Pebblebrook described as ‘hungry’ team new to playoffs

Published 7:02 pm Tuesday, November 7, 2017

MOULTRIE – It’s the third time you can essentially wipe the slate clean and say your football team is 0-0. Colquitt County High had a great non-region run in 2017, going 6-1 with big wins in the Corky Kell Classic over Norcross and a come-from-behind masterpiece over a Tucker High club that finished its season ranked No. 1 in Class 6A.

But when that record was wiped out to 0-0 – indicating the start of a three-game jaunt through Region 1-7A – the results weren’t as favorable. The Packers fell victim to other comeback efforts in consecutive weeks and came out of it 1-2.

Colquitt County High football, under head coach Rush Propst, is no stranger to life on the road in the postseason or getting far as a third seed or lower, No. 3 being the spot this team earned with a 1-2 mark.

Making the playoffs, winning in the playoffs … just winning at all in the regular season … all of these are relatively new concepts to Pebblebrook High, one of the many high school football programs in Cobb County. The Falcons, under third-year head coach Kevin Saunders, celebrated one of the biggest wins in their history over Newnan High on Oct. 27. That was just to clinch second-place in Region 2-7A.

Pebblebrook followed that up rolling over Wheeler High last weekend for its third win in a row and first winning season (6-4) since 2009.

In 2016, Saunders’ group broke another long drought making the state playoffs – as a No. 4 region seed – for the first time since 2007. The Falcons ran into Roswell High’s path to the state finals in that opening round and finished 5-6.

One year later, Pebblebrook plays host to the tradition-rich Packers. It’s a trip to Mableton and an opponent that’s had three losses by the margin of a touchdown or less that Propst’s gathered braintrust is not taking lightly.

In fact, offensive coordinator Jeff Hammond feels Pebblebrook could have easily won its region championship and be sitting at 10-0. The Falcons lost to 2-7A No. 1 Westlake 21-14. Other tight setbacks include 27-24 in overtime to North Cobb and 24-20 to Marietta, the school that earned the at-large playoff spot in Class 7A and goes to Westlake this Friday. (The Colquitt-Pebblebrook winner meets either 3-7A No. 4 North Cobb or undefeated 4-7A champion Walton High.)

“They are a good football team,” said Hammond. “They’ve been in every football game. They are very athletic and playing hard. They look like a very hungry football team, which can be very scary in the playoffs.

“Defensively, they play hard and get a lot of guys to the ball. What worries us, if a team that can run the football well, they can keep (our offense) off the field and we’ll get limited possessions. Every possession counts. We have to do a good job going out there setting the tone.”

While Colquitt County is a team that does not throw interceptions (one in 10 games), in the last Falcon game vs. Wheeler Darius Poythress returned a pick 67 yards to the end zone. Lowndes was a team with 17 interceptions prior to playing Colquitt but had none.

It wasn’t getting turnovers, however, that was the Vikings’ telling statistic, but recording five second-half tackles for lost yards on the quarterback.

“It’s been a challenge this year,” said Hammond about Packer offensive line play. “Everything comes and goes with the offensive line. When we play well up front, we move the ball real well. In the second half (vs. Lowndes), it wasn’t the same. The game is going to be dictated offensively by how well our line plays. (Pebblebrook’s) defensive line is very athletic and very good. Very similar to a lot of teams we’ve already played.”

Defensive coordinator Mo Dixon is also looking at a Pebblebrook offensive system similar to other Packer opponents of 2017. There’s a dual threat quarterback, 6-3 senior Marquis Cooper (recruited by LSU and Michigan) with three touchdown passes in each of his last two games. He also scored off a fourth-down call running the ball vs. Wheeler.

Senior running back Tyler Thomas had 255 yards rushing last Friday with a 58-yard scoring run and 43-yard scoring catch.

“They’ve got one (athlete) after another,” said Dixon. “They are a zone read team. They’ll pitch it. They throw to the Y hole. If a force guy comes up, they throw behind him. Instead of a pitch, they throw a bubble screen or fast screen, what we’ve seen a lot of. They remind you of Tucker, but they have a different style than Tucker. They are a big zone team.”

One thing Dixon’s seen plenty of the past two weeks is teams running the ball effectively in these second-half comebacks. Mike Jones of Tift County had 138 second-half rushing yards and Lowndes as a team went over 200 yards in the second half plus overtime on the turf. Dixon said Pebblebrook will put anywhere from one to three backs at them with isolations, cutbacks and the inside game of those last two region foes.

As Walton’s head coach the last three years, Dixon never faced Pebblebrook. He does, however, know about Saunders as both previously coached in Kentucky. Before arriving at Pebblebrook, Saunders won 158 games in both Kentucky and Virginia.

In 2011, his Gretna High team in Virginia won a state championship.

“They’re a really hungry football team,” said Dixon. “Very physical. They went through (getting to the playoffs) last year and got them all back.

“And it’s a tough place to play. It’s new to the whole community. We have to play a complete game in all three phases. We haven’t been able to do that lately.”

While Pebblebrook was in action last weekend, the Packers had a bye week to recover from the war with Lowndes and think about these last 10 games.

“We worked on tackling and this RPO stuff. We wanted to start mixing some things up,” said Dixon. “Rush does a great job of adjusting. There’s a lot to this, the nutrition, the rest, when to lift the weights, how long we practice. This is definitely not his first rodeo. He’s won championships in any scenario you can imagine.”

“We’ve gotten better each week,” said Hammond. “We try to get fundamental and more consistent. The only thing the last couple of weeks we struggled in is second-half scoring. We put a big emphasis on that.”

Not only did Colquitt County have leads on both Tift County and Lowndes, but leads with a lot of production on offense. The Packers went from scoring four touchdowns in the first half on the Blue Devils at home Oct. 20 to only once in the second (lost 38-35 on field goal inside last five seconds). The following week at Lowndes, 300 yards led to 35 first-half points. After halftime, the yardage went down to 75 for one field goal (lost 51-45 in overtime).

“We’re rolling right along,” said Hammond. “Against Lowndes, the plays we made in the first half we barely missed (in the second). We had a couple of times with a chance to make big plays on deep throws and we don’t come down with the ball or the ball’s a little high. It’s not because of effort; the plays didn’t get made. That game we had four series in the second half, two we get to the ‘red zone.’ We have to make those plays in the ‘red zone.’”

Sometimes, especially in a big game atmosphere like it was at Martin Stadium, it’s would seem hard to keep up a pace like Colquitt had going. Hammond said over the years Packer teams have jumped on people like that early, but what can’t happen in the second half with a lead are mistakes.

“We have to stay aggressive,” he said. “I thought we did that vs. Lowndes. We just didn’t finish like we wanted to.”

“We all feed off each other,” said Dixon, stressing the emotional aspect of those losses. “You try to get a bigger body in or sometimes you try to go with speed. There’s a lot of moving parts. We’re a play away from holding them on the goal line, and all we have to do is turn around and kick a field goal.

“We have to keep our mind on what we’re doing. Look straight ahead. There’s no other game (but Pebblebrook). Fatigue makes you weak, so you have to fight through yourself. We have to do what we do. As a matter of fact, we’ve been real base … playing straight base defense. We had the best practice all year in my opinion (Monday). If we pull this off, we’ll see what happens.”