Week 8 is in the books meaning three more to go before a portion of the area schools move onto basketball season.
Where are the gaudy rushing numbers?
Let’s have a moment of silence for the running back position which has seen its production dip around the area this year. I used to complain about how little area teams threw the ball. I’ve come to realize passing is the difference between a game ending at 9:30 or 10:30. Most of the games I’ve covered this year have fallen into the category of the latter.
Why is that?
Because running back production as a whole is down across the area this season compared years past.
Though unofficial stats have yet to be tallied, we’re three weeks away from the postseason and not a single area team has a player over 1,000 yards rushing. Last season nine different players crossed the 1,000-yard mark while five finished above 1,400.
I looked back at last season and through Week 8 three different players had over 1,000 yards rushing. As it stands Marquel Lowe (Princeton) is the closest in the area and he’s about 10 yards short. It looks like it will be Week 9 before the first area player breaks that threshold but why are the numbers down?
There are two reasons.
Coming into the week two quarterbacks – Brandan Isaac (Summers County) and Chance Barker (Princeton) – were already over 1,000 yards passing with Kadien Vance (Westside) and Brody Hamric (Greenbrier East) joining them after their performances on Friday. Brady Green, had he not suffered a season-ending injury two weeks ago against Greenbrier West, would probably be over that threshold as well.
Even the QBs that aren’t piling up passing yards are still putting up efficient scoring numbers. Greenbrier West QB Cole Vandall has the single-season passing touchdown record with 17 scoring strikes to just three interceptions and will be shade under 1,000 yards when stats are finalized this weekend. Montcalm’s Jaylen Younger has 12 touchdown passes and Beckley’s Devin Richardson has 11.
The shift to passing-oriented attacks is notable but there’s also another factor at play – coaches aren’t relying on just one back to carry their offense. Independence’s Trey Bowers and Tyler Linksweiler have over 700 yards rushing each with Connor Bradford registering north of 400. Greenbrier West has had nearly 20 players register a carry this season. Summers County, a team that rosters 25 players, has four players with over 300 yards rushing.
When Independence coach John H. Lilly heard the number of rushing attempts Judah Price (41) had immediately after the Patriots playoff win against Bluefield last season he shook his head and said “That’s too many attempts in one game and half as many as he had the season before.”
Coaches are more aware than ever that they don’t have to have just one guy carry the load and it’s likely the culprit for the statistical dips.
Class AAA enters the limelight
When the playoff ratings dropped Tuesday there was a notable absence – every area Class AA school. That’s right, if the playoffs started last Tuesday we wouldn’t have any area qualifiers. Bluefield, Independence and Shady Spring sat at 19, 20 and 21, respectively. That will likely change when the dust settles on Nov. 4 and the seeds are finalized.
What is does bring to light is just how far the area AAA teams have come. Lets rewind to 2017.
Beckley finished 1-9, Greenbrier East was 2-8, Princeton was 1-9 and Oak Hill finished 5-5 in double-A. East and Oak Hill (still in Class AA) made the playoffs the following year but the other two combined for just four wins.
Fast forward to this year where Princeton, Oak Hill and Beckley are all seemingly playoff bound which would mark the second time in three years three Class AAA teams would make the postseason, the last coming in 2021.
Winning or even being competitive in the state’s highest classification is difficult when enrollment ranges from 900 students to over 1,800 so the success is noteworthy.
Gold StarsÂ
Trey Bowers, Independence – Bowers seems to be thriving since he was replaced at QB. He rushed for over 100 yards in a win against Man and now has a 100-yard receiving and a 100-yard rushing performance as a skill player.
Dom Collins, Princeton – A week after breaking the career touchdown record (as a wide receiver at a school that’s been playing football since 1924), Collins broke the single-season receiving yards record he established last year. He needs two more touchdown receptions to break that single-season record of 19, again a record he established last season.
The James Monroe Defense – A shutout win and three interceptions against a Midland Trail team that will be on the playoff bubble is impressive.
Gavin Davis, Shady Spring – Reaching the 240 yard mark again this season would be a tough ask. So Davis instead rushed for six touchdowns Friday night. The 231 yards weren’t a bad consolation either.
The Phillies – I said in last week’s column they’d send the Braves packing. I’ll take my victory lap now.
Melissa Goodson – This generation knows her as Cyrus and Atticus’ mom. But Goodson, formerly Grose, was a star athlete in her playing days. She’s in the Beckley girls basketball HOF and was inducted into the Concord University HOF on Saturday after a stellar softball and basketball career in Athens. Cyrus is going to have a difficult time justifying his argument for best athlete in the family moving forward.
Cole Vandall, Greenbrier West – West has a proud football tradition. Just look at the field house in Charmco where they’re running out of room to put the signs showcasing the program’s accomplishments. That said Vandall made history. His 280 yards passing on Friday were a single-game record and the 17 touchdown passes are a single-season record.
Summers County – The Bobcats are getting hot at the right time. Their offense scored 10 touchdowns in a win over Meadow Bridge. Four different players caught a touchdown pass, building upon that trend of sharing the wealth.
Closing ThoughtsÂ
I’m going to preface this section by acknowledging I am a huge Taylor Swift fan. I’ve been to three of her shows on three different tours dating back to 2015. I’ve seen her in venues that hold 20,000 fans and ones that hold 71,000 fans.
Even with those blinders I can’t recall a pop culture movement in my lifetime (born in 1994) that rivals what Swift is doing and we should enjoy history in the making.
Her Eras Tour kicked off in March and dominated the news cycle throughout its first North American leg which concluded in early August. This week the coverage picked up where it left off with the opening weekend of her concert movie of the tour and I had the chance to watch it Saturday. While it wasn’t a live show from the tour it was great experience for those that attended the tour and those that didn’t. My wife and I attended the April 29 show in Atlanta and it was the most incredible concert experience I’ve been a part of and that includes Kiss, Def Leppard, Aerosmith, The Weeknd, Fall Out Boy, Maroon 5, Carolina Rebellion, etc.
It was hard to fathom exactly what was happening that night but while watching the movie and seeing the camera pan to Swift’s point of view of the crowd I was provided with the perfect visualization of just how big the event was as 60,000-plus people sang the lyrics back to her. Even in the theater there were people singing, dancing and applauding in ways that surprisingly didn’t take away from the experience. It’s unlikely most of the people in that theater saw her on the Eras Tour, after all tickets were extremely difficult to get at face value (we waited in an online queue for six hours before getting ours) and resale tickets generally started at around $800 and went north from there.
That didn’t matter to the people in that theater that acted as though she could hear their applause. What we’re seeing unfold with Swift is special. For a contingent it’s overwhelming and they don’t quite understand it but just enjoy it. We’re living through one of the most incredible moments in pop culture history.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
