farragutpress

Geoff Era really begins: 28-20 win at Bradley

October 9, 2024 by Alan Sloan

CLEVELAND — The Geoff Courtney Era of Farragut High School football finally began, in terms of bottom-line success, in Bear Stadium at Bradley Central Friday evening, Oct. 4.

While the Admirals’ defense allowed just two pass completions the entire game, and shut out the home team during the game’s final 20 minutes, the FHS offense was fueled by the improvement of sophomore quarterback Corbin Hobson and his offensive line.

Hobson, who went 20 of 24 in the air for 336 yards, connected with senior receiver Robbie Jacobs on touchdown tosses of 74 and 27 yards, helping Farragut (1-5, 1-2) slip past the Bears 28-20 for a huge Region 2-6A victory.

“I think at Dobyns-Bennett (season opener), the game was really fast for me, and I just tried to slow down and learn the game these last few weeks,” Hobson said.

“… I think my line really picked it up this week,” the sophomore added. “I think coach Patty (Doucette) is really coaching them up. Me, Robbie and Landon (Collins) and a couple of other guys have been working all offseason, and I feel like it just showed today. We haven’t shown it a lot, but it’s going to come.”

Jacobs caught eight passes for 185 yards. “Coach called my number and I knew what I had to do,” he said. “ … I trust my teammates to do their job. When we all trust each other, stuff like that happens.”

“If you followed us this year, you know we’ve seen adversity just about every single week,” said Courtney, first-year Admirals skipper. “It was good to see we finally showed some poise and some character and some resolve, and were able to handle that and still manage to stay on top, manage to extend the lead, managed to close out the game.

“Those were good things to see as a coach.”

Offensively, “We’re getting better in protection, getting better in the spacing and timing that it takes to be a good passing football team,” Courtney said. “Corbin had a good night tonight throwing the football. We liked our match-ups with Robbie and Landon outside, and we said, ‘hey, we’re going to go attack and be aggressive.’ He threw some great balls.

“It was good to see that.”

The coach pointed to his team’s 99-yard touchdown drive in the second quarter, featuring a 39-yard completion to senior receiver Collins before Jacobs hauled in the 27-yard TD catch, which put the Ads up 21-7 just before halftime.

“You look at that 99-yard drive, a great ball on the second play to get us out from our own end zone, and then a great ball to Robbie into the end zone for the score,” Courtney said. “We were able to find something in the running game to complement our passing game there at the end, too, which was good to see. That’s why we were able to close out the game.”

Collins, a senior receiver who had six catches for 93 yards, aided the FHS running attack, scoring on a 12-yard reverse to make it 14-7 Admirals with 5:32 left in the first half.

While the second Corbin-to-Jacobs TD connection came with just 1:15 left in the first half, Bradley answered.

Displaying an effective rushing attack, led mainly by the elusive yet power running of Kenyon Phelps, Bradley Central’s only big pass completion came with just 8.8 seconds left in the first half — a long pass the BCHS receiver won on a jump ball, then proceeded to go the final 30 yards of a 68-yard scoring play. It was 21-14 at halftime.

“Credit to Bradley, they went in and switched their whole offense within two weeks,” having just come off a bye week, Courtney said.

“They came out in a whole different offense, so we weren’t really ready for that,” said senior defensive back Kent Carbaugh, who had 14 total tackles, three for minus yaradge. “But we stepped up, and I like to see that in the defense. We hit them hard and we stopped them.”

On its first possession of the third quarter, Farragut reached midfield before a fumble was recovered by the Bears at the 50.

Bradley’s rushing attack again kicked in, ending with a 29-yard scoring run at the 8:06 mark of the third quarter.

But the Bears’ kicker slipped on his extra-point try, missing a low line-drive kick and leaving the Ads up 21-20.

With Bradley (2-4, 0-2) still trailing by a point and facing fourth-and-2 at the Admirals 47 early in the final quarter, Bear runner Reshawn Beard slipped and fell short of the first down.

“We were physical. I felt like we were playing with great effort,” Courtney said about his defense. “As the game went along, we got used to the speed of their offense and their execution, and that’s why we were able to get some stops.”

Add a pair of 15-yard penalties against BCHS after the late defensive stand, and the Admirals were in business at the Bradley 24.

A 16-yard run by junior Charlie Noble set up fellow senior runner Randon Miller’s 5-yard scoring jaunt around the right side with 6:52 left.

Farragut junior kicker Ryan McCue converted all four of his extra-point tries.