JEROMESVILLE — Hayden McFadden wants nothing to do with being tackled on a football field.
The Hillsdale senior wide receiver would rather be outrunning opponents on a track or working on some kind of never-before-seen dunk on a basketball court.
He’d probably prefer to lay out on a beach instead of laying out for a touchdown pass in the end zone.
But football forced its way into his life. Sometimes talent simply has no place to hide.
“I just don’t want to get tackled,” said the 6-foot-1 McFadden when asked his approach as a touchdown-scoring machine. “One of my friends said that a scared runner is always the best runner in football, and I totally agree with that, because I’m just trying to run away from people.”
When Hillsdale kicked off its Ashland-area record 10th consecutive trip to the playoffs last Friday against Conotton Valley, McFadden had three receptions. All of them went for touchdowns.
It’s nothing new for the senior. He’s got 39 of them as a receiver.
Last week’s game — a 63-6 annihilation of the Rockets — marked the ninth time in the last two seasons that McFadden’s had multiple receiving touchdowns in a game.
“It was nice because (Conotton Valley) only had one safety over top,” he said, “so I was like, ‘This is easy pickin’ for me.’ ”
McFadden’s one and only varsity catch as a freshman went for a 25-yard touchdown. He’s scored at least 10 of them in each of the last three seasons.
It’s not as effortless for most high school players.
In fact, if McFadden pulls in one more touchdown catch — highly likely on a Hillsdale team many believe will at least return to the Division VII Final Four — he will become one of only 16 players in the OHSAA record books with 40 career receiving scores.
Nobody in Wayne County or Ashland County has done it. In stats available to the Source, nobody in Richland County has, either.
One of my friends said that a scared runner is always the best runner in football, and I totally agree with that, because I’m just trying to run away from people.
Hillsdale senior receiver Hayden mcfadden
According to the record books, the only receiver within about an hour radius of Jeromesville to reach 40 receiving touchdowns was Medina’s Austin Knowles in 2023.
For even better context, through last season, more Ohio high school football players had passed for 10,000 yards than had caught 40 touchdowns.
“Hayden’s one of the best athletes we’ve ever had in Hillsdale sports history,” Falcons head coach Trevor Cline said. “He gives us a deep threat and most teams don’t have a guy who can match his speed; there’s a reason why he excels so much at track.
“He can flat-out run. … It changes our offense when he’s on the field.”
McFadden said his biggest love is on the high school track, where last year he qualified to state in the 200-meter dash and posted a school-record 22.25 in the event.
He also broke the district meet record before notching second in the region in long jump, where his PR of 22-3 is 6.5 inches off another school record he hopes to shatter this spring.
Add in his 6-3 clearance in the high jump and McFadden is one of those athletes the competition hates to see walk into the stadium.
“I like track the best because, if you lose, it’s all on you. You don’t have to worry about anybody else losing it for you,” he said. “If you lose, you know it’s your fault and you need to work harder.”
The speedster said he’s received interest from a variety of college track programs, including NCAA Division I Kent State and Toledo, but he’s never had the desire to take his talents to that level.
McFadden also has been a starter on the Hillsdale basketball team in an era when the Falcons have collected back-to-back seasons of at least 18 wins for likely the first time in program history.
He admitted his game on the court would be much more fine-tuned if he didn’t have so much fun trying to show off his leaping abilities.
“The amount of time I spend outside dunking is terrible, it’s bad,” he said. “My shot would be so much better if I spent as much time working on that as I do on dunking.”
When McFadden was playing Hillsdale basketball in seventh grade, Cline was the faculty manager at the junior high. He remembers admiring McFadden’s “God-given ability” and chatting with him a few times about trying to get him onto a football field.
“He would always say he would think about (coming out for football), but I wasn’t sure if he was actually gonna do it,” Cline said. “Then with the help of his teammates encouraging him, he decided to play in eighth grade. From there, the rest is history.”
“I’ve always been pretty laid back about it,” McFadden said. “I started football in eighth grade and it wasn’t the top thing on my mind, but I just kind of figured I might as well go out there and try it.”
Fewer than 40 players have reached 3,000 career receiving yards in Ohio, and that’s a number McFadden also could hit after a few more big games (currently at 2,689).
He set Hillsdale single-season records for receiving yards (1,369) and touchdowns (18) last year during the Falcons’ voyage to the Division VII state championship game.
Hayden’s one of the best athletes we’ve ever had in Hillsdale sports history. … It changes our offense when he’s on the field.
hillsdale head coach trevor cline
In the most jaw-dropping stretch of his career to date, McFadden caught 22 passes for 583 yards (26.5 yards per catch) and 10 touchdowns in Hillsdale’s first four playoff games in 2024.
A season’s worth of stats for most talented receivers came in just one month for the junior first-team All-Ohioan.
His five catches for 250 yards and three TDs against Windham gave him the HHS single-game record for receiving yardage.
“Usually whenever I hear about a big stat it’s always coming from (Hillsdale junior quarterback Kael Lewis),” McFadden said. “Half the time I have no idea what I’m doing out there, I’m just running.
“(The stats and records) aren’t really a big deal to me,” he added. “I like seeing my name out there, but at the end of the day it’s just a high school sport. … I just try to do my best and that’s it.”
Also in that playoff run last year came the pinnacle of McFadden’s football career as an individual — his game-winning Hail Mary reception from Lewis in a 50-48 walk-off win over Malvern.
“That was one of the most insane moments of my life so far,” he said.
“When you watch that on film, there wouldn’t have been too many guys who would have been able to catch that ball,” said Cline, who called it the biggest play in Hillsdale history. “It wasn’t like he caught it because no one else touched it; he had to reach back, extend as far as he could and had to have great reaction time to tip it back up to himself to catch it.”
Cline said McFadden’s route-running and blocking both have improved this season. His current career totals would have ballooned to even larger numbers, but he missed essentially three full games due to a knee injury suffered against Loudonville in Week 3.
He had just one catch that night (a 19-yard touchdown) before exiting with what he worried might be a season- and football-career-ending injury.
“Talking to my friends (before the season), we felt like there was going to be a big injury this year (to a key player),” McFadden said. “Then that happened, I was like, ‘Gosh, senior year, I’m done after just a couple games.’”
He said his knee was so tight and swollen the day after the game that he could barely move. Fortunately, an MRI revealed only bad bruising and a sprained ACL.
McFadden returned in Week 6 against Smithville, catching five passes for 112 yards and two scores.
But even with those numbers, Cline and McFadden agreed the extra gear of acceleration that makes him great seemed to be missing.
Against Norwayne in Week 10, a 24-17 loss that kept the Falcons from their first-ever 10-0 regular season, McFadden needed to leave the field a variety of times due to knee pain.
“He had been a shell of himself since he came back,” Cline said. “Even though he had a couple big plays against Smithville, it wasn’t like he was the playmaker he’s been during his career.”
“Walking and jogging on it was fine, but when I tried to sprint and keep pushing to go faster and faster,” McFadden said, “it was like a shock that went down my whole entire leg; I couldn’t push off of it.”
But a bye week after the loss at Norwayne seemed to help him finally get back to normal. He said he’s felt as fast as he’s ever been the last few weeks, which doesn’t bode well for opponents.
Not only do they have to contend with a healthy McFadden, but Lewis and the rest of his receiving corps used their time without the star senior to enhance their potency.
Juniors Kyle Turk (32 catches, 520 yards, 3 TDs) and Knox Lewis (30-352-6) both have evolved as bigger threats through the air, as has senior Brock Bower (19-291-3).
“(Missing McFadden for a few weeks) probably ended up being a blessing in disguise because it put a little bit more of a workload on the other individuals and they showed they could get the job done, too,” Cline said. “It just gives us more threats and makes it more difficult for an opposing team to prepare for us.”
McFadden said knowing Kael Lewis through multiple sports has helped the pair connect even better; it’s not just a simple quarterback-receiver relationship.
That factor is just one more thing that has helped McFadden average a touchdown on every 3.3 receptions through his career (39 on 130).
When the fifth-ranked Falcons (10-1) host Symmes Valley (9-2) on Friday night, it will be the final home game for the winningest senior class in program history. A victory would be the 40th in four seasons for the group and send Hillsdale into its second straight regional championship game.
And whenever this season does end, it will be the last time McFadden shows off his skills in a football game.
He said multiple schools have reached out to him to discuss a college career, including Ashland University, but that’s never been on his radar.
He’s always looked at the sport as another way to simply have fun with his friends.
“I don’t think about it that much,” McFadden said, “I just get ready for the next week.”