October 11: The Scott County Game

The beginning of this morning's WLIL High School Football Report began with a playback of the previous night's game broadcast.

Russell Mayes: ...is wide open down the field. Here's the throw...its gonna be (inaudible section of tape)GIVE HIM SIX, TOUCHDOWN BIG RED - JAKE BRANTLEY!!

Randall Thomason: Wow! What a play that was. That was on a bootleg to the left (inaudible section of tape)...play action fake to the middle, [he] threw a perfect pass to Brantley. The Scott defender just kind of tantilizingly went up for it. It was just beyond his fingertips. It falls right in Brantley's breadbasket. He just kind of falls over into the endzone for the Redskins' second touchdown of the quarter.

Russell Mayes: And that's how it sounded last night as the Loudon Redskins went on to knock off the Scott Highlanders 35 to 32 in homecoming 2003 at Dukes Field. Welcome back to the WLIL Saturday Morning High School Football Report; and, at this time, we are joined by the head coach of the Loudon Redskins Jeff Harig; and Coach Harig, good morning.

Jeff Harig: Good morning.

Mayes: And I know for you it certainly has to be good to go back to work on Saturday morning after a win.

Harig: It sure was. Its been a long time it feels like. When you lose five in a row, you start to question things you're doing; and the kids get down; and it was good for them to be able to celebrate a win last night.

Mayes: And especially the kind of win it was where the Redskins really had to fight hard all night. It was really a gutsy effort to get that win.

Harig: This bunch...they're not going to take things the easy way. They're going to make things hard on themselves. Our two wins this year have been very, very close games that we've pulled out in the fourth quarter. Its always nice to end with a win, but it would be nice to get one easy.

Mayes: This was a rather odd football game. It was really a tale of two halves. The track meet in the first half, as there were eight touchdowns scored. Then in the second half it really turns into a defensive struggle. Tell us a little bit about that.

Harig: Well, I think there were two reasons for that: both teams are pretty well coached, and I think both teams made adjustments. But a lot of kids played both ways on both teams. I think that as the game went on, conditioning became a factor. It wasn't looking very good there towards the end as far as the way both teams were executing.

Mayes: The game got off for the Redskins with another bad start because Scott drives right down the field - nine plays, 87 yards - for the first touchdown of the game on a twenty-seven yard touchdown run by Jordan Jeffers. We talked on Thursday in our visit about how important it was going to be for the Redskins to get off to a good start; and, once again, the other team gets the ball and scores first.

Harig: Once again our kids responded. Maybe its not as important to get off to a good start as I think it is. But they really hurt our pride right there because they ran it right at us, and we didn't do much to stop them. To our kids credit, they responded and stepped up and kept playing and turned the game around.

Mayes: And that's been the case, I believe, in most of these games where the other teams have scored first - the Redskins have been able to fight back. And that was the case last night as Chris Hutchens had a five yard touchdown run. An eleven-play, forty-seven yard drive for the Redskins, taking some time off the clock, and you're back in the ball game 6 to 6. And I know that had to be a big momentum shift.

Harig: It was because I thought we were going to be in trouble physically with the way they handed it to us on the defensive side of the ball. But our offense came out and executed, and they executed all night. They really did a good job. Coach Stamey and Coach Brown, Coach Mackintosh and Coach Roberts have really got that offense clicking right now, and they're doing a good job.

Mayes: We kind of had a feeling in the ball game that when you have a game where the ball is just running up and down the field, that turnovers were going to be a key; and there was certainly a key turnover in the first quarter, as right after Loudon's first touchdown, Scott gets it; they fumble it; and then the Redskins strike quickly with the touchdown pass from Fritts to Brantley. That was another big momentum shift.

Harig: That really was, and that really turned the game around because it put us up a score there. That was a big, big turnover; and it was a nice tackle by Adam Russell. And then he got back on the ball; and then, on the ensuing offensive play, it was passed by Cody Fritts to Jake, and he had two guys open deep. It so happened that the ball went to Jake. It was a nice execution.

Mayes: But as the pattern of the game was, Scott is able to fight back as then Wesley Smith for Scott gets on a roll. We heard all week about Jordan Jeffers and knew what kind of a player he would be. He had a good game, but big Wesley Smith had a big night also for Scott.

Harig: He sure did. He really impressed me. On film, you knew he was a pretty good back, but he showed some speed that I didn't think he had. To his credit, he made some nice runs, but we didn't execute very well defensively. They were running right at us, and we took some things on with the wrong shoulders. A weakness of our defense is right up the middle, once you break the initial line of scrimmage. They exposed us with that weakness.

Mayes: So you go into the halftime locker room ahead 28 to 25 after Smith scores three touchdowns. But Patric Johnson gets two touchdowns, the last one with thirty seconds left in the half. You go into halftime witht the lead. I know that had to be a good feeling.

Harig: It was a good feeling. I thought we responded. Every time they did something we responded back. You knew that was probably going to contiue, but the team that made the least amount of mistakes was going to be the team that won. Fortunately, we didn't turn the ball over, and it worked out to our benefit.

Mayes: And another key for the Redskins: Loudon scores right before halftime. You get the ball first; you drive down the field very quickly, six plays and sixty-one yards. You get a thirty-three yard run by Jake Brantley. Now you have a ten point lead in the game.

Harig: The offense had great balance last night. We had two backs rush for over ninety yards. Cody threw for over a hundred. You're difficult to stop when you have that kind of balance.

Mayes: And then another key turnover as Scott throws an interception, and then really what I thought was the backbreaker for Scott in the football game was the drive that Loudon had, about a seven or eight minute drive. The Redskins didn't score, but it really turned the ballgame into a field-positon, time-oriented game. That's a credit to you and your staff because that's something you've really been working on - milking the clock, running the clock; and that really shortened the game down to where Scott was going to have a hard time getting anything going.

Harig: With the way our defense is playing right now, we feel the strength of our team is our offense. If we can keep the ball as long as possible, then that's what we're going to do. We're going to try and shorten the game, and right there we drove the ball for eight minutes. It would have been nice to get it down there and get some points on the board [so that] we could have put them away right there. But we shortened the game and made it a twelve minute game; and when you're up two scores with twelve minutes to go, if you can stay away from the big play and make the team have to drive on you - to get two scores is going to be a challenge.

Mayes: Scott gets a touchdown, finally, with 2:32 remaining in the game on a run by Jeffers. So that makes it a three-point game. What was the mood of the sideline at that point?

Harig: Well, we had the ball with 2:30 to go. If we just got one first down, make them use their timeouts, get one first down, then the game would be over. That was our focus - four plays to get ten yards. Luckily, we went out there and executed.

Mayes: Well, and you come away with the victory 35 to 32. This was the first regional win of the year, and really we've talked about how its a four-week stretch of games like playoff games just to make it into the playoffs. So week one is concluded, and I know it has to be a good feeling to get that win under your belt and get ready to go to Kingston.

Harig: It is. We needed to get something positive going around here. I think this will hopefully kickstart us to bigger and better things.

Mayes: You've had a chance to look at the film this morning. Tell us about some of the players that had outstanding nights for the Redskins.

Harig: Defensively, Josh McQueen had a great game. He was all over the field, had several tackles. A young guy who's been getting some action, Clay Matlock, had a pretty good ball game getting all over the field. Matthew Packett played well for us up front. Offensively, I thought our running backs really did a good job, not only running the football; but our running backs did a good job of executing their blocks. I thought our quarterback really, really stepped up this week. He had some real nice...throwing the football. We had one play in the fourth quarter where we had an uncovered receiver, and he took the ball and threw it to him right quick before they could get adjusted; and for us that's a big step especially for a Sophmore. We put in the option this week, and I thought he executed that fairly well too.

Mayes: And that worked well for the Redskins last night. That was a little bit of a new wrinkle; and we'll probably have a chance to talk with Coach Roberts a little bit more about that. Now you go to Kingston. This is almost the same situation that the Redskins were in last year. Last year Kingston pretty easily handled the Redskins. What do you do this week to get your team ready for Kingston and just hope that that doesn't happen again this year?

Harig: We're going to have to do a gut check again. On some occasions on some positions we're getting handled physically. That's not acceptable. At this point in the season, this has been kind of a trend that's developed. People are going to have to step up, or we're going to go with the next guy. Kingston is going to run right at us, they're going to challenge our toughness on every play. They've got a real big tailback, a Sophmore #34. They're probably going to give him the ball twenty or thirty times. Its going to be up to us to stop him defensively. On our side of the ball, on the offensive side of the ball matching up to their defense, they run to the ball, they do some stunts and things. We're just going to have to block our rules, take short steps so we don't overrun people and execute, and I think we can win this ballgame, but its going to take a great effort.

Mayes: Well coach, there's nothing better to get the weekend started off with than a victory. Congratulations on the win over Scott and best of luck next week against Kingston.

Harig: Russell, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Mayes: Thank you coach. And I think we'll have Coach Ronnie Roberts join us now......