By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports
Sure, it’s just the luck of the draw, but you can’t help but notice how the Northwood schedule is laid out.
After three non-district games, it wasn’t as if the Falcons were going to be able to ease into the District 1-4A schedule.
The Falcons and North DeSoto have been dominating the district this decade, but until a couple of years ago, things set up so that the two played for the title in the final game of the regular season.
Seemed perfect.
But when the redistricting deck got shuffled two years ago, lo and behold the Falcons-Griffins matchup got moved. A lot. Instead of the last game of the district schedule, it became the first game of the district schedule.
Not exactly the easiest way to get things started.
But then again, Falcons coach Austin Brown said, it might not be the worst thing after all.
“If you think they are rolling now, wait until you see them Week 10,” Brown said.
The Griffins, ranked No. 1 in the latest Class 4A statewide poll, rolled into Jerry Burton Stadium Friday night and did all sorts of North DeSoto things in a 52-26 win.
They made sure nobody ever noticed the play clock even existed. They scored fast. They scored often. They just kept coming and coming.
Funny thing is, the Falcons never waived the white flag. The Falcons came out strong, scoring first and reached the Griffins 12-yard line with a chance to go up two touchdowns, but a holding call stalled the drive.
The Falcons still had a chance to get points, but when a Falcons’ field goal was blocked, some air went out of the Northwood balloon. Especially when North DeSoto scored five plays later. And then scored again. And again.
All of a sudden, it was 21-7 North DeSoto.
“Their tempo is next-level,” Brown said. “There’s nobody in the state that I know of that can run the tempo that they do. I thought we handled it well. For a while.”
Actually, the Falcons (3-1, 0-1) did their best at trying to beat the Griffins at their own game. Northwood ran plays as often as it could – the only team that huddled the whole game was the officials – but just couldn’t quite execute as well as North DeSoto did.
Mainly because the Griffins (4-0, 1-0) were able to run inside with the 1-2 combination of running backs Kenny Thomas and Braelyn Latin. When the Falcons started stacking their defense to try to stop the relentless between-the-tackles running of the Griffins, quarterback Luke Delafield loosened things up with a couple of touchdown passes on 169 yards.
Things got a little out of hand scoring wise for Northwood – the Griffins scored four touchdowns in the fourth quarter including a 25-yard interception return for massive sophomore lineman Jonathan Perry – but the statistics told a story of the speed at which this game was played.
Both teams ran more than 75 plays and the first down and total yardage totals were similar.
“The score looked a lot worse than it was,” Brown said. “We stayed with them tempo-wise but you can’t make mistakes against good teams like that. We had penalties in the first half and special teams problems in the second half.”
“We knew they were going to play well and were going to play hard,” North DeSoto coach Dennis Dunn said. “We knew they were going to fight and battle and they did. But I thought our kids answered every response from Northwood and kept it a two-score game. When were able to do that, I really felt like we were in control.”
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com