a pick six on the final play of the first half and an 84-yard touchdown run negated by a holding penalty in a win over Independence that was instead replaced by a 92-yard TD run on the next play.
“I felt like I could do a lot against any defense there was, but if you were going to bracket me, then that could be terrible for your defense, because we can score either way with all the guys we had,” Mossor said. “You were not going to stop all of us.”
Tigers’ quarterback Chance Barker relied on Mossor as his go-to target, but also had no trouble spreading the wealth as he capped a strong prep career with a season that included better than 3,350 passing yards and 31 touchdowns.
“There’s a lot of countless hours that factor in that as well,” Mossor said. “A lot of hours in the weight room and after wright room hours and a lot of out off-season work right after school and getting on the field throwing and catching.”
Mossor, who received half of 22 first-place votes, edged Morgantown standout sophomore Maddox Twigg (73 points to 71 points) for the honor in the closest voting totals for the award since 2019 when Martinsburg’s Jarod Bowie was the recipient and Parkersburg South’s Brandon Penn runner-up. Twigg had seven first-place votes.
“I’m proud of him as a football player and what not, but the amount of growth I saw from him as a man and a leader was really special,” said Tanner, who served as Penn’s coach in 2019 for his first of six seasons Parkersburg South. “He’s a warrior in the weight room and in practice. He never wanted to sit out or miss days. Whenever you have a guy like that and it happens to be your best football player, it makes everybody else better off around him.”
Mossor believes playing for Tanner, his third head coach in four seasons at PHS, brought out the best in him.
“He likes to do everything at a fast pace. He’s made me a better person and player at the same time,” Mossor said.
Mossor is set on playing in college, but has yet to settle on his next destination. He holds offers from various Division II programs and received his first Division I offer on Tuesday from Morgan State.
For now, he’s preparing for the transition to basketball, a sport his father Mike Mossor excelled at in high school when he earned first-team all-state honors in 1993 and 1994 at Doddridge County on runner-up and state champion teams, respectively.
“He always told me, ‘until you win a ring, you will never be better than me.’ I took that and went with it,” Mossor said. “Now that I’ve won mine, I’m like, ‘who’s better?’”
Wheeling Park’s Brennan Wack was third in voting, followed by Martinsburg’s Boston Todd and Bridgeport’s Gavin Williams.
Mossor becomes the second Princeton player to garner MetroNews Football Player of the Year in the last three seasons, joining 2023 recipient and fellow Tigers’ wideout Dom Collins.
MetroNews Football Player of the Year History
2025 — Brad Mossor, Princeton
2024 — Koi Fagan, Martinsburg
2023 — Dom Collins, Princeton
2022 — Judah Price, Independence
2021 — Hudson Clement, Martinsburg
2020 — Blake Hartman, Musselman
2019 — Jarod Bowie, Martinsburg
2018 — Connor Neal, Fairmont Senior
2017 — Mookie Collier, Bluefield
2016 — Jeremy Dillon, Mingo Central
2015 — Cody Mitchell, Point Pleasant
2014 — Kentre Grier, South Charleston
2013 — Ross Comis, Madonna
