Welcome back to The Deep Post, a notebook/column that dissect the happenings of the week past and ahead. This week’s offering takes an extended dive into the Princeton’s 14-7 win against Beckley, projected playoff ratings and more.
Beckley-Princeton
As the clock was winding down Friday night, Beckley assistant basketball coach Mike Fowlkes came up behind me, exchanged pleasantries and said, “Sometimes you just have the bigger, badder dude.”
The bigger, badder dude was Princeton’s Daniel Jennings, a Penn State commit.
Jennings, who has always lived in the Princeton school district, played at Graham the last two years before transferring back to his home school. And the Princeton coaching staff is glad he did. It’s not a stretch to say Princeton probably loses to Beckley without Jennings. He finished with 250 yards from scrimmage (203 rushing, 47 receiving), scoring both Tiger touchdowns in the 14-7 Princeton victory.
Much of the challenge for Princeton this year has been distributing the ball in a manner that makes all of the skill players and their respective camps happy. That wasn’t much of an issue Friday with Brad Mossor and Marquel Lowe serving their one-game suspensions, forcing the Tigers to funnel everything through Jennings.
Rising tides lift all boats and Jennings is a tsunami.
A coach that watches his film is also seeing Landyn Moore block. They’re seeing Kalum Kiser win pass rush reps. They’re seeing Chance Barker throw the ball. They’re seeing Marquel Lowe and Brad Mossor block on the edge. They’re seeing Lowe attack as a linebacker.
It’s an outlier but Aaron Rodgers started his college career at Butte Community College. He ended up at Cal the next year by chance after Cal head coach Jeff Tedford was scouting Butte tight end Garrett Cross.
“We were looking for a tight end, so I was watching Garrett’s tape and I was really impressed by the quarterback. He jumped off the screen at me as a guy who had a lot of good things going for him,” Tedford told Bleacher Report in 2016.
It happens. That’s a very real example that launched a HOF career.
When Penn State head coach James Franklin stopped by Princeton earlier this year he expressed the difference he’s noticed in Jennings since he’s been in the Princeton program. Maybe that shines a light on some of the other kids coming through the program, and not necessarily at the DI level. Penn State’s a successful program, maybe some of the assistant coaches and graduate assistants that get jobs at smaller schools in the future remember some of the players they saw when breaking down Jennings’ tape.
River Boat Tigers
I was shocked when Princeton kept its offense on the field when facing fourth-and-14 at the Beckley 47.
It was only a 7-0 game in favor of Beckley at that point and there was still 22 minutes left in the game, but the Tigers felt the pressure to produce something. Even more shocking was the gutsy play call – a screen pass that traveled three yards past the line of scrimmage. It was a great design though.
Pre-snap motion across the formation created a three receiver set to the right, forcing Beckley to rotate its secondary back to the three receiver side (the right side of the offense). The screen flowed away from the trips side to the single receiver side (the left), taking more Beckley bodies out of the equation. Beckley sent five on the play with the screen attacking the area vacated by the blitzer.
Video courtesy of JR1 Sports.
It effectively put Jennings in space with a convoy of blockers.
“We’ve seen them run it, and they just caught us off guard,” Beckley head coach Street Sarrett said. “Our linebacker got sucked down inside, and it was just a great play call.”
Sarrett was correct in that he’s seen them run something similar. Two years ago the Tigers used a similar motion when they hosted Beckley, triggering a similar look.
It was a perfect example of knowing the opposing defense’s rules and tendencies and using them against them.
I talked with Princeton offensive coordinator Chris Belcher after the game and he said Friday’s exact screen isn’t one he’s called this season, but one they practiced all week. Jennings, the recipient of the well-lofted pass, scored on the play, changing the entire complexion of the game. Even he was surprised after the game that it was called in that spot.
“We’ve been working on that play for a couple weeks now,” Princeton head coach Keith Taylor said. “Haven’t had an opportunity to really show anything, because we’ve been kind of vanilla. We knew that if we were able to get the snap, get the ball to where we need to get it to, they were going to bring some pressure because their defensive coordinator does a great job bringing pressure. But we knew he was going to bring some pressure off the edge there. Coach Belcher, he’s the guy that pulls rabbits out of his hat all the time. We knew if Daniel caught it we were going to house it. If you saw 55 there, he was real close to getting his hands on it but it was a perfect ball by Chance (Barker). I think that was the turning point in the game, because we’re having a hard time finding our footing at all offensively. But we stepped up and made a great play.”
Princeton’s screen game has been the best in the area for several years now. It’s been an easy button for an offense that’s maximized the talent and athleticism on the roster over the last five years. It came through again in one of the biggest plays of the year for the Tigers.
Box Score Barker
Statistically Friday was the worst performance of Princeton QB’s Chance Barker’s career. He posted career lows in completions (5), yards (72), touchdown passes (1) and completion percentage (50 percent) in games he started. That speaks more to his remarkable consistency throughout his career.
I also believe Beckley did a good job making him uncomfortable.
That said, Barker did what he was supposed to for the most part. Beckley’s secondary has hawked eight interceptions this year and with the Tigers missing Mossor and Lowe, success to the extent Princeton has experienced in the passing game was always unlikely. Peyton Manning broke nearly every single-season passing record in the NFL in 2013 and saw his offense dismantled in Super Bowl 48 by Seattle’s Legion of Boom. Sometimes the other guys are pretty good too, as is the case with Beckley. But what stood out to me was that he didn’t lose the game.
It’s difficult for a player of Barker’s caliber to be a game-manager but he executed that role and his team won the turnover battle. It was almost a perfect juxtaposition as Beckley turned the ball over three times in a one-score game. And there lies the most important difference Barker made Friday. Errant snaps have been a reoccurring problem and I counted at least five that were either high or completely over Barker’s head. He fell on or corralled all of them. Those go down as negative plays in the box score but each one he saved was a short field his defense didn’t have to contend against.
Those plays are the difference in a tight one-score game.
The objective for Princeton was to survive and Barker played his role in that.
Princeton Pressure Cooker cans Beckley offense
It’s one thing to say you want to dominate the time of possession and control the ball and another to actually execute. Beckley did that almost flawlessly, running 31 plays on its first two drives, getting to the goal line on both possessions. The Flying Eagles possessed the ball for nearly 17 of the first 19 minutes of the game, allowing Princeton just six plays on offense. It was an incredible game plan and the only other teams I’ve witnessed execute to that level are Bridgeport and Summers County in 2019.
That said Princeton’s defense put together an incredible effort.
They made a goal-line stand early and came away with three interceptions in obvious passing situations (second-and-16, third-and-7 and fourth-and-6). The second-half effort in particular was stellar as the Beckley offense ran just over half as many plays in the second half (19) as it did in the first (35). The average distance needed to gain on third down in the second half for Beckley was 10.2. In the first half it was 4.2.
The Flying Eagles were 0-for-5 on third down conversions in the second half and 0-for-2 on fourth down after going a combined 6-for-9 on those downs in the first half. It spoke volumes about Princeton’s ability to win on early downs and get Beckley out of its comfort zone and behind the chains.
It’s more manageable to run on third down, gain some positive yardage for a potential fourth-and-short attempt as opposed to taking to the air on third-and-long, coming up empty and punting the ball.
Projected Ratings
It’s that time of the year where playoff ratings start to really mean something. There are only three weeks left in the regular season and while the official ratings don’t come out until Tuesday, the system in place at WV Tailgate Central has accurately projected the ratings each week. After Saturday’s results here’s where area teams currently in the playoff field stand. A reminder the top 16 teams in each class make the playoffs. The top eight host in the first round.
Class A – River View (No. 6), Meadow Bridge (No. 15)
Class AA – Independence (No. 4), Bluefield (No. 8), Westside (No. 9), James Monroe (No. 14)
Class AAA – Princeton (No. 2), Oak Hill (No. 5), Shady Spring (No. 15)
Class AAAA – Beckley (No. 10)
Some brief thoughts.
Princeton sits at No. 2 despite playing one less game than Bridgeport and Fairmont Senior (both 8-0). Fairmont and Bridgeport play each other in two weeks so provided the Tigers win out they’ll host throughout the playoffs as long as they’re alive.
Independence and Bluefield sitting in position to host playoff games speaks to the schedules they’ve played. It doesn’t get any easier as Independence hosts Princeton next week and Bluefield welcomes Oak Hill.
Oak Hill has a chance to solidify a home playoff game in the final three weeks but it won’t be easy. The Red Devils close with Bluefield and a pair of Class AAAA teams in Beckley and University.
Game Balls
- Brock Green, Independence – Green threw for 281 yards in a win over Mingo Central. It’s Green’s third 200-yard passing game of the season.
- Layton Dowdy, James Monroe – Dowdy threw three touchdown passes and rushed for another in a half of work against Midland Trail.
- Westside’s Offense – Westside led just 28-22 near the end of the first half. A hook and lateral at the end of the half kicked off a stretch that saw the Renegades score the last 20 points of the game to put it away.
- Coleton Hellems, Nicholas County – Hellems completed 6-of-7 passes for 113 yards and a touchdown in a huge win for Nicholas County that puts the Grizzlies in position to host a playoff game.
- Carson Treadway, Oak Hill – Treadway scored the winning touchdown in overtime as Oak Hill won 19-13 at Buckhannon-Upshur.
Program Promotion
Aesthetic has become an important part of high school programs. As one veteran coach told me, “Some kids are more worried about if we’re getting new uniforms this year before anything else.”
Look good, play good.
In promotion of the new helmets it debuted, Westside teased its new uniform combo ahead of Friday’s game.
In the age where you have to appeal to student athletes to keep them, doing teasers like this feels simple but it’s a must. Promoting your program is paramount. Parkersburg South does an excellent job posting what uniform combinations it will be wearing each week. That’s an awesome idea and takes little effort.
There are so many good uniform and helmet combos out there. Make a social media post on your team’s Facebook page to promote them each week. They’re expensive so it only makes sense to get your money’s worth.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
