Houston County football pulls down five interceptions in thrashing of Warner Robins at the MAC

WARNER ROBINS — In 2024 Warner Robins marched over to Freedom Field and delivered Jeremy Edwards his first loss against the program in thrilling fashion.

This year the Bears (4-0) got their get back and then some on Friday night with a 48-14 blowout of the Demons (2-2) at McConnell-Talbert Stadium.

Three observations:

Five, count ‘em, five

The Warner Robins offense had a rough outing against HoCo, and, frankly, never gave themselves a chance with five interceptions on the day. Two were returned for touchdowns.

The first one was somewhat excusable; It was a questionable pass, but it was tipped by a HoCo defensive back and into the hands of Jercorien McCoy on the second play from scrimmage.

The second was a toss up to the end zone that Dashawn Zeigler fell down to get, and the third was McCoy’s second on a pass thrown right to him. He returned that one for a touchdown, but penalties called it back.

The next two were both pick sixes. Chandler Dyson was hit as he threw and Westen Ard claimed the ball and ran it back 19 yards in the third quarter. JT Thomas put an exclamation point on the Bears’ victory with a 43-yard return in the fourth.

There were questions before the season of whether or not the HoCo defense could truly be as good as their talent should allow. They’ve held three of their four opponents to 24 points or less, and two of them to 14 or less.

“Our defense they work very hard. Our staff has done a great job,” Edwards said. “We got some good senior leadership on that side, obviously good players. We just gotta keep trying to get better.”

Protecting the quarterback

One of the keys for HoCo coming in to the game was to limit a Warner Robins pass rush that’s gotten after every quarterback they’d faced thus far.

HoCo quarterback Ryan Maxwell did get sacked twice, but overall he was comfortable in the pocket and had plenty of time to throw.

The Bears didn’t ask him to throw much — the ground game was more than effective especially in the first half — but he made a couple of big connections.

Edwards had high praise for his quarterback.

“He’s a really good football player. He’s done a really good job of preparation,” Edwards said. “[He’s] only 15 and a sophomore, he’s got a lot of football left. He’s not perfect but he’s very resilient. If he makes a mistake he’s able to shake it off, and that’s a sign of a really, really good human being.”

Colin Anderson once again carried a big load for the offense as Stinson worked his way into the game for the first time since his injury in the opener against Brookwood.

He got multiple carries right out of the gate and had a big 58-yard run to the Demons’ four-yard line to set up a score. He had a touchdown of his own in the first quarter, too.

Bad day for the offense tarnishing the defensive effort

It’s hard for your defense to look good when they’re constantly out on the field and given bad field position.

The Demons suffered from some of that on Friday despite having some good moments.

Finding the positive in giving up 48 points isn’t easy, but the secondary had HoCo’s receivers pretty much locked down (aside from some defensive pass interference).

The Bears didn’t take a lot of deep shots down the field, but Warner Robins had defensive backs glued to their assignments on many of those shots, and the one that MJ Mathis did bring down was heavily contested.

The pass rush that’d seen so much success was also limited, though particularly in the first half. In the final two quarters the Demons were able to sack Maxwell a couple of times, though by then it was too late in the game for that to make much of a difference.

So far Warner Robins has a lot of extremes when it comes to points allowed. They’ve given up as many as 48 and 45 and as little as 13 and zero.

The Demons are still figuring out who they are, and the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle of what they’ve shown thus far.

UP NEXT

Houston County will wrap up the non-region schedule with a home game against Tift County on Friday, Sept. 12 at 7:30 p.m.

Warner Robins will be on a bye week next week before traveling to Veterans for their final non-region game.