Northern Lehigh’s Garrett Smoyer is definitely a dual threat behind center.

The Bulldog quarterback, who has been a starter since his freshman season, proved that against Pen Argyl last Friday night.

While the senior signal-caller impressed with his legs, running for 114 yards including an impressive 62-yard scoring run, Smoyer identifies more as a traditional QB.

“I prefer to throw, still. I’m a true quarterback,” said Smoyer. “I love throwing touchdowns, and there’s nothing better than that.”

The Green Knights witnessed that first hand during Nolehi’s 46-6 victory, as Smoyer matched a career high with four TD passes. He finished 12-of-21 for 164 yards.

The combination of his ground game and his aerial success earned him the Times News Football Player of the Week.

“I think I did pretty good, all-around, but there are definitely some things to still clean up — timing with my receivers especially,” he said. “Other than that, I think I had a pretty solid game.”

Over the last 30 years, the Bulldogs have only had a quarterback throw four touchdowns in a game three times — and Garrett has done it twice, also accomplishing the feat last year against Wilson. The other time was in 2020 by his brother Dylan.

“He was excellent,” said Bulldog head coach Joe Tout. “Four touchdown passes in a game isn’t something that we see a ton around here. And that kind of speaks to Garrett and the crew that he has around him this year ... and these were distance throws so that makes it more impressive.”

Smoyer did have a short pass to Colin Karetsky on the game’s first play from scrimmage that his receiver turned into a 63-yard score, but the other three TDs were tosses from the pocket where his precision throws found his teammates.

And those three throws were to three different players — Karetsky, Ryan Zambo and Kaiden Smith — which is something Smoyer enjoys.

“I think it’s easy to keep everyone involved for me, just try to get everyone touches because it makes them feel involved and keeping guys on edge knowing they can maybe get a pass, and not just one guy getting the pass every time,” said Smoyer. “ It helps when you have multiple receivers that can do the job as good as one.”

And when those receivers are covered, Smoyer always has the option to tuck and run.

That’s exactly what happened in the opening quarter on Friday that gave Smoyer’s team a 13-0 lead.

“That was not designed,” he said. “They played that good, covering all our receivers. I had pressure in my face, so once I saw the hole I took it and scored. Once I took it about 40 yards, I saw all three of them (Pen Argyl defenders). They had a good angle on me and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it into the end zone, so I cut back inside and scored the touchdown.

“Now that I can use my legs, I’ve been kind of relying on them more, but I need to start getting back used to throwing in the pocket. I feel like I executed with that pretty well in the second half.”

Smoyer’s progression at executing can be traced back years ago. While taking his lumps as a freshman during a 3-7 season, he gained valuable experience which has helped him evolve into the player he is now.

“I’ve grown a lot since freshman year,” he said. “To start as a freshman and believe it’s almost over is kind of crazy. But it helped me a lot starting as a freshman. It gave me a lot more time to develop and improve on my craft.”

How has his head coach seen him grow over the years?

“It’s his command of the offense,” said Tout. “You get a feel of the plays that he likes. We’ll have that conversation and try to get him to tell me, ‘Hey, what do you want to run because I trust you and I want you to have that kind of say.’ If the guys have that feeling when they’re running a play this is always going to work, you want that type of feel.

“But I’ve just seen him grow in just about every avenue. He’s got more command of the offense, he’s grown into a team leader.”

While Smoyer’s goals, like the rest of the team, are to win a district championship, he also has some personal goals in mind.

“I’d say just over 5,000 yards as a career passer (unofficially he’s at 3,640 now) would be a nice goal to have, and try to get above 1,000 rushing yards this year.”