Houston County offense held in check, defense can’t get off the field in blowout loss to Thomas County Central

WARNER ROBINS — Houston County (3-3, 1-1 Region 2-6A) was held out of the end zone for the first time in over two years on Thursday night.

Thomas County Central (7-0, 3-0 Region) came to town a day early because of the threat of Hurricane Isaias, and the visitors dominated 43-3.

The Yellow Jackets are ranked 14th nationally by MaxPreps and have won 22 straight games dating back to last year. They looked like it, too, as they suffocated a Bears offense that had averaged 51 points per game through five games this season.

HoCo head coach Jeremy Edwards wasn’t surprised by what he saw.

“I think we just played a team that’s won, I think, 22 straight games. They don’t give up a whole lot of points and they got a lot of good players,” Edwards said. “I think we’re a good ball team, I think we’re a good offense. They were a good defense, they were great [on] special teams. I think we played a good team tonight and they were on a different level.”

Austin Stinson’s 51-yard run early in the second quarter brought the Bears as close as they’d get to the end zone — the eight-yard line.

Quarterback Ryan Maxwell had to throw it away on first down, Stinson tripped on second down and the Yellow Jackets earned a quarterback pressure on third down. HoCo settled for a 27-yard field goal for their lone score of the night.

Defensively they couldn’t put it all together, although they had opportunities to.

The Bears couldn’t get off the field on Thomas County Central’s opening drive. Quarterback Aidan McPherson escaped for a 15-yard gain on third down, they converted on 4th-and-5 in HoCo territory and faced 3rd-and-goal from the 18-yard line after a big sack for the defense.

The very next play, McPherson found Jabari Watkins for a touchdown. Watkins stared down his defender, who was on the ground, and McPherson came down to the end zone to chirp, too.

It didn’t get much better for the Bears, who again struggled with missed tackles, especially considering McPherson’s evasiveness.

Not getting off the field on third down has become a theme for this defense, one Edwards knows has to be remedied for them to have a shot at any kind of postseason run.

“[It] just comes down to execution, it’s not real complicated,” Edwards said. “We got to make sure that we execute better on 3rd-and-long, it’s kind of been our Achilles Heel this year and it’s something we’ll continue to work on.”

A year ago, HoCo made the trip to Thomasville for what could’ve been a region championship night. It was, just not for them, after the 31-7 loss. Edwards’ central theme after that game was somewhat mirrored on Thursday — one game does not define you.

“It’s something that was built into our culture,” Edwards said. “We talk a lot about how you respond, and we talk about “E plus R equals O,” event plus response equals outcome. It’s just life, man. We didn’t play very good tonight, we didn’t play good enough to win, and that’s unfortunate. I feel like we had a good plan, we just didn’t do a great job executing it.”

UP NEXT

HoCo will make the trip to Coffee next week on Oct. 16.

TCC returns home and will host Tift county on Oct. 16.