History Lesson: Who remembers Mike Staas? Two could beat his 53-year-old record

With two weeks to play plus the playoffs, two quarterbacks have a chance to break the oldest and least known passing record in NIC-10 history.

Through seven weeks, Hononegah senior Dominic Cacciatore has completed 79 of 115 passes, which is a completion percentage of 68.7%. Harlem junior Braxton Fausett is a hair behind at 68.2%, having connected on 75 of 110 passes.

As good as those two have been, they’ll actually have to be even better if they’re going to break the conference record of West quarterback Mike Staas. Way back in 1973, Staas was credited with completing 66 of 92 passes, which is 71.7%.

Every other passing record from the 1960s and 1970s, yards, completions, touchdowns, has been broken many times over. But Staas’ record remains, largely unchallenged over the decades.

What’s remarkable about the mark is how it was such an outlier. The Rockford Morning Star and Register Republic didn’t start collecting and publishing individual football statistics other than touchdowns until 1963. From 1963 through 1971, the best completion percentage for any NIC-10 quarterback who threw for 500 yards or more was 55.7% by East’s Russ Foley in 1969.

Staas actually broke that record twice. As a junior, he completed 42 of 75 passes - 56.0% - for 695 yards before upping the ante significantly in 1973.

How far ahead of its time was Staas’ 1973 mark? A NIC-10 quarterback wouldn’t complete even 60% of his passes again until 2002 when Freeport’s Bobby Gantzler connected on 65.8% (52-for-79) and Boylan’s Matt Weber was good on 63.4% (111-for-175). An NFL quarterback wouldn’t complete 70% of his throws until 1982 when Cincinnati Bengals QB Ken Anderson (who remains the biggest Hall of Fame snub in football) completed 70.6% in a strike-shortened season.

Interestingly, despite the fact that Staas led the Big Nine, as it was known then, in passing yards, touchdowns and completion percentage as a junior, he wasn’t exactly a headliner heading into the 1973 season. When the Rockford newspapers talked to West coach Tom Schwalbach about his 1973 team, he praised Staas’ leadership but focused more on the powerful running attack of Mike Sallis and Al Benz, who would go on to play linebacker at Northwestern.

That’s not all that surprising since football in the 1970s, especially high school football, remained a run-first operation. In West’s opening game, the Warriors pounded Auburn, 34-14, and Staas didn’t throw a single pass. The next week, West edged Belvidere, 14-8, and Staas again was a non-factor, completing just two of five throws for 12 yards.

In week three, Schwalbach turned to Staas more out of necessity. Freeport, which featured future Iowa State running back Cal Cummins, future Northern Illinois Huskie Jim Leudeking, and Steve Kaiser, who would play at Dartmouth, pounded West, 23-7. With the running game bottled up, Staas completed seven of 12 passes for 82 yards.

Still, after three games, Staas was fairly pedestrian with 94 yards passing on nine completions in 17 attempts.

Then Staas just went off.

In week four, West crushed Harlem, 46-6. Staas completed six of seven passes for 209 yards, including touchdown passes of 82, 49 and 12 yards. The next week, Staas was 13-for-18 for 186 yards - and two of his three interceptions on the season - in a 34-0 win over Jefferson. Boylan fell to West in week six, 19-7, with Staas going six for eight for 98 yards.

Week seven was the next big test. The Warriors took on undefeated East. This was the first year of the back-to-back undefeated conference champion E-Rabs. The 1973 team featured at least six future NCAA Division I players in Russell Pope (Purdue), Ira Matthews (Wisconsin), Stuart Walker (Colorado), Jerry Holloway (Western Illinois), George Wojtowicz (Wisconsin) and Jeff Carr (Illinois State).

The E-Rabs won handily, 33-12, but Staas was 14 for 20 for 180 yards.

Carr, who went on to referee college football for more than 40 years, including 20 years in the Big 10, said Staas was no surprise to the E-Rabs.

“When we were growing up, we all played against each other and we knew how good Staas was,” Carr said. “I think his dad was an assistant coach at West so Mike knew football. What I remember about that week is that we really prepared for Sallis, Benz and Mike Staas. The gameplan was to keep everything in front, let them complete the short stuff because our offense was going to be too much for them.”

The Warriors rebounded with a 12-0 win over Guilford. Staas hit on seven of 11 passes for 126 yards, including a 69-yard TD pass to Sallis. The Warriors then improved to 7-2 with a 34-21 win over Moline. The game story credited Staas with going nine-for-10 in passing, while the boxscore had it nine-for-11 with three more touchdown tosses.

That was it. Staas’ senior year was the last one without an IHSA playoff. Staas was chosen as the all-conference QB by the coaches and all-area by the newspaper after leading the conference in passing yardage by more than 350 yards. The info box on Staas noted his statistics but it didn’t recognize his record.

“The Big Nine Conference passing champion the past two seasons, Staas accounted for 1,015 aerial yards this season. The accurate Warrior quarterback completed 66 of his 92 pass attempts and was the league’s least-intercepted passer.”

While Benz was the area’s most sought after recruit, Staas was doubted because he was just 5-10. It would be decades before quarterbacks below 6-0 would get major college looks. The same day that the Register Star announced Staas as its all-area quarterback, it also ran a story on what college scouts were saying about the region’s top seniors. The paper quoted one coach as saying “Staas might be able to play in the Big 10 as a defensive back.”

There’s no mention of Staas in 1974 or 1975. In 1976, he resurfaced as the quarterback for Rock Valley College. In the August preview story about RVC, coach Norm Matzl said Staas had transferred there from Eastern Illinois. The Trojans went 6-3 and Staas is mentioned in six game stories. In those, he went 40 for 78 for 643 yards.

That appears to be it for his football career. There are a handful of mentions of Staas in the 1980s in various business ventures, and in 1991 there was a story about a Michael Staas trying to get a house at 511 College Ave. rezoned for multi-family use.

We reached out to the 1974 West High School Facebook page organizers and his former teammate, Benz, for info on how to reach Staas with no luck so far.

High school football today is way more sophisticated than the 1970s. Offenses now employ a variety of shuttle passes, swing passes and screens, easy completions that weren’t in the play book 50 years ago. It’s now fairly common for NIC-10 quarterbacks to top the 60% completion mark. In 2014, Jace Bankord had a huge season for Belvidere North, completing 65.5% of his passes in a 1,868-yard passing season and last season Xhavier Lindhe connected on 67.9% of attempts for Auburn and Fausett had a 67.2% completion rate as a sophomore for Harlem.

So it’s starting to appear as if that record is finally destined to fall.

The question now is what exactly is the record? If you add up the individual game stats listed above, it equals to 64 of 92 for 1,055 yards. That’s a 69.5% completion rate, which still would be the record, but it’s more reachable than 71.7%. There’s no one left from that era to shed light on whether the Register Star adjusted its final stats after getting submissions from teams or just went with the published stats from each week and simply miscalculated his completions. There was no such thing as Hudl, XO Stats, Prestosports or Gamechanger in 1973.

When asked, Jim Morrow and Brian Zimmerman, the coaches of the two quarterbacks chasing the record, both opted for the higher bar. 

“Personally, I would go with the final, published record of 71.7% since there is no way of knowing if they adjusted it or not,” Zimmerman said by email.

That’s good enough for the NIC-10 History Book. So the magic number is 71.7%.

NIC-10 passing percentage single season leaders
Rk.	Player					School	Year	Comp.	Att.	Pct.
1.	Mike Staas					Rockford West	1973	66	92	71.7%
2.	Xzavier Lindhe					Rockford Auburn	2025	76	112	67.9%
3.	Braxton Fausett					Machesney Park Harlem	2025	78	116	67.2%
4.	Bobby Gantzer					Freeport	2002	52	79	65.8%
5.	Jace Bankord					Belvidere North	2014	146	223	65.5%
6.	Austin Hausen					Belvidere	2017	140	214	65.4%
7.	John Starck					Rockford Boylan	2019	139	214	65.0%
8.	Isaac Whisenand					Rockton Hononegah	2020	50	77	64.9%
9.	Matt Weber					Rockford Boylan	2002	111	175	63.4%
10.	Brandon Rogers					Machesney Park Harlem	2010	109	172	63.4%
11.	Austin Revolinski					Belvidere	2016	189	299	63.2%
12.	Michael Morman					Rockford Boylan	2009	73	116	62.9%
13.	Matt Barr					Belvidere	2005	63	101	62.3%
14.	Zach Couper					Rockford Boylan	2016	82	133	61.7%
15.	Demry Croft					Rockford Boylan	2013	147	239	61.5%
16.	Cole Warren					Rockton Hononegah	2023	131	214	61.2%
17.	Demry Croft					Rockford Boylan	2014	143	234	61.1%
18.	Tanner DiGiovanni					Machesney Park Harlem	2013	124	204	60.8%
19.	Troy King					Machesney Park Harlem	2017	100	165	60.6%
20.	Jace Bankord					Belvidere North	2013	176	291	60.5%
21.	Jake Smolinski					Rockford Boylan	2006	71	118	60.2%