Howard put forth a defensive showing that even the late Reggie White would have been proud of in a 28-13 victory over Red Bank at home on Friday night.
Playing for the breaks in John Starr's first years as Howard's coach, a defense led by Tadarius Covington came away with five turnovers and limited the Lions to 131 yards of total offense. The 6-foot-5, 280-pound lineman had eight tackles, three sacks and a fumble recovery and was one of many overjoyed seniors for the Hustlin' Tigers after their first victory of the season.
It actually was Howard's first win at Reggie White Field dating back to September 13, 2013, and a 27-20 defeat of Loudon. A 10-game losing streak at home was snapped by a team that has given up only 42 points in its first three games.
"It feels really good to win this game," Starr said with a smile. "I'm happy for our kids. They deserved to win. All we needed was just that one good thing to happen for us, and fortunately tonight it did. I think we can really build from this."
"Things are changing, and I'm glad they are changing in my senior year," Covington said. "It feels really good to get a win tonight. When I first came here, we only won one game and we had a winless season, too. We are going to have a lot of momentum from this win."
Turnovers plagued Red Bank (1-2) from the start. Three mishandled snaps were lost to the eager hands of Hustlin' Tigers defenders, and all three resulted in touchdowns.
After a pair of 12-yard touchdown runs by seniors Jacques Yarbrough and Calvin Johnson, another senior, Cameron Thomas, scooped up a fumble for a 30-yard score. Howard led 21-0 with 3:46 still to play in the first half.
Johnson totaled 10 carries for 85 yard and two touchdowns. His last score came on a 30-yard run in which he saw a big opening on the right side and then cut back to the middle before breaking tackles to get to the end zone. That put Howard up 28-7 with 2:16 left in the third quarter.
"Calvin has enough ability to change a game," Starr said. "We haven't played him a lot at running back, but tonight he had the hot hand. We just had to keep feeding him, and I was real pleased and proud of how he played tonight."
Johnson also intercepted a pass from Calvin Jackson in the second half.
"Our defense has been doing a lot of things. Defense wins a lot of games and ours showed it tonight," Johnson said. "Our goal is to not give up over 17 points, because that's how much we gave up Week 1."
Howard totaled 235 yards rushing compared to Red Bank's 69.
"We always thought they were a little bit ahead of our offense right now, but overall I think we played really good," Starr said. "We have to learn though to roll with the momentum."
Howard will play at Baylor next week, while Red Bank will host McCallie.
Contact Patrick MacCoon at sports@timesfreepress.com