This Week in High School Sports History: The Night Journey Brown Rushed for 722 Yards

High school sports history is filled with remarkable moments that often get lost in the larger story of American sports. This Week in High School Sports History looks back at significant, unusual, and sometimes forgotten events in high school athletics.

For the Week of Sept. 7-13:

Quite often, high school records are established in lopsided games, when a dominant team has plenty of opportunities to pile up yards and points. But Journey Brown’s 722-yard, 10-touchdown performance on Sept. 11, 2015, was different: Meadville (Pa.) needed every yard and every touchdown.

The junior rushed 30 times that night in one of the highest-scoring games in high school football history, as Meadville held off DuBois (Pa.), 107-90.

Brown's rushing performance established a Pennsylvania record and made him only the second high school player to surpass 700 rushing yards in a game.

"I'm tired. I'm real tired," Brown told the Meadville Tribune after the game. "But it doesn't matter. I came to play for the team, not myself."

Meanwhile, DuBois quarterback Matt Miller was having a record-setting night of his own. Miller completed 30 of 51 passes for 787 yards and 10 touchdowns in his very first start. Miller's performance, at the time, was the second-highest passing yardage total ever in a high school game.

The teams combined for 28 touchdowns and 1,827 yards of total offense that evening.

"I'll tell you what, the fans that paid their $5 to come see this game certainly got their money's worth," Meadville coach Ray Collins told the Meadville Tribune. "What you had was two very good offenses teeing up on each other. But neither team brought their defense."

Brown, who was a junior at the time, was developing into a high-profile national recruit. His football journey continued at Penn State, where he rushed for a Cotton Bowl-record 202 yards and earned MVP honors on Dec. 28, 2019, as the Nittany Lions defeated Memphis, 53-39. Brown appeared headed toward an even larger role before his playing career was cut short in 2020, when he was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

His athletic career, however, was not finished. Brown eventually found a home in professional sports, joining Trackhouse Racing as a NASCAR tire changer in 2023.

But college football came calling last month.

Brown was hired as the assistant director of high school scouting and reporting at Virginia Tech under coach James Franklin. Franklin was the Penn State coach who made the emotional announcement in 2020 that Brown’s playing career was over.

Also This Week in History

Sept. 11

1980 - Theresa Galley of Silver Lake Regional (Mass.) scored 11 goals in a game, establishing a national high school field hockey record that still stands.

Sept. 12

2025 - Brady Waring of Eden (N.Y.) threw a state-record nine touchdown passes in a wild 63-62 victory over Western New York Maritime Charter/Tapestry.

1978 - Schaumburg (Ill.) served up a state-record 47 aces in a victory over Arlington Heights (Ill.)

This Week in High School History is compiled by Sheldon Shealer, a sports historian and lecturer at Mount St. Mary’s University, whose research focuses on the history and development of American high school football. Entries are compiled from newspaper accounts, state and school records, historical publications, archival collections, and other documented sources. He can be reached at sheldon.shealer@gmail.com. Special thanks to the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), whose records help preserve the history of high school sports.

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