By James Beach
sports@timesfreepress.com
Tyner football coach Wayne Turner didn’t mince words in reflecting on his Rams’ 25-21 victory Friday night against homestanding McCallie.
“That was the biggest win we have had at Tyner in a long, long time,” the veteran coach said. “We did a lot of good things tonight and had a lot of kids step up. This was a big win for us.”
Of all the things the Rams (2-2) did, though, perhaps the most impressive was a previously unseen ability to handle adversity. Leading 13-7 at halftime, Tyner immediately turned it over on its first second-half possession to set up McCallie’s go-ahead score. Less than three minutes later, the Tornado raced in for another score to make it 21-13 heading into the final period.
“We’ve seen that one before,” Turner said. “When things start going bad, we haven’t been able to stop the bleeding. We did it against Ooltewah and against Baylor, but tonight we put a tourniquet on it.”
The Rams marched 80 yards in 15 plays with quarterback Travis Jones getting to the corner on a fourth-and-goal sprint at the 5:35 mark. Jones was stopped by Adam Harbin on the potential tying conversion to leave it 21-19, but the Rams held for a three-and-out and took over at their own 23.
Jones made the big play, standing in the pocket and taking a monster lick just as he delivered a 49-yard pass play to Sean Neal that took it to the McCallie 5. After a penalty, Dameian Suttles bolted in for an 11-yard TD with just 1:31 left.
“Coach T always says big players need to make big plays. This feels really good after the way we lost to them at the end last year (21-19),” said Jones, who completed 10 of 13 passes for 187 yards and two TDs.
McCallie had one final shot, but a holding call nullified a 20-yard completion and Tyner’s Eric Drake put the Rams in victory formation with his interception at the 40.
The Rams’ offense was devastatingly effective on the night, especially in controlling the ball. Tyner ran 66 plays to McCallie’s 46 and outgained the Blue 396-to-249 in total yards. But McCallie’s duo of tailback Daniel McClure and quarterback Trent Lusk proved quite the test for the Ram defense. McClure ran 19 times for 131 yards and Lusk carried 12 times for 77.
Tyner made 6-of-12 third-down conversions while holding McCallie to 1-of-7 on those and 1-of-2 on fourth-down plays.
“We’ve worked hard all year to play a game this solid. We were very determined and I think losing the way we have early helped us to overcome tonight. I think we grew up a lot,” said Tyner tailback Damien Suttles, who led Tyner with 70 yards on 12 runs. He also caught four passes for 56 yards.
McCallie got a superb defensive game from Jarrod Coleman and Ben Johnston, who recovered a fumble. The loss to Tyner was McCallie’s first to a Division I opponent since 2006 when Alcoa did the trick, and it was Tyner’s first win over the Blue since 2002.