Tyner’s Willie Stewart (2) shoves McCallie’s Alex Trotter out-of-bounds in this file photo.
All week long Ralph Potter talked to his McCallie football team about process rather than outcome.
Friday night, however, the outcome was pretty impressive. McCallie shrugged off an 0-2 season start and put a 43-14 whipping on visiting Tyner, at least temporarily ending any negative vibes the Blue Tornado had been hearing.
“People start to talk when you’re 0-2, but we wanted to focus about the things we could control. We can’t control who we play,” Potter admitted. “We needed to avoid 0-3, and I was very proud of the way the kids performed.”
There wasn’t a facet of the game McCallie did not control in seeing to it that the Tyner revenge tour was stopped in its tracks. The Rams opened last year with three losses, and after avenging the first two in a 2-0 start this season, they had only the Tornado in the way of completely flipping the table.
Chad Toliver’s four TDs and McCallie’s suffocating defense proved entirely too much. In fact, the Tornado started the second half with the mercy rule in effect after racing to a 36-0 halftime lead.