WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Although he can barely feel his fingers inside his winter gloves, Chris Spegal keeps doing what he has always done when his son Charlie carries the football. He removes a red pen and a scrap of paper from his coat on this frigid, blustery November Friday night and proceeds to write down how many yards Charlie gains on each of his carries.

Nine on his first carry. Nine more on his second. Another 15 on his third. Handwarmers and blankets are passed around the bleachers, as Chris continues to scribble away. The task has not been easy this year, given Charlie’s historic junior season—a campaign that saw him score 70 total touchdowns and rush for more than 3,300 yards. Tonight, as New Palestine takes on Harrison High School in the Class 5A Indiana high school playoffs, is no different.

“I’m usually off by maybe three or four yards,” Chris says of his game-day ritual. Charlie carries the ball four more times on the first drive, capping off the opening possession with a one-yard touchdown—his 62nd of the season.

It draws only mild applause from the New Palestine fans who made the hour and 40-minute trek to watch their team, largely because this is what they’ve grown to expect from their star player.  

“Took a little longer than usual,” Joe Spegal, Charlie’s grandfather, says to Chris after Charlie’s touchdown run.

At 5’10” and 225 pounds, Charlie is not a prototypical running back. In fact, by designation, he is not a running back at all. Charlie is listed as a fullback, a position that is extinct in some places and endangered in plenty more. Slowly but surely, given the increasing emphasis on passing across all levels of the sport, the fullback is being eliminated.

But Charlie isn’t a typical fullback. For starters, he is the team’s primary offensive weapon and one of the most productive offensive players in the country. He also runs a 4.6 40-yard dash that complements a 575-pound squat and a 420-pound bench press.

He is an athlete, albeit a different kind of athlete. Rather than run around or past you, Charlie would prefer to run through you.

“As soon as he gets into open field, you’re gonna have a rough day,” New Palestine senior quarterback Zach Neligh says. “If you go into his highlights, you’ll see six different open holes, and he’ll go right to the one with the backer in it. He’s looking for him.”

Charlie rushes for 275 yards and scores three more touchdowns against Harrison—breaking the Indiana state record of 61 rushing touchdowns in a single season while pushing New Palestine to the next round of the playoffs.

Over the next two weeks, Charlie scores five more touchdowns while guiding New Palestine to a 5A title and an unblemished season. According to MaxPreps, Spegal finished with 3,356 rushing yards (second in the nation), scored 70 touchdowns (first in the nation) and didn’t lose a single fumble.

But despite the gaudy, historic numbers, Charlie is not the talk of the national recruiting scene. Power programs are not lining up to woo him. While he is not being ignored, he still doesn’t have a single scholarship offer at a time when many players in his class already have several.

“I’ve been hoping for it, but I just can’t figure out what it is,” Charlie says. “This is motivating me to work even harder.”

At the moment, Charlie’s recruiting profile on 247Sports is mostly a blank page. He doesn’t have a single star attached to his name. He isn’t even ranked among the top 10 players in Indiana in the class of 2020.

“If we’re standing here in 1988, or 1998, he’s probably one of the top recruits in the country,” New Palestine head coach Kyle Ralph says. “He would’ve probably been one of the most sought-after kids in America. But the game has changed, and apparently what people are looking for has changed.”

Despite his season, attention has been slow to follow. Those who have watched him closely over the past year know what they just witnessed. “It was almost like watching someone play Madden on easy mode,” says Brian Heinemann, who covered Spegal and New Palestine for the Greenfield Daily Reporter.

As historic as his 70-touchdown season was, it did not emerge out of thin air. The junior transferred from Delta High School before this past season, having played against New Palestine and his current teammates the previous year.

As a freshman at Delta, Charlie ran for 1,958 yards and scored 17 touchdowns. His sophomore year, he totaled 2,385 rushing yards and 33 scores.

“He’s definitely the most physical runner I’ve ever seen,” senior New Palestine lineman Alex Cotterman says. “He absolutely loves contact. As physically as he runs, he doesn’t fumble, and he can catch the ball. I don’t understand how he hasn’t been recruited more.”

His statistics from this past season could’ve been even better. Charlie didn’t appear in roughly half of his team’s fourth quarters this season because the score was so lopsided. He often didn’t log a single carry in the second half.

In the first game of the season against Kokomo High School, the 5A state runner-up from the prior season, Charlie ran for 222 yards and seven touchdowns in the first two quarters. He didn’t play another snap in the 77-0 blowout.

Charlie scored six or more touchdowns in seven of New Palestine’s 14 games. He ran for more than 200 yards in 10—averaging more than 10 yards per carry. Playing against Delta in October, his former team, Charlie ran for 387 yards and seven touchdowns on only 16 carries.

“In the instances when he maybe had only 150 yards and three touchdowns at half, it almost felt like something was wrong,” Chris says about his son. “And then you think about that for a minute and question yourself for thinking such a thing. It was that kind of special year.”

So far, however, only Ball State, Cincinnati and Eastern Michigan have invited Charlie to attend a game. In recent weeks, Northern Illinois paid a visit. Army and Navy, who both still rely on fullbacks (or dive backs) in their option offenses, have also shown interest.

So to jump-start the recruiting process, Charlie has assembled a highlight reel from his junior season. Because he scored so many touchdowns, his initial version of the video was more than 12 minutes long. With his coach’s guidance, they trimmed down the video. 

The highlight begins with one of his most impressive runs—a pinball-like gallop against Decatur Central in the state championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium. Although more than half of the defensive players on the field manage to get a hand on Charlie, he scores.

“He’s not your prototypical style or look for a tailback or a running back,” Ralph says. “He’s a ball-carrier. That’s what he does.”

These are not Reggie Bush’s high school highlights reimagined. Charlies does not have the dazzling speed coveted by programs around the country. This is something different—something that feels as though it’s from a different era. It is straightforward, deliberate and wildly successful.

Charlie doesn’t see it that way, nor was it the blueprint he followed growing up. “I really idolized Adrian Peterson,” he says. “I like how hard it is to bring him down and how easily he breaks a lot of tackles. But yes, I have always enjoyed contact.”

At the moment, Charlie is doing everything he can to convince college coaches that his style will fit whatever offense they might run. Since the season ended in November, he has spent time working out in the weight room and sending out video highlights to coaching staffs around the country.  

He doesn’t have a dream school in mind; he likes the cold and the thought of being able to play in the Midwest close to his roots. He’s simply hoping that by the time his signing day comes a year from now, he will have more options.

His email to college coaches reads like this:

“My name is Charlie Spegal from New Palestine High School in New Palestine, IN.  I am a running back on the varsity football team. I graduate in 2020. I was named ALL STATE in 2017 and TOP 22 underclass in Indiana. My junior stats are 3356 yards, (10.6 yards per carry) and 70 TOUCHDOWNS.  My Team was undefeated and won the 5A state championship.

I have a great work ethic in sports and in the classroom. I am very goal-oriented and do my best to reach my goals.

As a student at New Palestine I have a 3.36 GPA and I am scheduled to take the ACT in December.

I am very interested in a business degree from your University.

If given the opportunity I know I can be a tremendous asset to the football program. Please check out my HUDL Highlights and personal information below.

Thank you very much for your time and I look forward to hearing back from you soon.”

In the past few weeks, the inquiries have started to come in. Teams aren’t yet ready to fully commit, but they are curious.

“I think a lot of it is people trying to figure out what he is,” Ralph says of his back. “Is he someone who’s going to fit well in their system? You’re going to get what you get from him. You’re going to get a back with great vision, great bursts and great power.”

“And 70 touchdowns,” Ralph adds. “You don’t do that unless you’re a great player.”

If he stays healthy, Charlie should break the all-time Indiana high school rushing record of 8,110 yards in the first few weeks of next season, a reminder that he has another year to create an impression and provide an encore to one of the most productive offensive seasons in high school history.

Before then, teams and coaches will undoubtedly flock to New Palestine to see the player who scored 70 touchdowns.

How could they not?

Championship teams often peak right about now. The Los Angeles Rams are doing the opposite. 

The once-unbeatable Rams have lost more games in the last eight days than they did during the first 13 weeks of the 2018 NFL season. And while even elite teams hit speed bumps, it’s tremendously concerning that Los Angeles was utterly outplayed in both losses. 

It’s also an indication that the team’s Week 14 dud—a sloppy 15-6 road loss to the Chicago Bears—was no fluke. The offense has hit a December wall—one the Rams might not be able to ascend between now and January. 

They looked sluggish in a Week 13 victory over the Detroit Lions, they looked frightened in that Week 14 loss to the Bears, and they shockingly looked overmatched in Sunday night’s 30-23 home loss to a Philadelphia Eagles team that was reeling as a 13.5-point underdog without its starting quarterback. 

What’s wrong with the Rams? As per usual in this league, it starts with the quarterback. 

Following a two-interception performance against the Eagles, Jared Goff has now turned the ball over as many times in the last three games (eight) as he did during the first 11. He had a 113.5 passer rating entering Week 13, but since then he’s completed just 55.0 percent of his passes with a 5.5 yards-per-attempt average, a one-to-seven touchdown-to-interception ratio and a 51.3 rating. 

Did Jeff Fisher stage a coup and reclaim the head coaching job?

There are excuses on the table. Goff’s receiving corps lacks depth, he misses sure-handed sophomore pass-catcher Cooper Kupp, frigid conditions made life difficult against a tough Bears defense, and the Eagles D certainly came to play as well. 

But those don’t cut it. The 24-year-old has been consistently throwing behind (or above, below, too far ahead of) open receivers. 

If Goff is going to become a special player—a player worthy of a No. 1 overall pick, a rockstar-level second contract and long-term “elite” status—he can’t afford to turn into an overwhelmed rookie version of himself just because he’s missing one of his favorite targets, or because he’s playing in weather lower than room temperature, or because the Eagles unexpectedly showed up at the L.A. Coliseum with leftover magic dust from 2017. 

Goff is allowed to have games like those, but they can’t come consecutively in the midst of a race for the top seed. 

There might be time to turn it around, especially with the three-win Arizona Cardinals and the four-win San Francisco 49ers serving as season-closing target practice. But the damage might have already been done. The New Orleans Saints merely need to win two of their final three games to clinch the NFC’s top seed, which would likely force the Rams to travel to the terrifying Superdome for the NFC Championship Game.

Of course, that’s assuming they beat a Wild Card Round winner like the Bears, Eagles, Seahawks, Vikings or Cowboys to get that far. Note that they lost to two of those teams and were challenged mightily at home by Seattle and Minnesota. 

The Rams have converted just nine of their last 30 third-down plays, they’ve scored just one first-quarter touchdown since their Week 12 bye, and Goff has completed just two passes on 20-plus-yard throws in the last three weeks. 

They had just one 25-yard gain on Sunday night, and that came with 4:19 remaining in regulation, when they were down 14 points and facing a prevent Philadelphia defense. They didn’t even attempt another deep pass on their final drive, mainly because the Eagles were taking that away from them. 

That’s something we saw in Chicago and, to an extent, in Detroit as well. An offense that gained 25 or more yards 36 times in its first 11 games has done so on just three plays the last three weeks. 

L.A.’s opponents would prefer to see if the Rams can kill them with a thousand Todd Gurley cuts rather than two or three Goff bombs, especially now that there’s enough tape to prepare for whatever that passing game has to offer. 

That strategy could be an indication teams are tired of getting embarrassed by Sean McVay. Everybody is giving the Rams everything they’ve got, which is an age-old complication that comes along with being considered the best. Did you see the way the Eagles were flying around the field in pursuit on defense? A prideful reigning champion wasn’t going down without a fight, and neither will anybody the Rams face in January. 

Of course, it doesn’t help that Gurley didn’t look healthy while dealing with a knee injury against the Eagles. He’s one of just three players in the league with more than 300 touches. And while he’s still playing at an All-Pro level, the last two outings indicate he probably can’t carry the Rams on his own.

That’s not really how this league works nowadays. Only two of the last 13 Super Bowl champions employed a Pro Bowl running back. 

And it would be one thing if that was the Rams’ only potential Achilles’ heel, but Thetis may have used both hands when she dipped this team into the River Styx.

We can’t let the Los Angeles defense off the hook. 

The Rams are one of just five teams—along with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Cincinnati Bengals, Oakland Raiders and Miami Dolphins—that have given up 30-plus points in more than five games this season. 

Defensive lineman Aaron Donald is still in the running for the Defensive Player of the Year award, and he and his teammates certainly have the talent and playmaking ability to wreck opposing offenses that are prone to mistakes, one-dimensional or both. But when they aren’t given the opportunity to pin their ears back with an early lead, they’re often exploited on the ground. 

Eagles backs Wendell Smallwood, Josh Adams and Darren Sproles quietly combined for a triple-digit-rushing-yard performance Sunday night, while Bears backs Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen took over last week’s game in Chicago. 

The Rams entered Week 15 surrendering a league-worst 5.1 yards per carry, while only three teams had given up more 20-yard runs and only the Bucs had allowed more 30-yard plays in general. 

This Rams team has run up its defensive stats against lousy offensive opponents like the 49ers, Cardinals, Raiders, Broncos and Lions, while the Goff-led offense was at its best before Kupp suffered a season-ending knee injury, before the weather turned and before the pressure started to mount with January looming. 

Now, Los Angeles looks like a team that peaked too early and has had its flaws exposed and exploited at the worst possible time. 

Betting spreads via OddsShark. Brad Gagnon has covered the NFL for Bleacher Report since 2012.

Turkish FM: EU countries turning blind eye to Khashoggi murder

A year ago, Nick Foles led the Philadelphia Eagles to a Super Bowl in place of an injured Carson Wentz.

He played savior again Sunday, keeping the Eagles’ dim playoff hopes alive. The Eagles signal-caller threw for 270 yards and Wendell Smallwood rushed for two touchdowns, leading Philly to a 30-23 victory over the Los Angeles Rams.

Alshon Jeffery was responsible for 160 of Foles’ 270 yards, with the pair connecting eight times. Their aerial attack is responsible for getting the Eagles to 7-7, which keeps them alive but still outside the NFC playoff race. The Minnesota Vikings’ win over the Miami Dolphins hurt their chances earlier in the day.

Jared Goff threw for 339 yards and two interceptions without a touchdown in the Rams’ second straight national television loss. His potential game-tying touchdown pass to Josh Reynolds fell incomplete as time expired.

Rams Need to Fix Jared Goff Problem Before Playoffs

Is Goff a Super Bowl-caliber quarterback, or is he Alex Smith, a guy good enough to get you in the conversation but never get you there?

It’s clear teams have, to a certain extent, figured Goff out. The Detroit Lions started setting the blueprint by putting Goff under duress, the Chicago Bears perfected the mold in an all-out embarrassment last week, and the Eagles kept the downward spiral going Sunday.

For the majority of the past two seasons, Sean McVay has been a near-flawless play-caller and consistently put Goff in a position to make easy reads. McVay by his own admission did not call a great game in Chicago, and the Rams’ game plan was snuffed out pretty quickly by Philly.

No Rams pass went for more than 20 yards until the fourth quarter. Goff consistently checked down, missed when he went downfield and continued his recent trend of turning the ball over.

Some of that is scheme. Teams have been playing Rams receivers soft and forcing the ball underneath. Part of that is an inability thus far by McVay and Goff to adjust. 

Goff, in particular, has looked completely out of sorts when things start to break down. He’s been much closer to the version of himself that looked like a borderline bust under Jeff Fisher than anything resembling an MVP candidate.

Obviously, this isn’t a thing that can continue. The Rams’ window is now. They’ve taken advantage of the cheap contracts to load themselves up on both sides of the ball. Goff is almost certainly going to get a new, long-term contract this offseason—and with that comes the departure of luxury additions like Ndamukong Suh.

Nick Foles Deserves to be Starting QB Somewhere in 2019

Wentz is an objectively better quarterback than Foles.

Are the Eagles better with Foles? It’s hard to say no after this performance. There was an unquantifiable swagger and confidence to the Eagles offense that had been missing in recent weeks with Wentz. Jeffery went from the missing person’s report to his best receiving performance in a half-decade.

Wentz’s lingering back injury certainly played a part in his struggles, and he remains their long-term answer. But Foles should be the starter for the remainder of 2018 and is going to use this as an audition to get paid this offseason.

Despite rating records being broken with each passing season, quarterback play around the NFL remains objectively dreadful. The New York Giants might bring Eli Manning back next season because they’re shuddering in fear that who they choose to replace him might be worse. Washington brought Josh Johnson in off the street. The Cardinals replaced Josh Rosen with Mike Glennon. 

You get the point. The bottom of the NFL quarterbacking barrel is an endless abyss of guys who sort of looked decent five years ago and are somehow still getting jobs because the abyss below them is even lower.

Foles, at his peak, is probably somewhere around the 20th-best quarterback in football. He’s in the Derek Carr-Andy Dalton-Jameis Winston tier of guys, which seems like damning with faint praise. 

That is, of course, until you remember Blake Bortles and Cody Kessler comprise the Jacksonville Jaguars’ quarterback depth chart. 

What’s Next?

The Eagles host the Houston Texans next Sunday. The Rams travel to Arizona to play the Cardinals.

The Pittsburgh Steelers are far from perfect. In fact, they are extremely flawed.

As we’ve covered previously this season, they can’t be trusted. They are mistake-prone. They alternate from brilliant to sloppy to trash—sometimes in the same quarter.        

But here’s the thing: For all of that, they are also still good. At times, really good. At times, wonderfully good.

Their 17-10 win over the Patriots on Sunday showed the Steelers in all their glory: a deep roster, big-play capable. Yes, with blemishes all over the place (a three-legged pony and a kicking tee would be better than Pittsburgh’s field-goal kicker now) but still able to win a big game.

More than anything, it showed that if the Steelers make the postseason—and they likely will—they could beat any team.

We also know, of course, that they could lose to anyone. Depends on how much their heads are into the game or how they are feeling on any particular day. Or even any particular half. 

This is an average, wonderful, talented, terrible, great, not great, flawed, excellent team. Take your pick of any one of those things, and it might be what you see from this team if/when it makes the playoffs—or any three of them, or all of them, at the same time.

“Will the real Pittsburgh Steelers please stand up?” asked ESPN analyst Ryan Clark on SportsCenter after the game. “Please show us who you are in these last two weeks, because I’m extremely confused.”

They are good, bad and everything in between.

This was a huge win for the Steelers. A loss would have meant four straight and a big chance of staying home for the playoffs. Yes, they beat a decaying Patriots franchise in the twilight of dynastic greatness—handed it back-to-back losses in December for the first time since 2002—but it doesn’t matter. That’s Bill Belichick they beat. That’s Tom Brady they beat. They took advantage of a slowed and aging Rob Gronkowski, but so what. You beat the team that’s in front of you.

And by beating the Patriots, the Steelers made a strong statement both to themselves and the rest of the league: We’re not perfect, but you will still have to deal with us.

Brady had won five straight against Pittsburgh and six of his past seven. He entered this game 8-2 against Ben Roethlisberger. So yes, this win is a big deal.

One of the reasons the Steelers can be so good, and also so frustratingly unpredictable, is what’s turning out to be remarkable depth. They are one of the deepest teams in football. They don’t have Le’Veon Bell. So what? His replacement, James Conner, became one of the best rushers in football. Then Conner went down with a sprained ankle. So what, again?

It hurt them initially. But it also cleared the way for Jaylen Samuels, a fifth-round pick from the 2018 draft who sounds like a character who saves humanity from killer machines in an apocalyptic future and whose previous biggest football moment was being named MVP of the 2016 Independence Bowl.

Yet here was Samuels, rushing for 142 yards on 19 carries against a Bill Belichick defense. It’s a testament to the offensive line and the Steelers scouting department—to the depth of talent they have. That’s not to say the Steelers didn’t have their typical moments.

They didn’t know how to handle the Patriots’ morphing amoeba defense, in which there are rarely down defensive linemen and the pressure comes from everywhere. They were sometimes confused by the Patriots’ quick snaps on short yardage. Chris Hogan’s 63-yard touchdown happened because of mass confusion in the Pittsburgh secondary. On one Julian Edelman catch, two Steelers ran into each other. Chris Boswell continued to struggle (he has missed seven of 18 kicks and five extra points). 

But then, that defense tightened up, intercepting Brady and stopping him late. Roethlisberger threw two picks but made a number of critical throws. Samuels kept the ball moving. Boswell’s 48-yard kick gave the Steelers their seven-point lead with under three minutes left.

They beat their nemesis in the Patriots. It wasn’t pretty, but they did it.

Can the Steelers be trusted? No. They’re too flawed in too many ways.

But they also can’t be overlooked. They’re also scary. Because they do find ways to overcome those flaws, again and again.

Unless they don’t. Depends on the time of day, you know? 

Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @mikefreemanNFL.