SILVERTON – During a typical Silverton High School football practice, first-year head coach Josh Craig runs as much as his players.

After junior quarterback Levi Nielsen completed a long pass in practice Tuesday, Craig sprinted downfield shouting, “Good job! Good job! Here we go!”

Maybe it’s because of his age. After all, at 26 he is one of the youngest head coaches in the state.

“I can still run around with the guys, which is good,” said Craig, who has always been a high-energy, positive fella. It’s in his DNA. “I still have a lot of energy and I think the guys respond to that.”

Silverton is No. 1 in the Class 5A OSAA rankings heading into Friday's Mid-Willamette Conference showdown at No. 3 Crescent Valley.

Clearly, the Foxes (4-0, 2-0 league) have responded to Craig’s coaching style.

“We love it,” Nielsen said. “When things don’t go our way you’ve gotta have positive energy or you’re never gonna be able to get things right.”

Craig is not taking credit for Silverton’s success.

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Former coach John Mannion, who resigned in April to become head coach at the new Mountainside High School in Beaverton, left the program in excellent shape. He had a 57-20 mark in seven seasons at Silverton, which included three state semifinal appearances and a state runner-up finish in 2014.

“I inherited this great team,” said Craig, adding, “I’m not the one playing the game. It’s all these guys busting their butts and I have a ton of assistants helping me, and Mannion set the (foundation). I’m just trying to stay within it and do what I can to make it mine, but also continue the success.”

Craig has strong ties to Silverton.

That’s why the job appealed to him, and those ties made him an attractive candidate to replace Mannion despite a relative lack of coaching experience.

As a seventh-grader at Silver Crest Elementary School in Silverton, Craig played at McGinnis Field, home of the Foxes.

He played his high school football at Silverton — Craig was a receiver and defensive back — and is a 2009 graduate.

Craig was a volunteer assistant coach under then-Silverton coach Scott Gragg in 2010, and returned to the program in 2014 after graduating from Oregon State. This is his fourth year as an English teacher at the high school.

It has been a smooth transition to Craig from Mannion.

“He knew all our basic formations and things like that. He already had training,” junior running back/linebacker Hunter Meissner said. “The culture’s the same which is nice because we love our culture here – work hard and play hard.”

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What Craig lacks in experience he makes up for with a strong work ethic, enthusiasm and a motor that is always running at “100 miles an hour.”

Craig acknowledges that he was surprised to be named head coach in May primarily because of his age and that he still has much to learn. Three of Silverton’s four current varsity assistants — Mike Fessler, John Howard and Craig Rankin — coached him when he was a high school player.

“Shoot, there’s times when I come across something and I’ve gotta ask my assistants, ‘OK, what do we do here?’” Craig said. “And they’re great.”

Rankin said Craig was ready to handle the responsibilities of a head coach.

"His energy is just infectious with the players," Rankin said. "I've seen Josh succeed in so many things over his lifetime. The age for me, and I know for the other coaches on our staff, was not an issue at all."

Craig may not look much older than some of his players, but they don’t view him as a peer. Nor does Craig want to be in their shoes.

His players refer to him as Coach or Coach Craig, and "never Josh.”

“I don’t want to be a teenager and I don’t want them to think I’m cool, because I’m not,” Craig said. “I have a Facebook (page), barely. They know things about other teams that I don’t know because of social media.”

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Craig will turn 27 in December, a few weeks after the state playoffs conclude. What a birthday present it would be if Silverton wins its first state championship in football since 1991.

But for now, Craig is focused on day-to-day goals, both in the classroom and on the football field.

“I’ve got a great deal here,” he said. “Not to use a cliché, but it’s kind of a dream come true.”

ghorowitz@StatesmanJournal.com or Twitter.com/ghorowitz