All the talk leading up to the 85th annual Turkey Bowl between Fordham Prep and Xavier was about a special running back named Seamus Kelly. The Rams were trying to figure out how to do what no other team could do this year: stop the bruising back from Breezy Point.

But when the crowd of 5,000 left Coffey Field in the Bronx on Thursday afternoon, they talked not about “Famous Seamus,” but instead about Fordham junior Bruce Grant, who rushed for three second-half touchdowns to help lead the Rams to a 41-28 victory on the Rose Hill campus of Fordham University.

“The spotlight was off him, which was good because then he could play footloose and fancy free,” Fordham Prep coach Pete Gorynski said of Grant. “It was a phenomenal job by that offensive line. They did a great job of opening up holes and Bruce did what he was supposed to do: he ran through them and goodbye.”

Fordham Prep leads the series, 47-35-3, and snapped a two-game losing streak with the dramatic win.

“It wasn’t the best season, but just to get the seniors out with a win that takes away the whole bad season,” said Grant, who rushed for 288 yards on 26 carries. “It’s such a great feeling.”

Kelly got his, rushing for 264 yards and four touchdowns on 39 carries, but it didn’t come easily thanks to a hard-hitting Fordham Prep defense led by senior linebackers Chris Moffa and Kevin Moore.

“We knew we were going to have to get a big push from our line and hopefully clean up with our backers and me and (Kevin) Moore cleaned up all day, our line did a tremendous job burning up holes,” Moffa said. “We’ve seen him put up all these numbers, but he hasn’t done it on us.”

Xavier (8-3) was the leading scoring team in the CHSFL this year, but was shut out in the first half for the first time since last year’s Turkey Bowl. In that game, played at Brooklyn’s Aviator Field, the Knights rallied to win, 20-14.

“If you score three or four times in a game, you’re going to win 75 percent of your games,” Xavier coach Chris Stevens said. “We need to play defense. I don’t know whether it’s schemes or personnel or what it is. But every game we lost we had 40 scored on us, so we need to do a better job.”

On Thursday, Kelly did break out in the second half with four touchdowns – three on the ground and one receiving. But Grant answered every single punch by Kelly with an effective counterpunch.

“He had a fabulous game,” Connor Brown said of Grant. “He stepped up big for us. Once they double-teamed me, he just broke out.”

On touchdown runs of 62 and 22 yards, Kelly single-handedly tied the game at 14, but on the Rams next play from scrimmage, Grant ran untouched up the middle for a 67-yard score.

Kelly scored on a 4-yard run and Grant came right back with a 38-yard score. The biggest blow, though, came after Matthew Safko hit Kelly for a 46-yard touchdown pass to bring Xavier to within 35-28 with 2:16 left.

But after an unsuccessful onside kick, Grant broke free for a 46-yard touchdown run to cap the Rams victory.

“Coach made a game plan that was unstoppable and we executed today,” Grant said.

Grant picked up where Brown left off in the first half. The senior receiver, who also had a stellar day defensively, gave Fordham Prep (5-7) a 14-0 halftime lead with touchdown receptions of 97 and 60 yards. He also added a 2-yard catch for a score in the third quarter.

“There’s no words to describe how I feel right now,” Brown said. “We had a tough season at 4-7. They got us the last two years and last year was especially tough walking off the field as a loser, but this year, words can’t describe it.”

While the Turkey Bowl win makes up for a disappointing season in the ‘AAA’ for the Rams, a loss in ‘The Game’ doesn’t diminish another special season for Xavier.

“This senior class goes out 18-4,” Xavier coach Chris Stevens said. “We’re the AA-A division champs, the leading scoring team in the CHSFL. We’ve done some great things.”

The same could be said about Grant and seniors like Brown, Moffa, Charlie Argast and Wayne Seaton, who cap their high-school careers with a massive victory.

“It’s a way to finish it out and to send the seniors out,” Gorynski said. “Those boys deserved it. I’m real happy for them.”

It’s hard for Pete Gorynski to remember a Thanksgiving Day without the Fordham Prep-Xavier football game. The Turkey Bowl is as part of the holiday for the Bayside resident as the bird itself.

On Thursday morning, when he walks on the turf at Coffey Field on the campus of Fordham University with his Fordham Prep football team, the Rams coach will be attending his 40th straight Turkey Bowl, a rivalry that dates back to 1885 and has run continuously since 1927.

Gorynski first attended the game as a Xavier student – then it was mandatory for the entire student body to go the game – and for the next three years he played in it. He’s also coached both teams so he has a pretty good understanding of the magnitude of New York City’s oldest high-school football rivalry.

“As I tell my kids at the beginning of every year there are three seasons – the regular season, the playoffs and the Xavier game,” he said. “It’s a chance for vindication. You can have a terrible year and still be able to finish it up on a positive, which is good for the program.”

Gorynski isn’t the only coach on the sideline tomorrow to have a special attachment to this rivalry. Xavier coach Chris Stevens is also a Xavier alum, graduating 10 years after Gorynski. He also served as Gorynski’s assistant coach at Xavier.

“Pete taught me to coach,” Stevens said. “He’s still one of my closest football friends, he’s my mentor, I still pick up the phone and ask his advice at least once a week.”

But as the regular season wound down, the calls became less and less frequent. Both coaches know what’s at stake when they step on the turf in front of what is expected to be a large crowd in a game televised live on MSG Network.

“It’s a bit of a tragedy actually, because no matter how good or bad my season is or how good or bad Peter’s season is, we always have to meet each other in the end,” Stevens said. “It’s like the immovable force against the unstoppable object.”

It was a 28-14 win in the Turkey Bowl two years ago that Stevens points to as the turnaround for Xavier’s recent resurgence.

That game marked the varsity debut of Seamus Kelly, who rushed for 89 yards and a touchdown on nine carries and ran a kickoff back for more than 60 yards. The MVP of the game, though, was fullback/linebacker Ryan McTiernan, the son of 1968 Turkey Bowl MVP Roger McTiernan.

“We’re 19-3 including that win two years ago,” Stevens said.

Kelly has blossomed into, statistically, the best running back in the CHSFL, rushing for 2,412 yards and 39 touchdowns this season. He’s the biggest reason why the Knights are 8-2.

“We absolutely have to get him before he gets started,” Gorynski said. “Failing that, it’s going to be a long day. I’m not delusional, there’s no way we’re going to keep him out of the end zone. It’s a question of limiting the number of times he gets there.”

Fordham Prep (4-7) doesn’t have a bad running back either in Bruce Grant. The junior finished third in the ‘AAA’ with 1,235 yards on the ground. But Grant, who has coughed up the ball in pivotal spots, has just two touchdowns on the season, a sign of how difficult it has been for the Rams to score.

The Rams also have one of the top receivers in the ‘AAA’ in Connor Brown, who has 38 receptions for 736 yards and eight touchdowns, but Gorynski believes the Knights will have an answer for him.

“I think it’s essential for us to establish a ground game and play some ball control,” Gorynski said. “If we three-and-out too often, the more touches this kid Kelly has, the more damage he can do. It’s a simple formula really – hold the ball, kill the clock and score points, trying to stay one touchdown, one possession ahead of Xavier and try and get out of there with a basketball score.”

“Honestly I think we have to score 40 points in order to win,” he added. “That’s a tall order, but I think that’s what’s in front of us.”

If that’s the case, the 85th annual Turkey Bowl will make for some must-see TV – at least for the winner.

“If we win the game, that DVD is a lifetime keepsake,” Stevens said. “If we lost the game, that DVD is a flying saucer.”

When it comes to tradition and rivalry in New York City high-school football, it doesn’t get any better than Fordham Prep vs. Xavier on Thanksgiving Day. On Thursday morning at Coffey Field on the campus of Fordham University, the two Jesuit schools will meet on the gridiron for the 85th time in the annual Turkey Bowl.
The first meeting between the two rivals took place on Dec. 2, 1883, in a game that ended in a 6-6 draw. From 1905-1907, Fordham Prep pounded Xavier, winning 32-0, 61-0 and 61-0.

There is no record of the two teams playing over the course of the next 19 years, in part because Xavier discontinued football around the time of World War I. The series continued in 1927, with Fordham Prep winning, 12-6, and the two teams have played every year since.

However, not every game was on Thanksgiving. On Election Day 1929, some 80,000 fans watched seven high-school football games across the city, including a reported 3,000 at Fordham University who witnessed a 19-13 Xavier victory, thanks to a 70-yard, fourth-quarter punt return by Bernard Moynahan, who went on to become a captain in the U.S. Army.

He was killed in action in Italy during World War II and the Moynahan Trophy, awarded annually to Xavier’s best athlete, is in his name.

Most of the annual clashes have been played on the Rose Hill campus of Fordham University, but the storied rivalry has been played out at numerous other locations throughout the city.

There have been at least seven meetings at Randall’s Island and games have also been played at McGovern Field in the Bronx, Recreation Park in Long Island City’s Queens Plaza, the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, L.I., Brooklyn’s Midwood and Erasmus High Schools and Aviator Field in Brooklyn, where Xavier defeated Fordham Prep, 20-14, last year.

Fordham Prep leads the all-time series, 46-35-3, and has dominated in recent years, winning six of the last eight Turkey Bowls.

But in recent years, the Knights have gotten the better of the Rams, with Xavier coach Chris Stevens pointing toward the 28-14 victory in 2006, which was the Knights’ first win in seven years, as a turning point in his program’s recent resurgence.

That game marked the varsity debut of Seamus Kelly, who rushed for 89 yards and a touchdown on nine carries and ran a kickoff back for more than 60 yards. The MVP of the game, though, was fullback-linebacker Ryan McTiernan, the son of 1968 Turkey Bowl MVP Roger McTiernan.

That game, won by Xavier, 32-0, 40 years ago was televised on WPIX with legendary play-by-play announcer Marty Glickman giving the call.

In 1954, Fordham Prep won, 18-12, to finish the season undefeated for the first time in program history. The hero of that game was two-way end Frank Costello, who became the first recipient of the Madow Trophy, previously awarded to the MVP between New York University and Fordham University.

Twenty years later at a packed pep rally in Xavier’s gym, sophomore quarterback Bobby Haskins was summoned to the stage by a rambunctious student body. Known to speak his mind, Haskins delivered a Joe Namath-like guarantee.

“Xavier will beat Fordham by 40 points,” he said.

Haskins, who made his first varsity start, was right – Xavier won, 54-6.

It’s doubtful that stars from either team will be as boastful this year.

The following is a list of the results in the oldest rivalry in New York City, dating back to 1905.

Special thanks to Tom O’Hara for providing the comprehensive history of this rivalry.