Brian Langford has never met Mark McDonagh, but he knows exactly what the Riverside Brookfield senior receiver is going through emotionally right now.

After all, it was Langford’s national high school record of 138 catches in a season that McDonagh broke in a 42-0 victory over Elmwood Park on Friday. McDonagh currently has 143 catches in just eight games.

“I knew somebody would break it, but this is pretty early to get that many catches,” Langford said Monday. “For him to get that many touches in a game — and the opposing team is going to be ready for it — for him to still be able to do that, it’s pretty impressive.”

McDonagh, who had just 21 catches last year as a junior, confessed that even he was surprised by his offensive output.

“I wanted to have the best year I could have, but I never thought I would be putting up numbers like this,” the RB senior said. “It’s a little ridiculous.”

It took Langford 14 games to set his record in 2006 as a senior at Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Ark. And it was not until the Class 5A championship game that Langford broke the previous record of 132 receptions set in 1998 by Chris Martin of Nitro, West Virginia.

“If we hadn’t made it to the state championship, I wouldn’t have had anywhere near as many catches,” Langford said. “It was due to my team that I got the record in the first place.”

McDonagh can certainly relate to that. The Bulldogs run an elaborate spread offense that never features a running back and often times has linemen lined up like receivers, instead of on the line of scrimmage. The bulk of the RB offense comes from quick screen passes behind those blockers to McDonagh, who has 1,373 receiving yards on the season. His longest catch of the year so far went for 35 yards.

Langford, who finished with 1,956 receiving yards in 2006, was more of a deep threat, though he also ran his fair share of screens. Despite being 5-foot-10 and 170 pounds, he also never showed fear when running across the middle of the field.

“He was undersized and he was really an overachieving type of player,” said Pulaski Academy coach Kevin Kelley. “He was definitely the working leader of our team, there’s no question of that.

“He was a kid who if you called on him to catch a pass, he would.”

Kelley said Langford’s biggest strength was his route running, the same thing Riverside Brookfield coach Otto Zeman has said about McDonagh all year. But while McDonagh is the main weapon in the Bulldogs’ offense, Langford was just one of several for Pulaski Academy, a team that led the country in offense that season. Among the team’s weapons were quarterback Stephen Loucks, who threw for 5,080 yards, and Broderick Green, who ran for 2,042 yards before going on to the University of Southern California.

In 2009 Green transferred to the University of Arkansas, which is where Langford went as a walk-on following his record-setting season. Langford had other walk-on options, but chose the comfort of his hometown school. After red-shirting his freshman season in 2007, though, Langford decided to give up football for multiple reasons, one of which was a complete overhaul of the Razorbacks coaching staff.

“There wasn’t a single coach left on the staff that recruited me out of high school,” Langford said. “That was tough on me. Also, there were just more things that I found were more important than football.

“I just decided that I would put football behind me.”

McDonagh is not quite ready to do that, though as of now he does not have any scholarship offers. Nevertheless, Langford offered the nation’s new record holder a little bit of advice.

“Explore your options and don’t let comfort be a factor in your decision,” Langford said. “Go somewhere where you really like your coaches, because your coaches are going to make your football experience either really incredible or not much fun.”