Lamar (6-1) at Southside Christian (8-0)
Honestly, a blind, limbless marmot could have picked this as the upperstate final. I’m not sure how he’d go about indicating such, what with not having eyes or legs or the ability to speak in a language we can understand, but it was pretty obvious is my point. Blackville-Hilda was in the mix too, but these were the two best upperstate 1A teams pretty much from the jump this year. Lamar advanced last week with a 52-28 win over Wagener-Salley. That represented some sweet, delicious revenge for the Silver Foxes, who were eliminated by the Chitlinburg All-Stars in the third round of the playoffs last year. It was actually tied 14-14 at the half, but Lamar exploded in the third quarter. McManus threw for 212 yards hitting long touchdown passes to T.J. Dolford and Derrick Higgins. Dolford plays some RB and some WR and last week looked very much like a scary rocket/robot/dragon mashup sent from the future to demoralize opposing school children and sap their desire to compete in athletics. Was that dark? It seemed a tad dark. But he had 230 total yards of offense, so I think you see what I’m getting at. Here’s the thing, though, you look at the numbers McManus posted and figure they threw it a lot, but he attempted only 10 passes and completed five. If you’ll remember, against Williston-Elko the week before, he threw for 200-some yards but nearly every yard was accounted for via scoring passes. Chad Wilkes has installed a spread, but they run out of it a lot. When they do throw, they exploit mismatches and make huge plays down the field. Higgins and Dolford are electric players that can go the distance whenever they touch the ball. Lamar can also get in a bone and just plain old maul you with a power running game. It’s sort of like they announce “Hi, we’re here to diddle your soul…would you prefer we beat you in the face with a brick or stick lit explosives in your tooter?” If you’ve got a defensive weakness, they can exploit it and Wilkes has a real knack for doing just that. The O line features a future Coastal Carolina Chanticleer at LT and four other blocks of granite besides. They’ve given up some points and they’ve been in a shootout or two, but the defense is solid for the most part. Southside Christian actually got a full, four-quarter challenge for maybe the first time all year last week but came away with an impressive 24-7 win over previously unbeaten Blackville-Hilda. The Sabres were extremely run-heavy for the second-straight playoff game, only throwing for a handful of yards but plowing a good B-H defense for 320 on the ground. QB Ja’Corey Martin led the way again, going for 144. Don’t mistake those numbers to mean they CAN’T throw the ball. They certainly can and have when they’ve needed to this year, but they have been able to overwhelm their last two opponents in the run game. The really attention-grabbing aspect of the game was how well their defense played. They limited B-H to 198 total yards and well under 100 on the ground. B-H was more “very good” than “holy crap” on offense this year, but that is still impressive and they did it in large part with a D line that blew up almost everything B-H tried to do and contained Adonis Davis, which is no small achievement. This is a tough one to pick. If you’ve read this BLAWG at all over time, you probably know where my personal feelings lie when it comes to “small town team vs. private school.” But this is about honestly comparing the combatants and proffering a legit guess on the outcome. I might give Lamar a SLIGHT edge offensively. They can do anything they want thanks to that O line and good skill people. Little more big-play zip, but the Sabres are good up front too, Martin has run like a man possessed the past two weeks and they can toss it efficiently. I don’t think they’ll be quite so one-dimensional as they’ve been able to be the past two weeks. I probably give Southside Christian the edge defensively. With the exception of McCormick running for some big yards in an early-season game, they just haven’t given up much of anything. That and the kicking game probably decide this one by a narrow margin. Let’s not forget that until they ran into the red-hot eventual champion Saluda Tigers last year, the Sabres were a pretty real threat to win the AA title. And there are, to be frank, some built-in advantages beyond just playing at home at play here. My heart says something different but my big, dumb head says… The winner- Southside Christian. Bamberg-Ehrhardt (8-0) at Lake View (7-0) Another one that poor marmot that’s lived such a rough life might could have picked out. B-E was a force in AA last year, so it’s not a shock that they’re playing for the lowerstate title. Last week they survived a tough challenge from Whale Branch but hung on for an 18-15 win. As an aside, I’d like to state how glad I am to have Whale Branch on out of the bracket. I don’t have anything against them per se, but I’m 9-3 picking 1A playoff games this year and they are responsible for two of those misses…because really, isn’t me being right the real point of all this? Once again, QB Treyton Still almost entirely carried the offense, throwing a 37-yard touchdown pass to Frank Hyland and running for a 65-yard score. The team’s other TD came via a punt return. As I’ve mentioned, I saw B-E in person this year against Great Falls. Basically, there is very little they do that leads to pants-poopin’ excitement. Good line, good QB who throws it and runs it pretty well. Good D line that holds its ground…the one exception is at LB, where they have next-level speed. On the rare occasion there is a crease or opening, they close on it like flies on stink. But, like, really athletic flies that spend their entire 36-hour life cycle running sprints in weight vests. They allowed ONE FLIPPIN’ SCORE in the regular season, but have yielded a bit more (though still not a ton) in two playoff games. They don’t make many mistakes, they are well-coached and they don’t beat themselves. My question is what has become of their RBs? They had a couple of good ones the night I saw them and through the regular season. In two playoff games, Still has pretty much had to carry the load entirely on his own. That almost wasn’t enough to beat a hot Whale Branch team. Lake View got a stiff challenge from a Carvers Bay team that had an outstanding year. It was 30-22, and Carvers Bay was throwing in the end zone as time expired with a shot to tie it. The thing about the Wild Gators is how many studs they have that can rip you to pieces. Last week it was Ja’Coreus Ford who logged TD runs for 61, 38 and 10 yards. But it could be Trey Page or Michael McInnis or Adarrian Dawkins or D.J. Bethea. Defensively, they’ve been good all year and put up solid numbers despite facing some really good offenses. This game is going to be tight and probably relatively low-scoring. Bamberg-Ehrhardt is too good defensively to get run off the field. However, Lake View has SOOOO many offensive weapons that I don’t believe even a good defense can completely contain them. I also think that Lake View’s defense is up to the task of stopping (or slowing significantly) an efficient if unspectacular offense that has increasingly leaned on one player in the playoffs. The winner- Lake View
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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