Upperstate Championship
Lamar- 35 Ridge Spring-Monetta- 14 Lowerstate Championship Baptist Hill- 54 C.E. Murray- 13 Breakdown- After 15 weeks and hundreds of games, we finally have our Class A state championship matchup. I made the drive to Hollywood Friday for the lowerstate title game and my prediction was wrong, my narrative for how the game would play out was wrong…I was wrong and dumb and wrong in every respect. I expected a back-and-forth shootout and brother, there wasn't one. I want to talk about C.E. Murray first, and don’t let any of what I’m about to say detract from what the Bobcats accomplished (I’ll be singing their praises in a minute), but the War Eagles just had a bad night. It started with a couple of drops and a turnover and I don’t know how or why it happens, but plays like that often end up spreading through a team like a bad stomach virus. The end result ends up like a stomach virus too, I guess. C.E. Murray had operated from a wide open, spread offense all year, but unveiled a wishbone attack last week against Hemingway. I thought that was brilliant, since the War Eagles had lost to Hemingway early in the year 56-35. Getting into a shootout with the Tigers seemed like a recipe for DERP and putting the ball in the air a lot against their secondary, which specialized in not only picking off passes but returning them for scores, felt like it would lead to an outcome of DOUBLE DERPITY DOO. They controlled the clock, they minimized errors, they kept it close with a team that hadn’t really had a competitive game all year, their defense played its collective hind end off and they won. On Friday against Baptist Hill, they mixed some spread and some bone and had success early on. After falling behind 6-0 early, they were able to grind out a long, nasty 7-plus minute drive, mostly on the ground to tie it up early in the second. Then they got down 12-6, but were ready to answer quickly on what should have been about a 60-yard touchdown pass. Instead, they got a drop at the goal line, turned it over a few plays later and Baptist Hill scored on the final play of the half. So instead of being tied or having narrow lead, they trailed 20-6 at halftime. I’ve also seen it over and over this year that when a team puts one in the end zone right before the half, the momentum completely carries over. In this case, it carried over in both directions. C.E. Murray had a couple of turnovers in the third and Baptist Hill cashed in on both. It was 40-13, but even after the first score that made it 26-6, the game was pretty much over, because at that point, the wishbone portion of the offense was useless for the War Eagles because the whole slow and steady winning the race thing went out the window. They had to try to get into shootout mode, which is as tough to do against Baptist Hill as against Hemingway, maybe more so. On top of all that, C.E. Murray had a difficult time getting at Baptist Hill QB Corey Fields without blitzing. Even when they got in the backfield, getting him on the ground was a tall task. It wasn’t like trying to grab a greased pig as much as it was like trying to grab a greased pig on roller skates, with rocket boosters and one of those scary spiked balls on a big chain swinging on his front, right hoof. He’s so elusive and so strong…and also such an aware player that he keeps his eyes downfield even on the scramble and makes back-breaking big plays. C.E. Murray also often had players running stride-for-stride with Bobcats receivers, but weren’t able to make plays on the ball in the air. It was a tough night, certainly, but the War Eagles had one of the three best seasons in their history. Coach Chad Wilkes, in his first year as a head coach, went 11-2 and did so while authoring a complete overhaul of the team’s offensive philosophy from the ground-heavy attack of former coach Brian Smith. Wilkes’ staff (a genuinely good group of guys) obviously deserve kudos as well for their contributions in the team making it to the upperstate finals and springing the biggest upset of the year against Hemingway. The great Darius Rush has played his last game as a War Eagle but I’m not expecting a drop-off. This isn’t a flash-in-the-pan success, I believe Smith laid the foundation for C.E. Murray to be a program that competes annually and Wilkes is completely maintaining that. Now, as for Baptist Hill, seeing them in person truly opened my eyes. I read about them every week and see the gaudy numbers they put up, but you can never be certain about the quality of their competition and whatnot. Well, I sat and watched them beat a team I KNOW is good by 41 flippin’ points. Honestly, I’ve never seen an offense like theirs in 1A football before…or much at any level, really. First off, Fields is not a product of a system. This is not a typical high school spread offense that throws 70 bajillion screen passes a game. He is not Dinky McCheckdown. They have some quick hit stuff and screens in their arsenal, but they are primarily a down-the-field, vertical passing team, as evidenced by the fact that they AVERAGE 20 yards per completion. Fields has a strong arm, is amazingly accurate and makes great decisions with the football. Now, they don’t call running plays. At all. I counted three the entire night (one on a counter, one reverse and one draw play near the goal line). Every play call is a pass play and Fields has some freedom to make changes at the line based on the defense. They roll him out a lot and he’s encouraged to tuck it and run if there’s five yards or more to be gained (he had about 80 on the ground Friday), but that’s the extent of their ground attack. I racked my brain trying to think of a comparison in Class A and there isn’t one. Even when Steve Tanneyhill brought a run-and-gun spread attack to Chesterfield, they always had a nice complimentary running game. Throwing it open to anybody in any class, Jed Blackwell from the Herald Journal suggested maybe Byrnes early in Bobby Bentley’s tenure would be a comparison. There aren’t many. Fields doesn’t do it alone. His offensive line isn’t the most physically imposing I’ve seen, but they’re tenacious and give Fields time and space to operate. Richard Bailey is a freaking stud at receiver. Not the biggest guy, but quick, run great routes and makes plays on the ball in the air. They have three guys with more than 40 grabs. Defensively, aside from one shootout with a good St. John’s team, their defense has been outstanding all year. They gave up some yards Friday night, but also forced a ton of turnovers. They are worthy lowerstate champions and their battle with Lamar has the potential to be an epic tilt… Speaking of Lamar, the top-ranked, unbeaten Silver Foxes won Friday 35-13 over a very scrappy Ridge Spring-Monetta team. That score was actually a little closer than I was expecting. According to what I read and from my super secret undercover Lamar informant, the first half looked like the rout I was expecting. Jacquez Lucas had a touchdown run and Tyrik Herion added another. Then you have Rashard Coleman, who I really like and consider one of those sneaky good players. He doesn’t put up huge numbers but he rarely makes mistakes, he runs the offense well and he’s good for a splashy play a time or two a game. Well, he had a long scoring pass and a nice TD run and Lamar was up 29-6 at the half. In the second half, though, Lamar did nothing offensively. Now, maybe with a three score lead in their pocket they decided there was no reason to give whoever they’d be playing anything else to see on tape. Maybe players had a subconscious letting up or maybe, as they did against Lewisville the week before, RS-M made a few schematic tweaks and played better on defense. I do know that the Trojans went with an empty set in the second half and let quarterback Tyson Bettis run around and chunk it a lot. They scored in the third to make it a 29-13 game. Then, in the fourth, they drove inside the Lamar 10. If they score there, it could have been a one-score game and they’d have had all the momentum on their side (just like the previous week in the comeback against Lewisville). Instead, Lucas intercepted Bettis (baited him into throwing it, I was told) and took it 103 yards to the house, which pretty much iced it. That was his third pick of the night. The thing is, if you look at the stats, the game wasn’t competitive at all. RS-M had 145 total yards including 13 on the ground next to Lamar 317 (including 210 rushing). But most of Lamar’s came early. Unproductive halves aren’t going to cut it this week. In a way, I think maybe getting a bit of a test like that will help Lamar this week, since they really were only challenged a time or two all year. Seeing a team with an athletic quarterback go empty and fling it all over the place certainly helped since they’ll see that Friday night…well, they’ll see it on steroids, vitamins, truckstop speed, helium, pure cane sugar etc. In my opinion, there isn’t a better defense in this state than Lamar’s. They’re talented, they’re well-coached, they have the fundamentals (like tackling) down to a T and also they beat the absolutely holy stink right out of you. They have an edge and a physical nature that often gives them an advantage before the game even starts. But can even that defense (combined with an offense that runs the ball well and shortens games) stop Baptist Hill? I can’t wait to find out. Previews to come all week. Suggested reading What do you call that spikey ball thing? I’m sure it has a name other than “spikey ball thing.” Throwing the ball towards Jacquez Lucas seems akin to putting a “kick me hard right here” sign on the front of your pants.
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TravisI am Travis, the king 0f SC 1A Football Archives
November 2021
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