Honorable mention
Kolten Gibson, Walker Valley: He passed for 526 yards and seven touchdowns and rushed for 100 and another score in a shootout loss to Stone Memorial.DeAngelo Hardy, McCallie: He ran 29 times for 233 yards and four TDs in the Blue Tornado’s win over Knoxville Webb.Zeke Westfield, Walker Valley: He pulled in 13 passes for 226 yards and three TDs in the Mustangs’ narrow loss to Stone Memorial.
For three football seasons Blake Bryan was an understudy.
The Heritage High School senior paid attention and moved into the Generals' starting quarterback role for 2017.
Already he has been a major factor in the program's first 4-0 start.
"Everybody expects him to play like a senior, but he's a first-year quarterback," coach E.K. Slaughter said. "He hasn't had a bad year. He had one bad half our second game, but he's only played two games where he played four quarters."
Bryan had a full night last Friday and is the Waffle House All-Star player of the week after throwing for 348 yards and five touchdowns and rushing nine times for 83 yards. He completed 65.6 percent of his passes (21-for-32) and averaged 16.6 yards per completion and 9.2 per carry.
"I had a good feeling about him coming out of practice Wednesday," Slaughter said. "He's beginning to play faster, he's playing with more confidence and we're doing a better job playing to his strengths. He made better decisions, and he also made some really good throws."
The studying behind Corby Wilson is beginning to pay dividends.
"It takes a while. Our offense isn't easy, and it runs through that cat," Slaughter said. "He has to have knowledge of what we're doing and be mechanically sound, and then he has to be a good enough athlete to make the plays. You don't have to have a bazooka (at quarterback) in our offense. It's more consistency and knowing what's going on."
The 5-foot-11, 175-pound Bryan is a three-sport athlete for the Generals, also playing basketball and baseball.
"He's a really good high school quarterback," Slaughter said. "He gets emotionally involved in the game and plays with a lot of passion. Our guys love that and feed off it."
As for being 4-0, Slaughter shrugged.
"We don't have a lot of weaknesses. We've been really good on defense, good on offense, our special teams are sound and we're still fairly healthy," he said.
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfreepress.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him on Twitter @ wardgossett.