Houston County football overcomes slow start to second half to beat Coffee at home and remain undefeated

WARNER ROBINS — With a 45-21 Friday night win over the Coffee Trojans (3-5, 1-2 Region 2-5A) the Houston County Bears moved to 8-0 and 3-0 in the region ahead of their road matchup with juggernaut Thomas County Central next week.

Three observations:

Early mistakes and a second half surge

HoCo led 28-21 at halftime and outscored the Trojans 17-0 in the last two quarters, but they made some mistakes in the first half that made the game closer than it could’ve been.

The most obvious one is allowing a blocked punt on special teams that Coffee recovered for a touchdown four minutes into the opening period, giving them their only lead of the night at 7-0.

The others were chunk plays; Kentavius DeBruce broke off a 65-yard touchdown run to knot the game at 14 with four minutes to go in the first, just one of a few big runs the Bears’ defense allowed.

“I think that we made some mistakes on special teams that we got to clean up. The blocked punt was kind of a momentum shift,” Head coach Jeremy Edwards said. “We just got to clean up some things on special teams, but the way that our kids battled back, I think that’s a sign of a good football team.”

One of the things that gave HoCo trouble was Coffee switching things up from their normal offensive gameplan.

Trey Ross, the usual quarterback, wasn’t under center full time on Friday. Running back Tyler Dowling got significant snaps at signal caller, and the Trojans overall attacked downfield more than expected.

Many of their deep passes were overthrown, but they connected on an incredible one-handed, contested bobbled catch pulled down by Tresean Smith in the first quarter.

“[Coffee] made some great adjustments, they’re a good football team,” Edwards said. “They did everything different on offense that they haven’t shown, and it took us a while to get figured out what they were trying to do…I think that in the first half they wanted it a little more than we did it seemed like. They brought a lot of physicality, which we knew they were, and we knew they were well coached and they were gonna give us a dog fight.”

That physicality was felt most in the third quarter, the only one in which the Bears’ offense was held scoreless.

It didn’t help that Austin Stinson’s 80-yard touchdown run was called back on holding, but HoCo had two three-and-outs in the period.

But after a big defensive stop in the fourth the Bears got the offense going again, scoring three times in the final eight minutes.

Defense continues to show out

The aforementioned defensive stop was at the hands of UConn commit and linebacker Westen Ard, who had back to back tackles for a loss.

The first was a one-yard loss to force 3rd-and-11, and then he dragged down Smith five yards behind the line of scrimmage.

After that the energy shifted. The crowd got back into the game and the offense finally put together some productive drives.

HoCo took over on their 29-yard line, but a pass to Jordan Perkins soon got them to the Coffee 48. On the next play J.T. Thomas caught a pass for another first down, and then Stinson somehow stayed on his feet long enough to get down to the 11-yard line.

The Bears ended up with a field goal on that drive, but they added two more touchdowns before the buzzer sounded thanks to the momentum swing those TFLs and ensuing drive provided.

“Besides giving up that blocked punt…we did a pretty good job defensively,” Edwards said. “Just gave up some [explosive plays]…Good teams adjust and our staff did a great job adjusting at half and we were able to shut them down.”

HoCo still only allowed two offensive touchdowns, and both of those were in the first half. The Trojans haven’t scored more than two offensive touchdowns since their opener against Bainbridge.

Feeding the hot hand

Austin Stinson got his first full workload since going down with injury in the season opener against Brookwood at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

He went down on his first carry of that game, and though he’s taken some snaps here and there, he hasn’t had a full workload like he did on Friday.

Stinson broke off not just one, but two 80-yard runs showing he’s still got the same explosiveness. He also fought through contact with multiple “how is he still up” runs in the game.

Edwards said he has had a productive couple of weeks in practice, and the Bears are all about feeding the hot hand with their stacked running back room.

“We go with the hot hand,” Edwards said. “[Stinson is] feeling the best he’s felt really all year. He’s had two great weeks of practice and so we felt like he kind of had the hot hand.”

UP NEXT

Houston County’s matchup with Thomas County Central could potentially be the region championship, as those are the last two teams without a region loss after Friday’s games.

The Yellow Jackets won 70-0 against Northside and will get ready to host the Bears, who are having a historic year, on Friday, Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m.

Coffee will come up to Warner Robins again when they play Veterans on Friday, Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m.