It did not take long for Archbishop Wood RB Brandon Peoples to pick where he’d like to continue his football career.
Peoples, a 5’8, 180-pound athlete, issued an oral declaration to Temple Tuesday, according to national recruiting service Rivals.com, just days after securing a verbal scholarship offer from the Philadelphia-based school. The Owls were the only FBS program to offer Brandon Peoples – his only other verbal scholarship offer came from FCS representative St. Francis. Throughout different points of his recruiting process, Peoples had also received interest from Division-1 FBS and FCS programs like Boston College, Connecticut, Delaware State, Monmouth, Penn State, Pitt, Rutgers, Towson State and Wisconsin.
The Vikings’ second leading rusher from a season ago is the third Wood player to announce a pre-season declaration of where he will continue playing Division-1 football, joining TE Colin Thompson (Florida) and RB Desmon Peoples (Rutgers). Other potential Division-1 prospects for the Vikings include C Brandon Arcidiacono, OG Frank Taylor and WR/S Nate Smith.
Brandon Peoples finished his junior season by running for 1,113 yards and 13 touchdowns on 138 carries and added another nine receptions for 57 yards and one touchdown, averaging 8.1 yards per carry and 6.3 yards per reception. He ran for 100+ yards in six of Wood’s 14 games in 2010, including three games of 155+ rushing yards.
When Desmon Peoples (1,347 rush yards, 23 TD) sustained what proved to be a season-ending lower leg injury following the Philadelphia Catholic League AAA championship game against Cardinal O’Hara, Brandon responded to the increased workload and feature tailback role, totaling 69 rushing attempts for 510 yards and scoring six total touchdowns in playoff games against Murrell Dobbins Tech, Strath Haven and Allentown Central Catholic.
Brandon Peoples was part of an Archbishop Wood rushing attack which averaged 229 yards per game and scored 47 toouchdowns (3.4 rush TD/game) in 2010.
Archbishop Wood finished 13-1 overall, reaching the PIAA AAA semifinals for the third consecutive season.
