Red Bank quarterback Malik Davis (12) turns the corner as he scores a touchdown.Courtney Stamper remembers Red Bank's short bus ride earlier this season down Signal Mountain after the Lions were whipped 49-13 by the Eagles.
"It was quiet," he said. "I wasn't mad at my team for losing. We didn't give up. Plus, it wasn't a district game."
The players endured a really quiet 20-minute drive down the mountain -- the same mountain they can see from campus every time they look from their practice field toward a fall afternoon sun. The Lions have a dread of the West.
"They jumped on us pretty quick. By the time we were able to settle down, it was out of reach," Red Bank coach Chad Grabowski said of the game played on Sept 12. "Playing that game built a lot of 'no-quit' even in the face of an insurmountable lead."
The Lions reunited the very next day to review their good play and their mistakes. It was a typical review of the video evidence from the night before.
"I was a little worried," Grabowski said. "But we had good practices the next week and that eased my mind.
"The season could have gone bad real quick."
Despite the loss and quiet ride home, every young man owning a Red Bank jersey continued to follow the plan set before the team by Grabowski and his coaching staff.
"From my freshman year until last year, we'd start arguing," said quarterback and cornerback Malik Davis. "This year, our leadership has come up a lot. Two years ago, we would have gave up and our pads would be turned in."
Signal Mountain stomped Red Bank 63-0 last year on Tom Weathers Field. The Eagles rolled to an easy victory again this year.
The loss last year started a 2-6 stretch for Red Bank. This year, as Stamper noticed on that ride down the hill, the game would count as one of 10 and have no impact on the playoffs.
The Lions' season could have gone south again after a beating by the team from the West. But it didn't.
"We all bought into Coach Grabowski's program in the summertime," Davis said. "It started working and we all bought in. We knew winning state would be hard to do, but then we all wanted to do it."
One week after the whipping on the mountain, Red Bank beat Central 37-7 in league play and scored more points against the Pounders than any other team on Central's regular-season schedule.
Red Bank lost 54-7 to still-undefeated Rhea County the following week. Grabowski told his players at halftime to survive the second half and move on with the season. District games awaited.
The Lions are 4-1 since that loss to Rhea County and find themselves in the second round of the playoffs for the first time since 2010.
Grabowski was coaching in Florida at the time. Stamper, Davis and the rest of the senior class were freshmen. They didn't know that they'd have three different head coaches in their careers.
"We came to the conclusion that there's nothing to do but get ready for the next team," senior Gabe Smith said. "After we took that loss, then we focused on what we had to do.
"This year, we're way more focused."
Contact David Uchiyama at duchiyama@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6484. Follow him at twitter.com/UchiyamaCTFP.