Chattanooga: Owls ambush No. 1

There will be a new No. 1 team in Tennessee’s Class 5A high school football, and the way they played Friday night, it might well be Ooltewah’s Owls.

They bombarded Farragut’s visiting Admirals 31-3.

Top-ranked Farragut entered the Region 2-5A game at Ooltewah sporting a 7-0 record and scored on its first drive. But the Admirals lost star running back De’Andre Purty to an injury in the first quarter and quarterback Reese Browning was harassed and hurried all night by the ninth-ranked Owls’ front seven.

Farragut didn’t come close to scoring again until the game’s waning seconds.

The win boosted Ooltewah into a tie atop the region standings with Soddy-Daisy, which beat Oak Ridge. Ooltewah plays at Oak Ridge next week, when Soddy-Daisy hosts Farragut. The two Hamilton County teams will then meet in the regular-season finale with the region title possibly hanging in the balance.

“Farragut is a good football team,” Ooltewah coach Benny Monroe said, “but I knew they would have trouble with our defensive line, and I felt like we would be able to move the ball on them.”

The Owls sacked Browning seven times and limited the Admirals to 187 yards of total offense.

One of the sacks led to the ejection of Admirals coach Eddie Courtney, who was pleading for a roughing-the-passer call with six seconds left in the third quarter. The official heard enough and tossed a penalty flag toward the Farragut coach. Courtney tossed the flag back toward the official and got another unsportsmanlike penalty, after which he hurled his clipboard toward the sideline. He was then escorted away by field security.

Led by Jaquez Smith’s two sacks, the Owls limited Browning to 10 completions in 28 attempts (and 113 yards) and picked off two of his passes.

“We’re the fantastic four,” tackle Que Jackson said of Ooltewah’s defensive line, which is completed by tackle Brandon Bruell, a converted fullback, and Kevin Adams.

“They came in averaging 38 or 39 points per game, and we held them to three. We practiced really hard this week. You do that, you get good results.”

The game was a battle of wills early with Farragut determined to pass from its no-huddle spread offense and Ooltewah wanting to play smash-mouth up front in trying to spring quick-footed running back Mathew Polk.

“For the first time in years, our offensive line was bigger than their defensive line, and I felt we would be able to run on them,” Monroe said.

The Owls handed the ball to Polk on seven of their first eight plays. He ended up with 163 yards and three touchdowns on 28 carries/

“We were trying to get some field position so we could spread it out,” Monroe explained.

Once they did, it was Polk cutting back and darting off the hips of his line and squirting through the arms of would-be tacklers.

“The offensive line was really physical tonight, and I tried to play smart. I hit the holes,” Polk said.

Following Brad Galloway’s 44-yard field goal for Farragut almost nine minutes into the game, Ooltewah scored 31 unanswered points — beginning with a Polk score, a 26-yard pass from Brady Reed to Zack Zarzour and John Long’s 42-yard field goal.

The Owls were close again late — a fourth-and-7 at the Admirals’ 20-yard line — and Monroe declined a final scoring opportunity.