C.J. Brown made quite an impact during his first season as the starting quarterback for Seneca Valley last fall. He ultimately will get the chance to do the same at a Division I school.

Brown, a 6-foot-3, 190-pound junior, made a verbal commitment to the University of Maryland last week.

"He's got everything you want," Seneca Valley coach Ron Butschle said. "He's a hard worker, he's a good student and he's a great kid.

"He's a kid who lives football and wants to learn, and he's just going to get better and better because of it."

Brown led the Raiders to the WPIAL Class AAAA playoffs last season and a second-place finish in the Northern Five Conference. Seneca Valley won six games in 2007; the previous four seasons, it had gone 7-32 and was winless in 25 games within its conference.

Though the reasons for the Raiders' turnaround are many -- Brown credits strong senior leadership and a team-first work ethic by everyone on the team -- there's little doubt he was a big part of it.

Brown passed for 1,567 yards last season, completing 123 of 259 passes with 11 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. He also was second on the team in rushing with 443 yards on 102 carries and scored five touchdowns.

Brown also was an all-section guard/forward on the Raiders' basketball team that went 17-8 and qualified for the WPIAL playoffs.

"He has a very strong arm, and he's very athletic," Butschle said.

"He's one of the fastest kids on the team in terms of straight-ahead running. He has an innate ability to make plays. ... He gets out of the pocket, and the kinds of plays he makes, it's something you can't drill, but I think it's something that's an innate quality in an athlete ... and C.J. has it."

The picturesque campus and its accessibility to his Cranberry home -- about a four-hour drive -- were among the variety of reasons cited by Brown for choosing Maryland, an Atlantic Coast Conference school in College Park, Md..

"It's a great academic school," said Brown, who carries a 3.9 GPA. "And I really liked the coaching staff and what they've done there.

They've been consistent, going to bowl games five of the past seven years.

"[Head coach Ralph Friedgen] has been there seven years, which is a great sign he's committed to the program. Everything is on the right path.

"I met some of the players, and they were all great guys who all wanted me to come down there to play. Part of my decision is I like the offense they're putting in and their new coordinator, James Franklin.

"I'm definitely excited and looking forward to going there."

Brown is the second Seneca Valley quarterback to head to a Division I school in a four-year span -- 2006 SV grad Kevan Smith is at Pitt -- and the third for Butschle in the past five years.

Adam DiMichele, who played for Butschle at Sto-Rox, was the starter last season at Temple.

"I've been really blessed with quarterbacks, for sure," Butschle said.

Although Smith is more of a classic, strong-armed, dropback passer, Brown -- though he is just as tall as Smith -- can also make plays with his feet.

Butschle said Brown reminds him more of DiMichele, a three-sport standout who was offered a football scholarship by Penn State and was also drafted by baseball's Toronto Blue Jays.

"They both had great ball skills and were good ballhandlers, both have great arms, both are great athletes," Butschle said. "Adam DiMichele could have picked up a tennis racket and been all-state in tennis.

"He was amazing, and with C.J. it's the same thing. Kevan is a great athlete, too, but he looks like a linebacker. Not that he's not as athletic as C.J. and Adam, but they're more suited for maybe a spread-type of offense rather than a sit-in-the-pocket, dropback passing game."

With only one year as a starting quarterback on his resume and one more season of experience at the high school level in front of him, Brown's potential has not yet been fully tapped, Butschle said.

The Raiders coach cited not only Brown's work ethic but the fact that he is still growing physically.

"Since basketball was over, he's put on 15 pounds of good muscle weight," Butschle said. "He doesn't wear shirts with sleeves now. He has shirts that don't have sleeves on them anymore because they won't fit.

"Last year, he gained confidence. As the year went on he gave us reason to give him more and more responsibility. He's looking for us to give him a little more this year. He'll have the keys to the car as far as the offense goes."