Meet state’s most dominant defender: He’s ‘just a dog all the way around’
Seven plays in the middle of a quarter were all Mason Muragin needed to establish himself as one of the premier players in the state.
Oh, there were other moments this season when the Warren De La Salle senior defensive end notified the state he was a player to contend with, but these seven plays were different.
In six of those seven plays in the second quarter of De La Salle’s win over Novi Detroit Catholic Central, the 6-foot-4, 245-pound Muragin recorded three quarterback sacks and added three tackles for loss.
For those plays, Muragin dominated the game way Nick Perry did for Detroit King in 2007 when it became the first Detroit Public School League team to win a state championship.
Ask him to relive that sequence of plays and Muragin can’t. It was as if he had an outof-body experience.
“I can’t even tell you what was going on,” he said. “I said after the game that when we’re pissed off, we’re the best team in the state.”
Muragin and his teammates were definitely, uh, upset.
It was the lingering effect of a shocking 4342 Week 4 loss to Birmingham Brother Rice.
Making it worse was that De La Salle, the defending Division 2 state champion that breezed through the previous season with a 13-0 record, was ranked the overall No. 1 team in the state entering the season.
“I think we had a pretty crappy mentality going into that game,” Muragin said. “All those No. 1 rankings and everything. We thought we were on top of the throne, no one could come knock us off. Obviously Rice wanted to prove something.”
And the Pilots wanted to prove a few things, too, when they met CC. The week after the Rice loss, De La Salle drilled Orchard Lake St. Mary’s, 56-14, and was still fuming when it smashed Catholic Central, 28-0, in the Boys Bowl at CC.
Leading the way was Muragin, whose performance practically single-handedly destroyed CC coach Dan Anderson’s offense.
“We knew he was a good player, definitely,” Anderson said. “We talked about him all week with the offensive line. He put on a clinic, that’s for sure. It was very impressive, unfortunately for us.
“That’s’ why he’s going D-I.”
Muragin has committed to Illinois, ending a long process he began with the hope of eventually playing college football.
It started with a year of flag football, followed by the transition to tackle football, which eventually ended his soccer career.
“I was never as good my mom and my younger sister,” he said. “Mia is a stud soccer player. So my mom got her soccer player in the family.”
His mother, Erica, walked on to the soccer team at Central Michigan, which is where she met her husband, Kalani, who was born in
Hawaii, played high school ball in Florida and was a defensive lineman at CMU.
Kalani coached his son with the Macomb Mustangs, a local youth team, and is now the defensive line coach at De La Salle.
He was the first to see his son’s potential, although that proved to be a hard sell to his wife.
“I would tell her: ‘Man, he finds where the ball is, that’s great, he might be able to do something,’ “his father said. “And then she would always reel me in and tell me he hasn’t even played high school yet.”
But Kalani was right. There was something special about the oldest of their four kids, especially with his ability to quickly get to the ball.
“When Mason puts his hand in the dirt, by the time that tackle or tight end take their first step, Mason knows what play is coming,” said Kalani. “He’s got a quick step off the line. He’s worked very hard on his technique and his reading of the play, knowing what’s happening very quickly.”
Muragin was not big for his age and was 5-10 when he entered La Salle. He gradually grew, just as he gradually evolved into a college prospect.
Although he played well at times as a sophomore on the varsity, it took time for him to become the prospect he is today.
Part of the problem was that Dan Rohn wasn’t named coach until March 2020 — when COVID disrupted teams’ offseason programs.
“A kid like Mason was a sophomore, they were without a coach here from November to March when I got the job,” Rohn said. “There was a lot of time when there wasn’t development opportunities for these kids. So Mason’s development got pushed back a little.”
The resultL Muragin and La Salle quarterback Brady Drogosh, who is committed to Cincinnati, were afterthoughts when college coaches began recruiting the class of 2023.
“I think for Mason and Brady, it took them a few extra months to become those kids that got on the radar and once they got on the radar it was different,” Rohn said. “Those 3-star or 4star kids — those in-between kids — needed that little bit of extra development and they didn’t have it, but they made up for it.”
Muragin’s sophomore season ended with a 25-19 loss to Muskegon Mona Shores in the Division 2 state championship game. He played well, but it was an eye-opening experience.
“I weighed 205 my sophomore year and I played against all those big guys at Muskegon Mona Shores,” he said. “Their offensive line was massive. They were humongous.”
While he never got to the “humongous” level, Muragin did get bigger and stronger, dedicating himself to working hard in the weight room. He also spent hours trying to develop his speed, which changed his mindset entering last season.
“I had a lot of confidence coming into my junior year,” he said. “Coming off that loss in the championship game my sophomore year I knew we had a lot to prove as a team. I knew I had to take accountability myself to work hard in the offseason.”
A year ago, the Pilots swamped Chicago St. Patrick, 38-13, in their opener and Muragin was sensational, recording eight tackles for loss; he was on his way.
“The amount of work I put in during the offseason, I realized I could really separate myself from the rest of the pack,” he said. “After that first game my junior season, I knew then it would be hard for anyone to stop me. It made me realize my full potential.”
Muragin is a nightmarish matchup. He combines his strength and speed to overwhelm tight ends or defensive tackles to get to the passer.
“Mason’s unblockable,” Drogosh said. “I’m glad we’re on the same team. Hopefully Cincinnati doesn’t play Illinois when we get to college.”
Even with two games left in the regular season, plus a spot in the state playoffs guaranteed, Muragin has his place in De La Salle history cemented.
He already owns the school record for sacks and tackles-for-loss. Entering Friday’s game against River Rouge he has 38 tackles, 15 TFLs and seven sacks this season. For his career he is at 158 tackles, 54 TFLs and 22 sacks.
“Mason is just a dog all the way around,” junior fullback Rhett Roeser said. “He can’t be stopped. He’s just different.”
The aspect that is different about him may be the way he approaches football. He never seems satisfied with his accomplishments.
“He’s just so — I know this is ‘coach talk’ — he always wants to be the best,” Rohn said. “You can coach Mason as hard as you want and he’s not going to back down from it and he’s going to try to be better on the next play. He’s just relentless. He’s one of those kids that’s just going to keep coming after you.”
Erica called Muragin a joy to raise and the perfect sibling for their three younger children. But at times she almost doesn’t recognize him, given the way he plays on the field.
“I saw him doing some things against Catholic Central, making little gestures,” she said. “He has a switch that flips. I’m a very competitive person, my husband is a very competitive person. So I think that comes out on the football field.
“He won’t hurt you on purpose.”
That isn’t exactly reassuring for the opposing quarterback each week, but Roeser is right — Muragin is different once he puts on his uniform.
“I think I’m a nice guy outside of football, but if you get in you’ve got to be a completely different person,” he said. “I just play mean. I’m not out there to make friends. I’m out there to do my job, do my one-eleventh.”
Muragin was devastated by that loss to Brother Rice, but a few weeks later he has been able to put that game in perspective.
“We still have our end goal, which is the state championship,” he said. “We had that loss. It was tough, it hurt, I hadn’t felt that way in a year and a half. The last time I’d lost a game was January of my sophomore year in that state championship game.”
His next loss may not come until he is wearing an Illinois uniform.
Mick McCabe is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1. Order his book, “Mick McCabe’s Golden Yearbook: 50 Great Years of Michigan’s Best High School Players, Teams & Memories,” now at McCabe.PictorialBook.com