GROVE CITY — Brady Callahan and Sam Mowrey sit in the Eagles' locker room and dissect game film.

Mowrey, the Grove City High football coach, points out a few things Callahan, a junior quarterback for the Eagles, can improve upon.

Callahan takes the criticism well. He's used to it.

In many ways, he's his own worst critic.

“He can't be harder on me than I am on myself,” Callahan said. “I obsess about the little things.”

That attention to detail and drive to get better with each pass has allowed Callahan to excel this season as a first-year starter under center for Grove City (7-0, 5-0).

Callahan's numbers are gaudy.

He has completed 87-of-114 passes (75.7 percent) for 1,060 yards and 13 touchdowns so far.

Last week in a 42-0 win over DuBois, Callahan was 22 of 28 for 256 yards and five touchdowns — the best varsity start of his career.

He completed passes to six different receivers.

“Brady has just continued to gain confidence,” Mowrey said. “One of the fun things for me has been watching his maturation process. He's very calm and composed, but very competitive. He's a great kid and easy to coach.”

Mowrey, who was also a quarterback when he played at Titusville and then at Grove City College, has worked closely with Callahan.

Callahan said his tutelage has been a big reason for his success.

“He's helped me so much,” Callahan said. “Having been a quarterback, he obviously knows the position. Even in practice, he still slings the ball around pretty well and we'll watch film together and he'll point out little things.”

And Callahan listens.

“He doesn't make a lot of the same mistakes twice,” Mowrey said.

During the summer and the early days of camp in August, Callahan hadn't won the job yet. He was in a competition with fellow junior AJ Miller.

Callahan, who had excelled as the junior varsity quarterback and had never lost a game as a starter at that level, welcomed the challenge.

“It helped me get better as a quarterback,” Callahan said.

His supporting cast has helped in that area as well.

With gifted receivers like Logan Lutz, Qadir Muhammad and Carter Chinn, who was injured last week and may be lost for the season, and a potent running game, Callahan's job has been made a whole lot easier.

And he knows it.

“Lutz — everything you throw at him, he catches,” Callahan said. “Qadir goes up and grabs everything. And the line has blocked so well and kept me clean.”

Grove City's offense is also quarterback-friendly.

“One of the things we try to focus on is we don't have a lot of different concepts, we just try to perfect what we do,” Mowrey said. “Brady knows his reads and makes good decisions and at the end of the night you look at his stats and he's 22 of 28. Some of those throws are to the backs out of the backfield or on screens, but not all of them.”

Callahan, with his growing confidence in an offense that is already averaging 40 points per game, is eager to see just how good Grove City can be.

“People in our town believe we can go pretty far, so that's a lot of pressure,” Callahan said. “We accept it.”