Starting Lineup: After breakout season, Cameron Small ready to show us even more
To recognize the top players in Berks County football MikeDragoSports.com has selected the “Starting Lineup,” a preseason All-Berks team that includes the top linemen, backs, receivers, linebackers, and specialists.
Players are selected based on past performance, expected performance this season and college potential. Two-way players were given special consideration.
One player will be introduced each day throughout the preseason, in random order (the players are not ranked). This is the fourth installment of the series.
Cameron Small, Muhlenberg
| 5-10 | 185 | Senior | RB/S |
Cameron Small gobbled up more than 2,000 yards on the ground last season. Now he wants more.
More yards. More touchdowns. More wins. The last of those is his highest priority.
“Playoffs,” said the Muhlenberg tailback. “That’s the goal. District playoffs.”
The Muhls have not made the district tournament since 2013; Small had not yet gripped a football at that point. Now, a young lifetime later, the unassuming 5-10, 185-pound tailback wants to lead the way back, not just with a string of stirring touchdown runs but in the way he prepares for another All-State season.
His tireless work ethic was quickly noted by Muhlenberg’s coaching staff after he transferred from Reading High following his sophomore season. They saw how he attacked his offseason training, how he improved his strength and speed, and they realized he was a horse they could hitch their wagon to.
“Cam did an excellent job moving the weights around, doing our speed-agility program,” said Muhls coach Rob Flowers. “Once he got onto the field it was his patience and his explosion that (caught) our attention. We were super-impressed with the way he moved. Coming out of spring we knew he was gonna be the guy.”
Small helped pull the Muhls up from the ground floor, from one win to four, the last of them earning an Eastern Conference championship trophy. He ran for 209 yards and a pair of touchdowns in that 24-0 win over William Allen. It was his fifth 200-yard performance of the season and netted him all kinds of accolades.
Now a senior and the unquestioned leader of the team, Small knows he sets the tone in Laureldale; he began doing it as soon as last season ended by leading the way in offseason workouts.
“I know I make a big impact on the team, but I can make a bigger impact if I push myself harder than I did,” he said. “The whole team (feeds off) my energy, so I have to keep my energy at a high level at all times. I’ve been pushing myself way harder in the weight room, way more than I did last year. I’m doing more field work after practice. I can’t slack off.”
“He pushes us hard during practice,” said teammate Zavier Otero, an all-league offensive lineman. “He leads the team, he shows up in the weight room. He does what needs to be done.”
Small averaged 8.2 yards per carry and finished with 2,051 yards to become one of just five ballcarriers in Berks history to top 2,000 yards in a season. Impressively, he was at his best against the best.
He went for 290 yards and three scores against Conestoga Valley, which wasn’t beaten during the regular season.
Three weeks earlier, in one of the greatest performances in Berks football history, he ran for 346 yards and three TDs against an Exeter team that would go on to win 12 games and finish No. 7 in the league in total defense. The Eagles would have been No. 1 had they figured a way to slow down Small.
“We knew exactly where the play was going and we couldn’t stop it,” said Exeter’s Logan Wegman, the Outstanding Lineman in Section 2 of the Lancaster-Lebanon League.
Few teams stopped Small last season. He topped 100 yards nine times in 11 games, scored three or more touchdowns five times, and became the first back in Berks history to go for 290 or more yards three times in the same season.
“He’s extraordinary,” said Otero. “He can really take over the field.”
Late in the season he broke the program single-season rushing mark of 1,883 yards, set by Jason Reinhart. That record had stood for 27 seasons, a lifetime when it comes to that sort of thing.
Small is not a flat-out burner (he’s a thrower, not a sprinter, in track and field). He doesn’t find the end zone as often as he does simply because he’s out-racing defenders; his yards are a result of other attributes, such as his burst, his power, his timing.
“Cam has some of the best vison and balance when running the ball that I have seen in my time,” said Flowers. “He knows what’s taking place (on the field). He’s following his blocks, he’s being patient. He understands that he can’t get into the hole before the lineman gets there because the play will never work.”
Small needs 1,652 yards to match Reinhart’s program career rushing mark of 3,703. Doesn’t seem like much when you consider what he did a year ago, but Small knows the yards could come harder this time around. Opponents have had a full offseason to study his moves and devise a better strategy to stop him.
“I’m expecting teams to stack the box and just be ready for the run,” he said, “that’s why we’ve got to work to be able to run the ball, throw the ball, do whatever we need to do to get yards. That’s why I have to work harder.”
Small’s intense training doesn’t pay off just on the offensive side. The hard-hitting safety led the team in tackles last year and earned second-team all-league honors.
“He enjoys tackling,” Flowers said. “He doesn’t shy away from it.”
The way Small looks at it, when he’s playing defense it’s payback time.
“They want to hit me (when I’ve got the ball)?” he said. “Then when I get on defense I hit them harder.”
Small has one other goal in addition to a district playoff berth and gobs more yards: He wants to earn an offer to play in college. A few PSAC schools have kicked the tires but so far none have offered. That only makes Small push harder.
“I know they need to see more from me,” he said, “so that’s why I’m working harder, so I can show them more.”
2025 ‘Starting Lineup’
| Logan Cammauf | Schuylkill Valley | RB/LB | Senior |
| Justice Hardy | Wyomissing | RB/WR/S/CB/KR | Junior |
| Lebron Leaf | Governor Mifflin | QB/LB | Senior |
| Cameron Small | Muhlenberg | RB/S | Senior |
