Welcome beak to The Deep Post, a weekly column-notebook detailing the events of the week past and ahead.
Week 1 is officially in the books and it yielded more questions than answers for many area teams. Fortunately there are 10 more weeks to go before the playoffs arrive.
Opening Drive
Thursday was ripe with excitement until the skies opened and put a damper on the evening. Princeton-Capital, Herbert Hoover-Independence and PikeView-Summers County weren’t completed until the early hours of Friday morning as most kickoffs were delayed until nearly 10 p.m.
In most instances the games were delayed by at least two hours and fatigue seemingly set in.
For Independence the defense struggled to slow down Herbert Hoover in the second half, yielding 30 points to the Huskies after leading 23-7 at the break. Hoover mostly took to the ground, racking up over 270 yards mostly courtesy of Blake Fisher and Dane Hatfield.
It became evident as the game commenced that Independence’s defense wore down, which is to be expected. It’s hard to expect any defense to be fully game-conditioned at this point, especially as plays pile up. It’s worth mentioning that one of the Patriots’ scores came courtesy of a long interception return, meaning the defense didn’t even get much off a breather when Indy did score.
Conditioned and game-conditioned are two different things. It’s one thing to run five laps around a track without any resistance. It’s another to break up a pass 30 yards down the field, run back up field and take on the block of a 240-pound lineman in an attempt to make a tackle, all within a 40-second span.
There’s also the exhaustion aspect. Normally Indy would’ve been back on the bus heading home by the time the second half started. Hoover is a good team but Indy’s schedule is loaded with good teams. It’ll be worth monitoring how Indy handles these situations throughout the season when the defense needs to close the game.
On the offensive side I’m curious to see how Sylas Nelson’s role evolves. Head coach John H. Lilly was adamant the offense would run through him and it mostly did, but strictly as a runner. He ran the ball 23 times for 103 yards and a score but what stood out to me were the ball skills he displayed and flashed last year as a receiver.
They were on display again on defense as he jumped a receiver screen and returned it 83 yards for a touchdown. Christian Linksweiler added a dynamic threat in the passing game, hauling in three passes for 72 yards and a touchdown but there’s a world where Nelson takes on more of receiver role to give the Patriots two dynamic options in the passing game. I suspect Thursday’s load came down to Indy’s coaches not wanting to put too much on freshman QB Brock Green’s plate, but I thought he played well, especially given the environment. That’s worth mentioning as the other area freshman QBs that started in Week 1 struggled. Green completed 9 of 13 passes and his lone interception came on a fourth-and-8 at the end of the game.
Defending a good QB and two talented receivers is extremely difficult, especially in a smaller Class AA.
Nelson’s role at running back may have as much to do with depth at the position. Only he and Green registered carries in the game which comes as a surprise considering he plays both ways. If Indy can afford to use him more as a receiver I can see the offense carrying it through a difficult schedule.
Unforced errorsÂ
Penalties are pretty common in Week 1. Indy was hammered 12 times for 80 yards, Princeton committed 15 that cost it 106 yards and Graham committed 12 that subtracted 105 yards. When the bullets are flying it can take time to get the timing of blocks down without holding.
That said, unsportsmanlike conduct penalties and bone-headed mistakes. Princeton was hit with a pair of off-setting unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, one before the game even started. The Tigers were involved in a pair of skirmishes with Capital before the game even kicked off, leading to the first penalty with the next coming in the second half.
The same happened last year when Princeton hosted Hurricane as tempers flared before the game even kicked off.
Two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on a player lead to ejection. An ejection comes with a one-game suspension in football. There’s no reason to continuously push those buttons and tempt fate. Princeton has legitimate title aspirations and it will need its best players to reach that peak. How Capital contributed to those penalties is unclear, but it doesn’t matter. In those situations the Tigers have a choice. What happens if they lose a key player to penalties in the game at Oak Hill or at Winfield – both games that will have major impacts on the Class AAA playoff picture? Great teams don’t bring officials into play to decide or impact a game that heavily.
I don’t mind reasonable showboating or celebrating but these penalties weren’t products of actions like those.
If Princeton wants to be great, it has to clean up the unnecessary mistakes. A rivalry game against Bluefield will be a good test to see how the Tigers adjust.
Bluefield Blues
I’ve seen Bluefield’s offense struggle to score at times. Watching it struggle the way it did Friday against Graham, failing to once cross the G-Men 40, was jarring.
That said, it’s not entirely a shock.
Willis Wilson (21), JoJo Campbell (25), Jeff King (15), Ty Patton (18) and Kisean Smith (7) had a combined total of 86 touches on offense in 10 games last season. Smith had 16 in 2022 and King had one that season.
Those five players carried most of the workload for the Beavers Friday, accounting for 24 touches.
Cramps and injuries played a factor in those struggles but the fact is this is an extremely inexperienced Bluefield offense. The line is laced with talented veterans but the skill players are still relatively green. That extended to the quarterback position where the Beavers rolled out 14-year-old freshman Mattox Simpson. I double-checked and that’s the first time Bluefield’s ever started a freshman at QB in Week 1. Former offensive coordinator Fritz Simon says he only once started a sophomore.
Simpson didn’t play well, but the heavy criticism he’s received on social media is shocking considering he’s just a kid who had the unenviable task of making his first start as a freshman in one of the biggest atmospheres he’ll ever play in. Bluefield could play in the state championship game in each of the next four years and those atmospheres wouldn’t come close to one he played in Friday.
If the outcome of the game could sway you enough to harshly critique a 14-year-old, imagine how he felt with the bullets flying.
I also noticed criticisms of the play calling, and that’s nothing unusual. I thought the coaching staff tried to settle Simpson in early with short passes to backs leaking out of the backfield but they fell incomplete. I noticed the complaints of Bluefield running an outdated offense and it’s true, the full house looks are uncommon in the age of the spread but sequencing matters in football.
If Bluefield isn’t getting easy completions, it can’t afford to waste plays. A run-heavy offense in a game like Friday’s requires a team to stay on track, ahead of the sticks. Getting into third-and-long situations is extremely unfavorable to that offensive approach but it’s what had the most success. And up until the final five minutes, it was a 3-0 game with Bluefield needing just one play to go its way to turn the tide.
WVU football coach Neal Brown noted that they couldn’t use as much motion as he wanted against Penn State because there were miscommunications and turnovers that came as a result of when they tried it early. They had to scrap it. Similarly the passing game wasn’t clicking for Bluefield so it had to lean on what was moving the ball.
For as bad as Bluefield’s offense looked, its defense looked elite. The secondary looked in sync on deep pass plays, the linebackers helped clamp Graham’s running game and the defensive line was a terror. Defensive lineman Jaden Francisco had the best performance out of any player I noticed last week of the three games I had a chance to view. He continuously brought pressure off the edge, made plays in the run game and forced Graham’s run game to move horizontally while his teammates rallied. If he can play with that type of motor all season long and Bluefield can get to the postseason and make a deep run, he’ll be in the thick of the Stydahar Award conversation.
That said, Bluefield gets its toughest challenge of the regular season Friday when it hosts a Princeton team fresh off a Class AAA state runner-up finish.
Game Balls
- Tyson Adkins, Summers County – After Ryan Oliveros told Summers County head coach Justin Pugh he was quitting just days before the opener against PikeView, Adkins stepped up to the plate and carried the Bobcat offense to a win.
- Marquel Lowe, Princeton – Lowe officially found the end zone three times Friday. Unofficially he scored six times with three scores coming back on penalties.
- The Beckley Defense – The Flying Eagles forced three turnovers and allowed just three points on 20 red zone plays.
- Kadien Vance, Westside – Vance earned Week 1 Player of the Week honors with five touchdown passes to go along with two touchdown runs. He did all of that in one half.
- Brody Hamric and Nate Suttle, Greenbrier East – Down 20-16 with just over two minutes to go, the two hooked up for a 64-yard score that delivered East a 24-20 victory over Riverside.
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Final ThoughtsÂ
Don’t put too much stock in Week 1.
Bluefield started 0-4 in 2022 before making the playoffs. There it lost 20-12 to eventual state champion Independence and was the only team to play within a score of the Patriots that season. Independence started 2-3 last year and rebounded for a semifinal run. Beckley started 5-1 last year and missed the playoffs. The Flying Eagles were also 2-5 to start 2021 before rebounding to earn their first playoff berth since 2014. Liberty lost 47-0 against Independence in 2021 before making a run to the playoffs.
There are plenty of examples that indicate there’s no reason to overreact. In fact it’s why I prefer to see teams load the front end of their schedule up with their more challenging games. It gives them the chance to learn and adjust before it’s too late.
There are 10 more weeks to go.
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Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
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