It was Oct. 11, 2019 and Central Bucks West had just ended a 12-game losing streak to North Penn by stunning the Knights 27-26 in Doylestown.
No Buck shone brighter than senior Jack Fallon – who rushed for 128 yards, forced two fumbles, picked off a pass, punted and didn’t give up ... didn’t ever give up ... in a way that would have made Jim Valvano smile.
“In my opinion, Jack Fallon is the MVP of the league,” West coach Rob Rowan told the Herald that night. “He is an absolute grinder of a kid.”
Four years later – almost to the day – Fallon rushed for 145 yards and two touchdowns in Delaware Valley University’s 20-0 blanking of FDU-Florham, in a Middle Atlantic Conference Player of the Week-earning performance.
“We’re fortunate that we have someone like Jack in the program,” lauded DelVal head coach Mike Isgro. “He is a quiet guy but he works extremely hard and he fits right into what we have at DelVal. He is a great leader with a great work ethic.”
DelVal’s win against Kings two weeks earlier was the “the first moment I thought I’m back. It was our first home game,” Fallon remembered. “It was pouring rain and 0-0 in the second. I had a dive up the middle, broke it outside and scored. Everyone went crazy and I felt ‘This is awesome. This is what I came back for.’”
Fallon rushed for 805 yards and 11 touchdowns on 171 carries, earning the MAC Rookie of the Year. He averaged over 100 yards a game in DelVal’s (9-2) final seven contests.
An injury to incumbent Aggies running back Jay White opened a door for Fallon. “When I got the ball in my hands,” Fallon said, “I was doing the best I could with it.”
Fallon’s toughness and ability to get yards after contact lets DelVal run the ball several times in a series. “And then boom, we hit them over the top,” Fallon explained. “We have some weapons on the outside too where we’re going to be able to hit them across the middle. It is going to be a good mixture this year.”
Many others besides Rowan thought Fallon was the best player in the SOL. Fallon rushed for 1,749 yards and 24 touchdowns in his senior year at West. The Bucks finished 10-2 for their first conference crown in 15 years. Fallon headed to Kutztown, eagerly awaiting his 2020 freshman football season.
Which obviously didn’t happen.
“My freshman year was the peak of COVID. The season was canceled. We had a whole year where there was no football until the spring. We had a spring camp, but didn’t play any games. It was difficult seeing that,” Fallon admitted.
When the NCAA announced that seniors could return for the 2021 season, Fallon saw a second wasted year buried on the depth chart.
“I didn’t know how playing time was going to work,” Fallon said. “I took a year off to let these older guys play their year.”
Fallon took classes at Temple but the itch to play kept surfacing. “For me, it was the regret aspect,” Fallon shared. “I was telling myself ‘Do you want to see yourself when you are 40 years old and saying I could have played those last few years of college?’ Or do I play those years and not regret what could have happened? The regret was eating me alive a little bit those years I wasn’t playing.”
Fallon called then DelVal head coach Duke Greco, who recruited him at West. “I always appreciated him a lot,” Fallon said. “He had total open arms and said he’d love to take me.
“I picked DelVal because of Coach Greco and the location. You can’t beat that,” Fallon continued. “I’m 22 now so I don’t need to be living the college life. I’m there for the academics and to play football.”
“As an older guy, you don’t have to worry about certain stuff with him,” Isgro echoed. “He is focused and he knows what he wants.”
Besides football hardware Fallon, a business major with a strong interest in being a personal trainer, also earned a spot on the All-MAC Academic football team. A player must have a 3.20 GPA or better to be eligible. “I’d want to help people improve their health or whatever aspect of their life that they need,” he shared. “That really intrigues me.”
The six-time defending MAC champion, DelVal brings a 53-game conference win streak into its home opener on Sept. 14 against Alvernia.
It will also be the first home game for Isgro, Fallon’s running backs coach last season, as head coach. West Chester hired Greco as its head coach in the offseason.
“Coach Isgro is awesome,” Fallon praised. “When I transferred here, he was the one giving me tours and teaching me all about DelVal. The whole team was very excited to hear that he was hired. I think he is going to pick up right where we left and we’re not going to skip a beat.”
“Jack is a bright football guy so it was easy to get him up to speed quickly,” Isgro shared. “He jumped into a role with an injury to one of the other guys. He stepped up and this year, we’ll be looking for him to carry the load like he did at the back end of last season, whether it was in or out of the backfield and leadership-wise.”
Some early Division III preseason polls excluded DelVal from the top 25, a fact not unnoticed in Doylestown. “I think everyone has a little bit of a chip on the shoulder,” Fallon said. “We feel ready to go out and prove people wrong this year.”
And Fallon is poised to jump from good to great. “I’m feeling way better this year than I did last year,” he said in mid-July. “This spring helped me a lot. At camp last year, I was shaking the rust off. This camp, I’m ready to go.”
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