Crown Point football coach Craig Buzea joked that interacting with senior quarterback Tyce Custy is “like talking to a 40-year-old 18-year-old.”
Custy, who transferred from Valparaiso after his family moved to Crown Point before his junior year, also demonstrates that maturity as he cedes reps to teammates.
Last season, Custy shared the quarterback job with then-junior Cooper Malaski, who has become a tight end. This season, Custy is sharing it with sophomore AJ Summers.
“It’s a unique dynamic, for sure,” Custy said. “Not a lot of teams do that, but it’s been good for us, just giving defenses a lot to prepare for. It’s a handful when defenses try to play us. It’s been very good for us and very beneficial.”
The 6-foot-2, 190-pound Custy, a Lindenwood recruit, is focused on winning. The Bulldogs (8-0, 6-0), who are ranked No. 5 in the Class 6A state coaches poll, can wrap up their fifth straight undefeated regular season and fifth straight Duneland Athletic Conference title with a victory at Michigan City on Friday.
Custy’s attitude hasn’t been lost on Buzea.
“Sometimes it’s one of those things, like, ‘Hey, we have a Division I quarterback, why are we splitting time?’” Buzea said. “Well, we have another Division I kid, a sophomore, behind him — he’s going to play somewhere at the Division I level too.
“So you talk about that level of maturity for someone who worked his butt off to be the No. 1 guy, and then for him to have split reps with somebody else, he’s handled it remarkably well. I have never seen him one time walk away in disgust or frustration. By having AJ, he knows we’ve become doubly hard to defend because we have these two different types of quarterback. I’m really happy with what he’s done on the field, but watching him handle situations like that, he has been so impressive.”
Indeed, Custy has impressed with his on-field performance too. He has completed 85 of 120 pass attempts for 1,353 yards and 12 touchdowns with just three interceptions. He has also run for a TD, and he caught a 10-yard TD pass from Summers during the Bulldogs’ victory against Chesterton last week.
“Tyce has been very, very efficient, completing 70% of his passes,” Buzea said. “You can’t ask for much more. But he’s not a guy that’s concerned about his stats. He wants to win. He wants to be successful.
“We feel like he has a chance to make us successful every time he goes out on the field because of his high character. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a competitor. He wants to win, he wants to be successful, and he’s been a big shot in the arm for our program, no question.”
Senior wide receiver Kingston Connelly has been one of the main beneficiaries. He has 33 catches for 554 yards and seven TDs this season.
“When he walked in, he was a little quiet and shy, coming over from Valpo,” Connelly said. “I don’t know if they like us over there. But he seemed nice, and we really formed a relationship off the field, too, being buddies and not just being teammates, which really helps.
“When practice started, the first day of summer camp, I was watching him warm up, being really analytical because you see this new kid. But catching the ball, he’s throwing a nice spiral. He can throw it hard. I was impressed. I realized with this kid coming in, it was like, ‘OK, we have our quarterback.’ It’s probably the most important spot on the field from a leadership standpoint. He’s less of a vocal leader, more by example. He does the right things.”
At 5-7, Custy played on the freshman team at Valparaiso, and then he advanced to the junior varsity team as a sophomore. His adjustment to the Bulldogs last season went well. He completed 70 of 107 pass attempts for 1,069 yards and nine TDs with two interceptions last season.
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“It was definitely a smooth transition,” Custy said. “I was welcomed in, and I love it here. I’ve loved it since I came here. It’s been smooth the whole time, and this year I’m just more comfortable and just settled in now.
“It was definitely a big jump playing varsity last year, but the coaches and my teammates made it easy. It wasn’t a big deal.”
Buzea said Custy developed significantly between his junior and senior seasons.
“When we first got him after he transferred here from Valpo, communication was not one of his strong points,” Buzea said. “He’s come a long way, but he still probably has a ways to go in that regard — he’s more of a quiet leader. We’ve talked to him that it probably needs to change, but he’s going to play Division I football.
“One of the good things he did was commit before the year started. I don’t think he feels that pressure, like, ‘I’m playing for a scholarship. I’m planning to get recruited.’ He got it out of the way, and the amount of progress he’s made from this time last year to now is just monumental.”
Buzea also pointed to the work of quarterbacks coach Nick Wellman, who was hired during the offseason. Wellman quarterbacked Buzea’s Portage teams to back-to-back undefeated regular seasons in 1994 and 1995 and a Class 5A state championship game. Wellman also was Buzea’s quarterbacks coach for stints at Portage and Michigan City.
“Nick has several parallels with Tyce,” Buzea said. “He’s been the guy that relates to Tyce and has helped him with technique in his delivery. I believe Nick has had a huge impact on Tyce and has been a big part of Tyce’s success this year.”
Custy’s father, Brian, certainly has had a huge impact too. Brian Custy was a standout safety at Valparaiso University from 1997 to 2000.
“He coached me during my Pop Warner years, so that was cool to be able to be coached by my dad,” Tyce Custy said. “He’s been a good mentor for me throughout my whole football career because he’s been through it.”
Custy’s younger brother Macklin is a sophomore cornerback at Andrean, and their youngest brother is a sixth grader in the Crown Point district.
“I would have liked for me and him to be in the same school, be on the same team, be able to play together, since we’ve played together before in Pop Warner,” Custy said of Macklin. “That would’ve been cool to play together in high school, but it is what it is. We’re both at our own schools, doing our own thing.”
Custy is scheduled to graduate from Crown Point after the first semester, and then he’ll get a jump on his next phase at Lindenwood.
“Just getting a chance to be able to go play Division I football, it’s always been a dream of mine,” he said.
Custy likes how the Bulldogs, who will open Class 6A sectional play with a showdown at Merrillville on Oct. 30, are positioned before he departs.
“I don’t think we’ve played our best football yet, which is exciting,” he said. “The record, 8-0, reflects that it’s perfect, but there’s been a lot of mistakes along the way, a lot of areas to improve. We’re still working to get to our best, but I think we can get there.
“Personally, I have a lot of work to do, a lot of areas to improve. I wouldn’t be able to play good football without these coaches, without my teammates, the guys I can lean on and who support me and make me look good — and who can lean on me. It’s the receivers, it’s the O-linemen, it’s the running backs, it’s the defense not letting the other team put up points. It’s everybody on the team, not just me. So it’s kind of hard to self-reflect. But the season as a whole, we’ve done great as a team, we’ve had a lot of success and I think there’s more ahead.”