INSTITUTE, W.Va. — Seven months after wrapping up one of the more storied careers in the history of the Scott High School football program, quarterback Matt Frye is gearing up for one more contest on the gridiron at the prep level.
Frye will guide the South Cardinals’ offense against the North Bears in Saturday’s noon North-South All-Star Football Classic at South Charleston High School.
In practices leading up to the game on the campus of West Virginia State, Frye likes what he’s seen.
“The goal is to continue to get better. I feel like we’ve done it,” Frye said. “Made a lot of progress and the first couple practices, we got along very well. We have some good team chemistry going into the game Saturday, and the goal is just continuing to improve, learn the system and get better as a team.”
A Class AA first-team all-state quarterback as a junior and senior, Frye orchestrated a high-powered Skyhawks’ attack that thrived on tempo and kept defenses off balance through a mix of run and pass plays.
As a senior, Frye helped lead SHS to a 9-1 regular season and appearance in the state quarterfinals. He completed 189-of-289 passes for 3,427 yards and 41 touchdowns, while adding another 281 yards and eight scores on the ground.
Frye will look to put that skill set on display Saturday while playing with and against many of the state’s top senior football players.
“I want to always let the game come to me and that’s what I plan on doing Saturday,” Frye said. “I don’t plan on changing anything up. I’m going to run what the coaches want us to run and try to execute it as good as possible.“
The 6-foot-1, 185-pound Frye will soon begin a football career at the University of Charleston, and in advance of that, he’s grateful for a chance to compete throughout the week with a number of the other standout seniors across West Virginia.
“It’s always great to get to play football when we go through a dry spell not being able to play from November until now,” Frye said. “Getting a game and a week of practice in and doing it on a college campus to experience things like that will be great for me.
“It’s a great feeling knowing you have the best players from Southern West Virginia on your team and you’re going to go to battle with them Saturday. It’s awesome to be able practice to with them all week long, too.”
Frye, who was the 2023 Cardinal Conference Player of the Year after sharing the award a season earlier, also has the luxury of playing a final game with two Skyhawk teammates. Tight end/defensive end Jax McCarty and running back/linebacker Preston Cooper are also part of the South Cardinals.
“It means a lot and it’s great knowing I can look around and have two other Scott teammates with me that I’ve played with the past couple years,” Frye said. “Having them on the same team as me one last time is awesome.”
One aspect that will differ for Frye from a usual high school game is that his team’s roster features a trio of teammates who were also standout signal-callers throughout high school — Mingo Central’s Chris Ross, Summers County’s Brandan Isaac and Wahama’s Sawyer VanMatre.
Frye believes the South coaching staff has implemented a game plan to allow for all four to impact the game in their own way.
“They’re all great athletes, and some of them do things better than others, so we have a couple packages specifically for one or the other, and then we have some that can play a little bit at receiver also,” Frye said. “We’re finding ways to try to get all of them involved.”