Devin Craig’s Masterclass Powers Historic Lapel Season

LAPEL, Ind. – In a town where high school football is woven into Friday night tradition, the Lapel Bulldogs are enjoying a season for the ages, and senior quarterback Devin Craig is leading the charge with a record-setting performance that has the state taking notice.

At 12-0, Lapel is undefeated and preparing for a regional showdown in the Class 2A IHSAA state tournament. Its rise through the ranks has been fueled by Craig’s precision passing and steady leadership. Through 12 recorded games in 2025, the signal-caller has thrown for 2,764 yards and 36 touchdowns, averaging more than 230 passing yards per game with a 63% completion rate.

Those numbers don’t just stand out, they add to a historic career. On Oct. 31, Lapel met Eastern Hancock for a rematch of its closest regular-season win, a one-point victory just two weeks earlier. This time, the stakes were higher in sectional play, and the Bulldogs delivered again, pulling out a 26-22 win. Craig threw for 294 yards and four touchdowns, surpassing the 10,000-yard mark for his career, an achievement reached by only a handful of quarterbacks in Indiana high school history. The performance pushed his season touchdown total to 34.

Craig’s path to the 10,000-yard milestone is the product of sustained excellence. Over his four-year varsity career, he has compiled a 33-9 record as the starting quarterback and helped lift Lapel to new heights.

This year, the Bulldogs’ offense has been firing on all cylinders. A pivotal early win came in Week 5, when the Bulldogs trailed Indian Creek by double digits in the fourth quarter. Craig calmly engineered back-to-back scoring drives, capping the final one with a dart over the middle to tight end Caleb Hopkins. Lapel walked away with a 29-26 win, and Craig walked off the field like he had been there before, because he had. The win kept the Bulldogs undefeated and confident.

Since then, Lapel has rolled through the sectional rounds, punctuated by a 28-15 win over Triton Central on Nov. 7 to secure the sectional title. With that win, the Bulldogs advanced to face Indianapolis Lutheran, a program with nine regional titles in the last 10 seasons and three recent 1A state championships (2021, 2022, 2023), in the regional final at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 14.

Though Lutheran enters as the favorite, Lapel brings momentum, and one of the most seasoned quarterbacks in the state. And it is not just the numbers that define Craig, it is his consistency. Week after week, he delivers efficient performances, protects the ball and keeps the Bulldogs in control.

While Craig’s future likely includes college football, his focus remains on extending Lapel’s historic run. The Bulldogs have never won a regional, semi-state, or state title, but with Craig under center, this year’s team is just two wins away from reaching Lucas Oil Stadium for the Class 2A championship game.

Lapel has leaned on the arm, and poise, of a quarterback who has grown up with the program, broke records with quiet resolve and put his small town on the state map one pass at a time. Every Friday, Craig was not only playing for a team, he was playing for everyone who called Lapel home. And when the lights are eventually turned off and the record books closed, the legacy he will leave behind will not be measured only in yards or wins, but in how he made a community believe that something unforgettable was possible.