A lot of discussion has been centered on the fact that veteran coach Mac Bryan handed the keys to his Ooltewah football team to an underclass quarterback for the first time in his long and successful career.
A lot was answered Friday night.
Kyrell Sanford teamed up with two of his junior classmates in a dazzling performance as the Class 6A Owls opened their 2017 campaign with a surprisingly easy 55-9 thumper over Class 2A power Tyner on the Rams’ home field.
Sanford threw for two touchdowns and scored another on the ground in rolling up 158 total yards of offense, and he gave the Owls a threat they have lacked in the past.
“He is very mature for his age, and he is an excellent student,” Bryan said. “He gives us an intangible we haven’t had at the position before. (He made) a lot of good decisions out there, and it really opens it up for some of the other things we do well.”
Some of those other things they do well are hand the ball off to Sincere Quinn and Tylan Cargle. Quinn was spectacular at times in amassing 205 yards on just 10 carries, while Cargle added 76 yards on 12 totes as Ooltewah rolled up 342 rushing yards on the respected Rams. Both juniors scored a pair of TDs, Quinn’s coming on runs of 59 and 25 yards and Cargle taking it home from the 3 and the 4.
“Sincere is a guy who didn’t get a lot of touches last year, but made the most of them. That long run was a thing of beauty,” Bryan said.
With Ooltewah already up 14-2 headed to the second quarter, Quinn broke it to the outside and was hit by almost every Tyner defender at some point in the 59-yard run, refusing to go down. The Owls added another score before halftime, but Tyner took some life into the dressing room with its most impressive drive of the night.
Ke’un Webb capped a 59-yard Rams drive with his 5-yard scoot with just 25 seconds left to make it 28-9 at intermission. It only seemed to fuel the Owls as they scored two touchdowns in each of the final quarters and held Tyner scoreless to finish off the rout.
“Tyner is going to beat a lot of football teams,” Bryan said. “I was happy with the way we played. We are an explosive team, but I felt like our defense was every bit as key to this win against that kind of speed and misdirection Tyner brought to the field.”
Cam Chambers caught both of Sanford’s TD balls and Andrew Manning caught three passes for 60 yards as Stanford wound up with seven completions for 97 yards to go with 61 yards rushing.
“I had some butterflies, but they were gone pretty quick. We worked hard all week to make this happen and we didn’t let up till the final whistle. It was a good win,” Sanford said.
Ooltewah’s defense limited Tyner to 86 yards on the ground and 86 in the air. Wideout Jeremiah Batiste was Tyner’s best offensive weapon with 65 receiving yards. James Parks got a sack of Sanford in the end zone for a safety.