Houston County football dismantles Tift County to finish undefeated in non-region schedule for third time in four years under Jeremy Edwards

WARNER ROBINS — After Friday night’s 57-14 dismantling of the Tift County Blue Devils (3-2), the Houston County Bears (5-0) have finished the non-region schedule undefeated for the third time in four years under head coach Jeremy Edwards.

Three observations:

“We haven’t done anything yet”

One of Edwards’ messages to his team in the postgame huddle was that they hadn’t done anything yet, despite going 5-0 in their non-region games.

While those first five games are great for challenging your team and in some cases region tiebreakers, Edwards is right in that without success in the region the Bears won’t have accomplished much.

Last year HoCo grabbed the last playoff spot in the region after losses to Coffee (14-0), Thomas County Central (41-31) and Lee County (63-48). Edwards and the Bears will look for some better results this year, and he wants his team to bring the same focus they brought against Tift County when they return from the bye week to start the region schedule.

“Focused. And that was the theme tonight, to be focused,” Edwards said. “We had played two emotional games against two really good in county rivals and was fortunate enough to win. And so we challenged the guys to be focused this week.”

“Tift had a really good football team, they were riding high, I think they were 3-1 [coming in to the game]. They’re feeling good about it so we had to make sure we showed up tonight and take care of business.”

Stop the run, stop the Blue Devils

HoCo has played a lot of run-first teams this season from Brookwood all the way to Tift County. They’ve done well against all of those teams with a great run defense.

Stopping the run was important especially against the Blue Devils, who at this point don’t have much outside of that even with quarterback Damieon Dixon’s ability to throw it deep and the athletes they have at receiver.

“We’ve got a lot of returning really good players that are seniors, that have played a lot of football. They’ve really done a good job of stopping the run,” Edwards said. “That’s always been something that we do well, stop the run. We’ve really cleaned up the pass game as far as stopping the forward pass this year.”

The linebackers are a big part of that story and they were involved often. Westen Ard was in the play from the first drive and helped bring down Dixon in the third quarter along with Jayshon Williams.

Zion Paul had a big five-yard tackle for a loss on that same drive, and Kam Brown had a third-down deflection to force a stop, too. Not to mention Jase Jordan who forced a fumble and recovered it in the second quarter. HoCo scored a touchdown on the ensuing drive.

As Edwards mentioned the defensive backs had some good moments too, breaking up a couple of the deep shots Tift County took as the game went on.

Growth + staying healthy

Quarterback Ryan Maxwell continues to impress in his debut season as he hit multiple big throws to receivers in the Bears’ big win.

He hit Mathis continuously in the second half, including on a 36-yard pass to the one-yard line on the opening drive. Facing pressure on a later drive he flipped a 10-yard pass to tight end Tyler Wright to make it 48-7.

He’s only five varsity games into his high school career, and Edwards again had praise for the sophomore.

“He’s very steady when it comes to his mental makeup. He doesn’t get too high, too low, he’s very coachable,” Edwards said. “He’s pretty calm to be really so young and inexperienced. But he’s gaining experience as we go.”

The running back room has really lightened the load for Maxwell, too. Colin Anderson has been phenomenal this season while Javien Durham and Austin Stinson have been banged up.

Stinson was injured on his first carry of the season, and on his first of limited touches against Tift County he went for a 40-yard touchdown even if it was called back.

One of the biggest focuses on the bye week is getting the rest of the rotation healthy, because HoCo would like to rotate all three backs and not rely so much on Anderson.

“We have a three-headed monster if you will at running back,” Edwards said. “Hopefully we can get all three of them healthy and just keep fresh legs in the backfield and just keep on going.”

UP NEXT

HoCo will take their first bye week and get back to it on Friday, Sept. 26 against Veterans on 7:30 p.m.

Tift County will also be on a bye week before hosting Richmond Hill on Friday, Sept. 26 at 7:30 p.m.