Former DMV High School Stars Making Their Marks in NFL Playoffs

As the Broncos and Patriots clash for the AFC crown and the Seahawks meet the Rams in the NFC, the spotlight shines on former Maryland and WCAC standouts and a wave of Super Bowl-bound talent.

The Los Angeles Rams' running back Blake Corum (22) is one of several DMV football players trying to lead their teams to the Super Bowl. / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

The Denver Broncos will play host to the New England Patriots in the AFC championship game on Sunday with the winner advancing to the Super Bowl. 

Diggs, Broncos-Patriots Clash Put Maryland in the Spotlight

The Patriots boast talented wide receiver Stefon Diggs who has been nominated for the NFL’s ‘Comeback Player of the Year’ award. 

Diggs, a Gaithersburg, Maryland native, played at Our Lady of Good Counsel High School in Olney, Maryland for legendary head coach Bob Milloy. 

During the 2011 campaign, Milloy’s Good Counsel team featured five future NFL players including Stefon Diggs and Denver Broncos center Sam Mustipher. 

During his senior campaign at Good Counsel, Mustipher was a four-star prospect who was selected to play in the Under Armour All-America Game in 2014. He was also named to the Maryland consensus all-state team. Mustipher signed with the Chicago Bears as an undrafted free agent in 2019. 

“He played center at Notre Dame and he was captain of the team,” said Milloy. “Sometimes you got to really check the brains in the NFL.”  

Milloy said he wasn’t surprised that Diggs and Mustipher are playing in the NFL because of their talent and strong work ethic dating back to their high school days in Maryland. 

Stefon’s brother, Trevon Diggs, was also a talented teenager who was heavily recruited by various Washington, DC area private schools including Good Counsel. 

Trevon Diggs began his high school career at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, Maryland before transferring to the Avalon School in Montgomery County, Maryland. 

Bob Milloy’s Good Counsel Pipeline to the NFL

“I tried to recruit the heck out of him but his mother said that she didn’t want him living in Stefon’s shadow,” Bob Milloy explained. “We didn’t get Trevon and he turned out to be one hell of a football player, too.” 

Both Diggs brothers were drafted by NFL teams; Stefon Diggs, who played college football at the University of Maryland, was selected by the Minnesota Vikings in the fifth round of the 2015 NFL Draft and Trevon Diggs was selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft. 

Trevon Diggs, who helped lead the University of Alabama to a College Football National Championship in 2017, was released by the Green Bay Packers earlier this month and is currently an NFL free agent. 

When Bob Milloy retired in 2017, the St. John’s College High School (Washington, DC) graduate was the winningest high school football coach in Maryland history. 

He’s seen more than a handful of his former Good Counsel student-athletes play in the National Football League including Louis Young, Blake Countess, Kendall Fuller and Dorian O’Daniel. 

In fact, former Good Counsel teammates Kendall Fuller and Dorian O’Daniel were also NFL teammates when the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl in 2020. 

In 2022, Blake Countess won a Super Bowl ring when the Los Angeles Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl LVI. Keandre Jones, a former Good Counsel linebacker who also played for Milloy, was on that Bengals team. 

Bob Milloy said he was “very, very proud of those kids moving on and doing what they did” after graduating from Good Counsel. 

Year in and year out, the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference (WCAC) produces major NCAA Division 1 talent that matriculates to the NFL gridiron. 

“It’s one of the best leagues in the country,” said Milloy. 

Former DeMatha Catholic High School head coach Elijah Brooks echoed those sentiments. 

“Pound for pound it’s arguably one of the best conferences in the country,” said Brooks, who played high school football and basketball at DeMatha and was recently named the running backs coach at the University of South Florida. “The quality of coaches, the level of talent in the DMV area that gets funneled into that conference. You have so many epic battles throughout the years and these guys grow up playing against each other. That’s the one thing is I’m never surprised when they go to college and they’re successful and then move onto the NFL because they’ve just been accustomed to playing on big stages and competing on a high level since they were young. I’m proud of all of them because they’re representing where we’re from.” 

Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams is a WCAC product who played at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, DC. 

Williams, a Prince George’s County, Maryland native, was the overall No. 1 selection in the 2024 NFL Draft. The former Heisman Trophy winner led Chicago to a division title and nearly guided the franchise to a Super Bowl appearance in just his second year as a pro. As a high school quarterback in the WCAC, Williams was known for completing a Hail Mary touchdown pass that guided Gonzaga to a victory over league rival DeMatha in the 2018 WCAC championship game. 

Rams, Seahawks and More DMV Stars on Championship Sunday

Meanwhile, the NFC championship game on Sunday features the Seattle Seahawks who will play host to the Los Angeles Rams. 

The Rams boast talented running back Blake Corum, a Northern Virginia native who played high school football in Maryland. 

Corum, who won an NCAA championship at the University of Michigan in 2024, began his high school football journey at St. Vincent Pallotti in Laurel, Maryland before finishing up at St. Frances Academy in Baltimore where he was named Gatorade Player of the Year in 2019. 

DeMatha Catholic High School (Hyattsville, Maryland) is guaranteed to have a participant in the Super Bowl this year because cornerback Josh Wallace plays for the Rams and center Olu Oluwatimi is a member of the Seahawks. 

The former DeMatha Stags both finished their college careers at the University of Michigan; Wallace played on the Wolverines’ CFP national championship team in 2023 and Oluwatimi was a graduate student during the 2022 campaign when he captured the Outland Trophy as the best interior lineman in college football and the Rimington Trophy as the best center. He was also named a consensus first-team All-American at Michigan. 

“They both have always had a chip on their shoulder,” said Elijah Brooks, who coached both Wallace and Oluwatimi at DeMatha, “and they were always willing to outwork everyone and they were always very intelligent football players and I think that’s always helped them to compete at the highest level.”