Penn State’s Drew Shelton blocked for Will Howard at Downingtown West. They’ll be on opposite sidelines Saturday.

Downingtown West football coach Thomas Kline still remembers the last time Drew Shelton caught a touchdown pass during a seven-on-seven tournament the summer before the 2019 season.

“He caught a touchdown pass from about 40 yards out. And a coach from the other school said, ‘Wow, that’s a really good-looking tight end out there,’” Kline, an assistant at the time, recalled during a phone conversation. “And I looked over at him and I said, ‘[Shelton] just caught his last touchdown pass because he’s going to be an offensive lineman in the next couple weeks.’

“That was our running joke, that Drew was playing that skill position, and we just knew he was going to convert down to be an offensive lineman for us.”

That 2019 team turned out to be special for Downingtown West, capturing its first District 1 crown since 1996, led by Will Howard at quarterback and Shelton at left tackle.

“Power Five scholarship athletes are few and far between. To have two on that team was obviously very special for us,” said Mike Milano, who retired from coaching in January after 31 seasons, 22 of them at Downingtown West. “That‘s a big reason why we had the success that we had. Both are great young guys. … They’re both very humble about what’s been given to them and what they’ve earned. And I couldn’t be happier for both of them to be in the spot they’re in right now.”

When No. 3 Penn State (7-0) hosts No. 4 Ohio State (6-1) on Saturday in Happy Valley (noon, Fox29), the game will have significant meaning to both of the former Downingtown West stars, who graduated two years apart. Shelton has excelled at the Nittany Lions’ starting left tackle spot, while Howard transferred to the Buckeyes after spending four seasons at Kansas State.

Along with football, the pair grew up playing basketball and baseball together as teammates, too.

“It’s been exciting to see what [Howard] has been able to do throughout his college career, and he’s an excellent football player,” Shelton said. “It’s going to be fun to see him on Saturday.”

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Kline, who took over as Downingtown West’s head coach after Milano retired, had spent 10 years as an assistant, serving as the Whippets’ offensive line coach. He got to work closely with Shelton, whose character he praised as being egoless.

“If you could foresee kids being as good as they could be, I did at a young age, I could see Drew having such a huge upside at the next level,” Kline said. “He was a big kid, but he could carry himself really well athletically for a kid his size, but beyond all that, his work ethic was amazing, like he just worked harder than anybody, was a student of the game, asked all the right questions. Just was the most coachable kid, like everything, all the intangibles you ever think of.”

Milano called Shelton a “big, athletic kid” whom the staff had to convince his football future could take him further at offensive tackle than at tight end, although Shelton “had good hands” to stay as a pass catcher.

And with Howard, offensive practices ran so smoothly that Kline isn’t sure if there were any negative practices with the West Chester native at the helm.

“Will was such a good leader on our team, very vocal,” Kline said. “But we always said we never had a bad practice when Will was there because Will made all the right reads and made everything right. So our practices were like a video game offense. Whatever we decided on, it was working. And mostly because we left a lot of stuff in Will’s hands. … He could just put the ball where it needed to be, and he ran our offense.”

In college football’s run-pass-happy option offenses of today, Milano thinks Howard stands out because of his ability to read coverages post-snap. He displayed much of that ability at Downingtown West en route to being named The Inquirer’s All-Southeastern Pennsylvania Player of the Year in 2019.

“He was able to make post-snap reads where he’s reading inside linebackers for certain plays, outside linebackers, free safeties. He was just a football-smart kid who also happened to be 6-foot-5, 220 pounds, very talented,” Milano said. “So it’s a great combination, right? You get a smart, humble, very talented, high-level athlete. It’s the perfect storm for my situation as an offensive coach.”

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Shelton and Howard were each thrust into starting roles as college freshmen. The Penn State tackle started five games in 2022, filling in for future New York Jets tackle Olu Fashanu, while Howard started the final seven games for Kansas State in 2020 after starter Skylar Thompson, now with the Miami Dolphins, suffered a season-ending injury.

With Fashanu returning last season, Shelton moved back into a reserve role. Thompson also returned for the Wildcats in 2021, pushing Howard to a backup role as a sophomore. As a junior, Howard didn’t get the starting role immediately until an injury to transfer starter Adrian Martinez, started the last nine games and led Kansas State to a Big 12 title but shared snaps with then-freshman quarterback Avery Johnson in 2023 before heading out to Columbus to play at Ohio State for his final season.

Howard enters Saturday’s game with 17 total touchdowns (13 passing, four rushing), completing 72% of his passes. Shelton has zero sacks allowed across 203 pass-blocking snaps, according to Pro Football Focus.

“It didn’t come easy. I had to learn a lot behind Olu [Fashanu], Caeden [Wallace], Hunter [Nourzad], even Juice Scruggs a couple of years ago,” Shelton said of his development. “Behind all those guys, learning a lot from them, watching their process, seeing how they go about the week, day in, day out, and just really learning the process of like film study and studying your opponent, it hasn’t been easy, but continuing to be the same person, consistency, same player, same practice player as I am in the game. Just keep going every single day to continue to get better.”

When asked about his favorite memory of Howard, Shelton pointed to his first start on the offensive line as a sophomore against Garnet Valley, a perennial power based in Glen Mills. The Nittany Lions tackle described his former quarterback as “calm” and said he “was continuing to “steady the boat” after some early offensive struggles. Howard threw two touchdown passes as the Whippets won that game, 42-19, to kick off a season that ultimately ended with a PIAA Class 6A semifinal loss.

Their former coaches, Milano and Kline, are torn about whom they’ll root for on Saturday. But they’ll be swelling with pride to watch two of their own on a national stage, excelling in their roles on teams contending for the College Football Playoff.

Howard “has been under the microscope for a long time. To see him go through all that with the success that he’s had, and to end up at Ohio State with a chance at a national championship is pretty awesome,” Milano said.

“I always say it’s like being the proud father watching him out there,” Kline said of Shelton. “And usually, I’ll give him some feedback after games about what I thought of it, but he’s doing an amazing job for Penn State right now.”

And score predictions?

“I think I’ll dress in black, and I’ll hope the score is 100 to 100, both offenses excel, and nobody wins,” Milano said with a laugh.

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