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Scores and Photos of Friday night high school football - Oct. 9
Somewhere above the rain and the lightning at McCallie's Spears Stadium late Friday night, the late Blue Tornado football coach Pete Potter surely was smiling.
The Blues trailing Ensworth with less than a minute to play, the ball on their own 17-yard-line, Potter's son Ralph called "Boot 53 Pout."
Did he think it would work?
"No way," current coach Potter said afterward.
But the unofficial name forevermore should be known as QBQB6, since Blue Tornado quarterback Robert Riddle hit fellow quarterback JaVaughn Craig for 83 yards and the game-winning touchdown, turning that 35-34 deficit into a 42-35 win that made them 3-4 overall and 2-1 in Division II-AA.
"I don't know that I've ever had someone play three positions in one game," Ralph Potter said of Craig, who played defensive back and wide receiver extensively, as he addressed his team. "I didn't want to use him that much. I wanted to rest him."
But desperate times call for desperate measures, and on a night when more than 50 former players and at least 20 members of Potter's family had gathered to honor his late father by naming the playing surface at Spears Stadium "Pete Potter Field," being a point down to Ensworth after leading 34-20 early in the third quarter was about as desperate as it gets.
"I'm always comfortable out there, wherever I'm playing," Craig said afterward. "Whatever I need to do to help us win."
Twice it looked like McCallie was on its way to a comfortable win. It led 20-7 immediately after a 90-plus-minute rain and lightning delay. It led 34-20 near the start of the fourth quarter.
Blue Tornado tailback Rico Dozier and Craig both had huge hands in those leads. Dozier scored on punt returns of 84 and 66 yards. Craig had scoring runs of 8 and 5 yards before his 83-yard catch. Maxim Yeoh also scored for the winners.
But each time the Blues seemed set to celebrate a special night, Darius Morehead brought Ensworth back from the brink. He actually scored the first touchdown of the night on a 61-yard run less than two minutes into the game. He added a 59-yard run and a 25-yard scoring run. When Ensworth blocked a McCallie punt for a safety and Nicky Clifton scored from 17 yards out with 1:13 to play, the Blues looked beat on a night when they so wanted to win.
It even made a pregame quote from Potter's widow Lorraine sound sadly prophetic.
Asked what her late husband would have thought of the tribute, she smiled and said, "He would have said, 'This is much ado about nothing,' of course."
But then her son called Boot 53 Pout and those all-blue uniforms McCallie donned in Pete Potter's honor - blue helmets, jerseys and pants - suddenly looked perfect.
Said a happy Riddle afterward: "I like being true blue."
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com