All the time in the backyard and at the grandparents’ house against his brother Cully has paid off for Grady Feeney. The Durango High School junior quarterback has picked up where Cully left off at quarterback as the Demons look to play December football again.
Durango High School has had a successful football program for a while, with its last losing season in 2014. The 2020s have been especially successful for the Demons in no small part because of their quarterback play. In 2020, Jordan Woolverton led the Demons to a perfect season, finishing 8-0 and winning the 3A state championship. Tyler Harms then took over and the powerful dual-threat quarterback led Durango to at least one playoff win in each of his three years as the starter.
Then came the Feeneys. Cully took over the quarterback position last year and was another dual-threat option. He led the Demons to a 4A state playoff appearance and finished last season 10th in 4A in passing yards with 1,753 yards. He had 20 passing touchdowns and eight interceptions. Cully was named second team all-state for his efforts.
This season, it’s Grady’s turn. After sharing the backfield with his brother as the team’s top running back, Grady has been stellar as Durango’s quarterback this season. The Demons are 5-1 overall and ranked fourth in 4A. Grady has 795 passing yards, has completed 58% of his passes and has nine passing touchdowns to two interceptions (the two interceptions came in the first two games.) On the ground, Grady has 544 rushing yards and eight rushing touchdowns.
Oh, Grady is also the team’s long snapper and plays defense.
“When I started talking about what we wanted in a Durango quarterback when I got hired, you wanted them to have the “it” factor,” Durango football head coach Hunter Holmes said. “A couple of guys asked me like what's “it” and I told them if you have to ask that question brother, you probably don't have it. Grady is one of those guys that the guys gravitate toward him and his brother was the same.”
Holmes has called Grady the epitome of a Durango man multiple times and has said that if there were a picture of a Durango man in the dictionary, it would be of Grady.
It’s not surprising to hear Grady called a Durango man because his father, Conor, also grew up here and played football for the Demons. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the Feeney brothers started playing football in second grade.
“He coached me all the way from second grade, and he's still coaching me now,” Grady said about his dad. “He really taught me to love the game and I thank him for that every day. It really is a beautiful sport and it creates beautiful friendships and families.”
While Cully got the first opportunity to play quarterback on the varsity team, Grady was the one who played the position all throughout their childhood. Cully was a running back and defensive player growing up.
Things changed in Grady’s freshman year when he injured his wrist. He didn’t think much of it, but he had to have three wrist surgeries in the offseason and a major elbow surgery, donor capitellum, which involves a donor tissue graft which helps repair cartilage in the elbow.
“This guy's got a crazy pain tolerance,” Cully said about his brother. “I think he forgot to mention that the season where he broke his wrist and had the elbow injury that wouldn't let him throw the ball, he played through the entire season with it; he finished the whole season.”
The multiple surgeries left Grady feeling uncertain about his football future. He was constantly rehabbing; he missed the baseball season his freshman year and only felt good a few weeks before his sophomore football season. His family wasn’t sure Grady would throw a ball again or even play football, but those doubts pushed him to rehab harder and get better.
After recovering from his arm injuries, Grady started the 2024 season, his sophomore year, as the JV quarterback. But after one game, he was moved up to play running back on varsity next to his brother.
It was a transition for Grady, but the transition was helped by the fact that he played running back as a freshman after his arm injuries. Grady has always loved to run the ball as a quarterback, so the running back position came naturally to him.
The move to running back was a blessing for Cully last season. Cully was inexperienced at the position compared to his brother, so it was the perfect match for Grady to be in the backfield with Cully. Grady would help call out the defense’s blitzes or formations at running back so that Cully could be the best quarterback he could be during his senior year.
It was a change not being under center for Grady, but he learned from not being the guy who got the ball every time and not having to make every play.
“Grady would get pretty mad at me every time we had a read option and I’d pull the ball instead of handing it off to him,” Cully said. “He'd let me hear it at the house.”
This year, Grady doesn’t have to worry about Cully keeping the ball on a read option. Cully is a freshman at Colorado School of Mines and is vying for a spot on the Orediggers’ football team. Grady is under center for the Demons, calling the shots.
The Cully to Grady succession at quarterback was always the plan for the brothers. Ever since he was a kid going to the high school football games on Friday nights, Grady knew he wanted to play quarterback. He also knew the expectation of playing quarterback at Durango, which motivated him in the summer.
There are a lot of similarities with how the brothers play the position. Both have good accuracy and can throw a good deep ball. The brothers are the most dangerous with their legs, but in different ways.
Cully is a shifty runner who will make the defender miss. Grady remembers how hard it was to tackle Cully when the brothers did Oklahoma drills in the backyard. On the other hand, Grady is a more physical runner who loves to run through people up the middle.
“I like to put my shoulders down,” Grady said. “If you hit someone hard enough, they're not going to want to come and hit you; that's the way I think about it.”
While Grady doesn’t have his brother next to him in the backfield anymore, the brothers are still in constant contact about Grady’s performances. Cully watches every game up at Colorado School of Mines and sends Grady texts before and after every game; he tries to help Grady with his footwork and his reads. In fact, Cully has gone with other Durangoans at Colorado School of Mines to the lecture halls to watch Grady’s games on the big projectors.
The younger brother hopes to play at the collegiate level either as a long snapper or at quarterback. Although Holmes and Grady acknowledge his best options at the collegiate level will likely be at long snapper. Grady has been long snapping since seventh grade and learned how to long snap from his father, who also long snapped in high school.
Grady has 1.5 seasons of football left before college. This season, Grady has a strong defense around him and a veteran group of skill players.
“We want to make a run in the playoffs,” Grady said. “Keep building on these wins, keep getting better and keep holding each other accountable … We want to make a run at state.”
bkelly@durangoherald.com
