COVINGTON, Ga. -- Last year, the Eastside Eagles heralded a prolific rushing attack led by senior Tyon Davis and junior Taylor Carter. Lead by this tandem, the Eagles’ offensive backfield averaged an impressive 236 yards per game. 

Although their success was headlined by these two upperclassmen, perhaps an unsung hero for the Eagles was freshman Quincy Cullins, Jr. 

In a backfield stacked with upper-class talent, it would be easy to overlook the young freshman. But Cullins did his best to make it impossible to overlook his production.

Eastside’s two featured backs both tallied impressive stats: Davis rushed for 678 yards and six touchdowns, while Carter put up 607 yards and nine total scores. On only 69 touches, the Cullins racked up 477 yards with five touchdowns. Though he was not the featured back in the Eagles’ offense, Cullins found success, and perhaps more importantly, experience.

“It was nice,” Cullins said. “Coming in as a freshman to get to perform and rush and be behind bigger boys, it helped me. As I become a sophomore and junior and senior, I’m going to always look back to that, and I’ll always remember how they helped me remember the plays during practice.” 

Playing behind two talented tailbacks such as Davis and Carter allotted Cullins two much-needed on-the-field mentors who could set a great example of work ethic and on-field success for the underclassman.

“It worked really good last year,” Cullins said. “Tyon was a senior and TC (Taylor Carter) has played a ton of football for us. He was a junior that game wise was a senior,” Eastside head coach Troy Hoff said.

Although the Eagles will be without Davis in the upcoming year, Carter, a rising senior, will look to be the featured back in the Eagles’ offense and Cullins will be making a name for himself as a nice complement to Carter.

For that reason, Hoff is excited about the Eagles’ backfield potential for 2018.

 “Anytime you have a position like that with a lot of guys coming back with productivity, you feel good about it,” Hoff said. “And it’s a good mix of young guys and old, and they’ve all played.” 

Hoff is obviously not the only excited about the Eagles’ running game prospects. Cullins, himself, is eager to start producing, and has some lofty goals for his sophomore campaign.

“I’m trying to get 800 or 900 yards this year,” he said. “Probably at least seven touchdowns.”