Although I had not seen them play prior to Friday night, I knew Ooltewah was pretty good.

I didn’t realize how good until I saw the Owls beat previously unbeaten and top-ranked Farragut 31-3.

It wasn’t close. As a matter of fact, it could have been worse had Ooltewah coach Benny Monroe decided against pressing the issue. He went semi-conservative offensively and then on fourth down at the Admirals’ 20-yard line, did not trot out John Long, his excellent kicker, for a field goal.

But before I tell you about Ooltewah, I have to tell you about Eddie Courtney, the Farragut coach who got ejected from the game for arguing a non-call too strenuously. Courtney felt his quarterback has been roughed and sought a penalty flag. He went too far for the official’s liking and got flagged. He then got flagged again, which brought an automatic ejection.

As he left the field, though, the dumbstruck and frustrated coach, waved cordially at the Ooltewah sidelines and gave the Ooltewah coaching staff a thumbs-up.

But what people didn’t see was this same coach going into the Ooltewah locker room after the game. He apologized to Monroe and the Owls team for taking away from their performance and he also congratulated them for a tremendous showing.

This guy had cancer and beat it. He knows about the big stuff and how to handle it, so it only seems reasonable that he would be able to handle the small stuff. And he did – in a professional and classy manner. You hear something like that it you no longer wonder how the guy keeps turning out such good teams. My hat is off to the guy, who apparently lives all the good things that coaches are supposed to be.

Now, back to Ooltewah.

I had scoffed at folks last spring and this past summer when they said Monroe had a running back who would make fans forget Brian Marshall.

Marshall was a good, quick running back the last two years but I’m not so sure that Matthew Polk doesn’t have a quicker burst and a tighter turn on a dime than did the now graduated Marshall. The kid doesn’t mind sticking his nose in there with a decent block on passing downs either. And it didn’t hurt Ooltewah’s chances that Jay Crowley was back in the offensive guard rotation after missing a couple of week due to a concussion in the Maplewood game.

And now that wide receiver Geno Norwood’s back after being out for a couple of weeks, the offense looks even better. I thought too that baseball was the game for Zack Zarzour, having seen him play turn to snazzy plays at short and third as a freshman and last year, but he made a dandy catch of a Brady Reed pass when Ooltewah was still trying hard to score points.

Too, there’s kicker Long. who put all but one of his kickoffs into the end zone and that one was a squib aimed at taking time off the clock just before halftime.

But I have to say that as well as the offense is clicking, the defense is what makes this team go. I’d be hard pressed to recall a better high school defensive line than this one. Shoot, I might have to go all the way back to the days when Robert Pulliam was coaching at Howard and had of pair of players b the names of Charles Morgan and Reggie White.

These kids are that good – short and stocky Que Jackson, whose 5-foot-10 frame has to be hauling around close to 300 pounds but who can move quicker than most ends; Brandon Bruell, the converted fullback; Kevin Adams, the long and lanky end who more resembles a basketball shooting guard; and Jaquez Smith, the junior end who runs full-tilt all time. Even when he wasn’t getting to the quarterback last week, his big hams were up in the air trying to deflect the pass. This kid, a junior this year, will likely have two dozen offers on national signing day next February. He could stay at defensive end, possibly play middle linebacker or, with a weight room and a steady training table, become one of the quickest defensive tackles the Southeastern Conference has seen.

But the linebackers are just as quick and tenacious and tough and the secondary is big and quicker. Even if they did miss at least four interceptions against Farragut, they must have had close to 10 passes broken up.

For those who thought Ooltewah was a year away, think again, especially if they keep their feet on the ground the next six weeks.

I would suggest that it would be worth the drive to Oak Ridge Friday to see the Owls play if there weren’t so many really good games locally.

Farragut is at Soddy-Daisy, Rhea County’s at Cleveland and Polk’s at McMinn Central, and that’s just in Tennessee. Down in Georgia, Dalton plays at Rome, Sequoyah’s at Northwest Whitfield and Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe plays at Ringgold and in Alabama, North Jackson is at home against Fairview and Scottsboro hosts Fort Payne.

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