After rushing for 2,535 yards and leading his team to the Class AA state championship game, Greensburg Central Catholic running back David Miller surprised many by signing with Seton Hill University to play college football.

For Miller, who scored 42 touchdowns last season for the Centurions, it was the perfect choice.

"Seton Hill wanted me the most," said Miller, a 5-foot-10, 210-pound tailback, who finished his high school career with 4,035 rushing yards in taking his team to a WPIAL title and a berth in the state championship game.

He also was named first team Class AA All-State running back by The Associated Press.

"With some schools, you'll go there and they won't know who you are," said Miller, who set the tone for his senior season by scoring 36 touchdowns as a junior. "It felt like they wanted me, and I thought it was the best fit for me."

Seton Hill's Griffins, members of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division II and the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, had a disappointing 1-10 season in 2009, a year after they went 10-3 and competed for the first time in the NCAA Division II playoffs as the only representative from the WVIAC.

"The plan is to turn it into a great Division II program, and I hope I can help," Miller said.

He's familiar, too, with the Griffins' offense.

"Seton Hill runs a pro-style, running offense," he said. "It looks like I'll be running some of the same plays I was running in high school."

Muzzy Colosimo, Miller's coach at Greensburg Central Catholic, expects big things from him on the college level.

"I think he's a powerful inside runner who has the ability to get outside and break away if he has to," Colosimo said.

Because the Centurions chose to emphasize Miller's abilities, Colosimo had to decide how much action the tailback would see in a game.

"He started playing outside linebacker at the beginning of the year," the coach said. "But when you are a tailback [with the Centurions], you play one way because we run the ball a lot."

Miller typically would carry the ball 35 to 40 times a game, and that worked very well for Colosimo and the Centurions.

The tailback set a school single-game rushing record with 344 yards while scoring five touchdowns against Jeannette in a 49-18 victory over the Jayhawks.

"When you are as confident in your line and your running back as we were, and your running back produces like that, it just makes sense," said Colosimo. "I just gave him the ball, and he took us as far as he took us."

Miller, who plans to major in elementary education and would like to coach football and baseball eventually, had seriously considered St. Francis, an NCAA Division I-AA program, and he was invited to walk-on at Bowling Green of the Division I-A Mid-American Conference.

But the lure of helping a program turn itself around and doing that about 2 miles from where he had stellar seasons at Greensburg Central Catholic were too much for the North Huntington Township resident to pass up.

"My family loves to come to all the games, and this will be even better for them," he said.

Seton Hill plays its games at Offutt Field in downtown Greensburg. Colosimo said life will be different with Miller playing across town for Seton Hill.

"He was a great running back for the last three years and is just a great kid to be around," he said. "He has a great attitude."

The coach got the feeling that many NCAA Division II schools were looking at Miller, and he wanted to keep things simple.

"He wanted to stay as close to home as he could," he said. "He wanted to give his family and friends a chance to see him play."

Colosimo plans to be in the stands at Offutt on game days.

"I missed one home game last year," he said. "Seton Hill will be a great place for David, and I think he'll do as well for them as he did for me."

The training he received at Greensburg Central Catholic will help him at Seton Hill, Miller believes.

"We really worked in the weight room," Miller said. "Anyone who plays at Greensburg Central Catholic [and does well on the high school level] is more than ready to play at the next level because we had great coaching."

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