Football Preview: Edwards is Soddy-Daisy's Mr. 3,000

After leading the city in rushing as a junior, Soddy-Daisy running back Cedric Edwards has a record-setting goal in mind this season.

Photo by Tim Barber.

The best thing about Cedric Edwards' 2010 season might be that there was still room for improvement, which won't bode well for Soddy-Daisy's opponents this season.

Edwards rushed for 1,995 yards and 18 touchdowns as a junior, when the Trojans went 7-5 and advanced to the second round of the Class 6A playoffs. Yet both the 5-foot-11, 170-pound senior and coach Kevin Orr say there still are a couple of things he can work on.

"He left a lot of yards on the field last year," Orr said. "He was so afraid of fumbling the ball that even if he had a breakaway, he'd put two hands on the ball and in a lot of cases would get caught from behind."

Edwards had seven fumbles in 2010. He hopes to drop that number considerably this year, but there's another number -- yardage -- that he hopes goes up this year. He's set 3,000 yards as his goal this season, which means that a lot of things -- including a run deep into the playoffs -- will have to go his way.

"We relied on Cedric a lot last year, but he expects that," Orr said. "He wants it. We hope we don't have to put that kind of workload on him, but he's ready if we need him to. He never runs without his weight vest, and we've done a lot of work on his hips and hamstrings."

Edwards saved his best for the team's most important game, a 42-21 victory over Cleveland in a game the Trojans needed to win to make the playoffs. He rushed for 326 yards and three touchdowns, culminating with a long run in the fourth quarter with the game already in hand.

"That game meant a lot to me," Edwards said. "They had a couple of players on that team that said I wouldn't work out here, so I wanted to prove I could."

He expects to be a better back in 2011, even starting to carry the ball higher to help prevent his past fumbling issues.

"I've got to get out and work harder this year," Edwards said. "We've got some good running backs behind me, and I have to encourage them and be a leader to them."

Said Orr: "We're going to need more leadership out of Cedric this year. He could be a real threat in the passing game for us, and we'll need that because he's already a threat in the run game.

"When I first saw him, I saw something special in him. I just didn't know it was going to be 2,000 yards type of special."

MEMORY LANE

The 30-year history of Soddy-Daisy has yielded many solid, competitive teams. Few compare to the two-year run the Trojans had in 1996 and ’97. Under the direction of current Signal Mountain coach Bill Price, they won 23 games and advanced to the Class 5A state quarterfinals the latter season.

“I remember that everybody was on the same page,” former Soddy-Daisy running back Lydell Blue said. “We all grew up playing together and knew what the other could guy could do. I know it sounds cliche, but we were like a team of brothers.

“The community was nothing but supportive of the team and stood behind us the whole way.”