NIAGARA FALLS — Hit the ground running.

That seems to be the mantra for the Niagara Falls High School football team this year. Wolverines coach Don Bass is hoping the hard work his team puts in now is the start of big things this fall, and those big things start with Dale Stewart.

The lightning-quick Wolverine played quarterback and running back last season, but the senior has moved exclusively to quarterback on offense this year. It’s a move the Falls coaching staff says they have been planning for Stewart all along.

“He knew at the end of the season that was what I was going to do with him,” Wolverines coach Don Bass said. “We gave him all year to kind of process that; let him know that ‘you’re the quarterback now.’”

The move isn’t exactly drastic, but it does give a bigger role to running back Quandry Gray, who will be returning to the team for a second season.

“It will give us a nice one-two punch,” Bass said.

That’s a refreshing statement for Niagara Falls football fans, who saw Stewart carry the load on offense much of last season. Stewart finished last year with 509 yards and eight touchdowns on the ground, and 575 yards passing with three touchdowns. He also ran back two kicks for touchdowns.

“This year I’m going to be balanced,” Stewart said. “Less running and more time in the backfield to give it to my receivers.”

Stewart said playing quarterback requires more analyzing the defense and thinking, but he’s ready to make that leap.

“He’s multifaceted,” Bass said. “He can run, obviously, but he’s turning into quite the accurate quarterback.”

He’s also turning into quite the leader, both on and off the football field. He was one of the team captains that organized 7-on-7 games over the summer, something coach Bass wasn’t aware of until just before camp opened last week.

“That was a surprise to me,” Bass said. “I was talking to one of the kids at school and asked how the summer was going and he said they were doing their 7-on-7 drills. I was like, really? Since I’ve been head coach that’s never happened. To see them get out here and get a head start was good.”

“It’s time to step up,” Stewart said. “We have a good team, but now we have to stay together. If we stay together we have a championship team.”

Bass noted that his defense is much more athletic this year, improving on an already strong unit. One addition to that defense is Stewart himself, who said he will play safety for the team this year.

“I’m going to hit,” said Stewart, who has put on over 20 pounds of muscle in the weight room this summer, hoping to add a few wrinkles to his game.

“I can get around tackles, but I want to run through people,” he said. “I want to show I have that game, too.”

That doesn’t mean he’s slower, though.

“Dale is stronger and faster than he was last year, if you can believe that,” Bass said.

Stewart is “consistently clocked” at 4.4 to 4.43 seconds on the 40-yard dash, but his fastest time this summer was 4.39, Bass said.

“When Dale runs by you, you feel the wind,” Bass added.

With a scholarship offer already on the table from the University at Buffalo and more on the way, the Wolverine quarterback says his focus remains with his team. Of course, it helps to have former Falls standout and current Green Bay Packer James Starks giving out some brotherly advice.

“He just told me to keep my head straight,” Stewart said. “I talk to him every day and the main thing he says is teamwork. It’s not one man on a team; you have to stay together and with hard work and dedication, you can get to where he’s at now.

“That’s where I want to be,” he said.