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A year ago East Rutherford football mixed up their offense and just had up and down defensive nights. This past Friday, I viewed an East Rutherford team that I’m more familiar in seeing. While they still lost 21-14 to a very good Kings Mountain team, the Cavaliers ran the ball well and did a great job on defense for most of the night.
The difference is that East Rutherford drove to the Kings Mountain 40-yard line or better on five different occasions and the Mountaineers turned the ball over four times. Unfortunately, the Cavaliers could only come up with one touchdown in those possessions. Getting hit with flags all night and coughing up two fumbles themselves didn’t help anything either for East.
“We certainly didn’t capitalize enough on their turnovers, but our own turnovers and penalties cost us as well tonight.” East Rutherford Football Coach Clint Bland said. We just have to go back to work Monday and hopefully we can’t get healthy for East Burke.”
Don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of positives in this one and a tight game at that. East Rutherford held the lead twice, but Kings Mountain got the game winning touchdown with 6:36 left to play on a 29-yard scamper from Brandon Bell.
East Rutherford (2-2) had three rushers go over 50 yards and held Kings Mountain (4-0) to 131 yards passing on the night. Jordan Davenport, Jarvis Hutchins and Tray Greene each came up with some big hits and big stops on defense, but it Saibyn Ruff who go rough. Ruff finished with 57 yards rushing, five tackles on defense and even lit up the Mountaineers receiver Jake Merchant on one play.
East Rutherford looks for its first conference win on the road this season against East Burke this coming Friday. East Rutherford beat East Burke 35-28 a year ago.
R-S Central (2-1) went to Shelby and played just a six minutes of football before storms force the postponement for Monday. Shelby was up 7-0. R-S Central will host a pivotal conference match up with Draughn this coming Friday (9/19/14). The Hilltoppers lost a 28-20 shocker at Draughn last season.
Chase led 3-0 for most of the game at Burns, but that game was also postponed until Monday due to storms. Burns scored to make the game 7-3 before it came to a halt. The Trojans will host a tremendously tough Shelby (2-1) team on Friday. It’s an opponent they have never beaten.
Thomas Jefferson (2-1) hits the road and faces non-conference opponent Asheville School (2-0) on Friday. The Gryphons will have to stop quarterback David Schill, who is a duel threat with the football.
Thomas Jefferson took down Asheville School 28-7 last season.
In Charlotte, the Panthers continue to be underestimated. Carolina absolutely dominated the Detroit Lions 24-7 on Sunday. Cam Newton looked sharp, but the defense was the real winner.
Carolina held the best receiver in Calvin Johnson to just 83 yards and no touchdowns. More impressively four sacks, six pass deflections, two forced fumbles and an interception on the afternoon.
As for the schedule, the Panthers (2-0) earning early wins is key to this season. I look at it in three segments. The first five game are winnable, the second five are the toughest and the last 6 could go with either way. The next three have them pitted against Pittsburgh at home, Baltimore on the road and Chicago at home. Undoubtedly, every week will be a test, but the next three teams they face are a combined 3-3 so far.
