Playoff-type showdown set for Northside, Jones County
WARNER ROBINS -- For those inside the lines, the result was the result, and the focus all week has been on determining this year’s result.
For those outside the lines, there is talk of revenge, upsets, shockers, emotion and flukes.
Consistency and attention to detail are what coaching staffs are preaching.
A year ago before kickoff, top-ranked Northside was expected to journey over to Jones County and dispatch the Greyhounds with some level of control.
After all, Northside was Northside, a loser of five games in the previous four seasons, and Jones County was Jones County, vanquished five times just the previous season alone.
The Eagles had beaten the Greyhounds by 28 points in 2013, which was good for Jones County, which had been shut out in three straight meetings with Northside.
The Greyhounds pulled off the huge upset of the Eagles and then went on to a historic season. The Eagles gave a lesson on how to regroup and went on to a state championship season.
The locale has changed but will be similar in the electricity and percentage of folks inside the fences who will be forced to stand up when fifth-ranked Jones County visits top-ranked Northside at McConnell-Talbert Stadium on Thursday.
It might be the largest regular-season crowd at McConnell-Talbert without both teams being from Houston County.
“Oh, there’s no doubt,” Northside head coach Kevin Kinsler said. “It’ll be a huge crowd.”
Jones County has built off of last year’s win, save for consecutive losses a few weeks later. The Greyhounds reached the quarterfinals and lost on the game’s final play.
And Northside, of course, went on to take the GHSA Class AAAAA title.
Both teams are a bit different than those who met a year ago.
Last year’s unproven quarterbacks are now extremely proven, but both are operating behind mostly new offensive lines. The numbers for the quarterbacks are a little different this year than a year ago, for different reasons. Jones County’s Bradley Hunnicutt has five fewer completions, six fewer attempts and 142 fewer yards, mainly since there’s no need for him to play in the second half of blowouts.
Northside’s Tobias Oliver also has a white-knuckle grip on his offense, which relies less on the passing game. He has almost twice as many attempts this year, but his yards and completion percentage are down.
Considering last year’s game had 82 points, there will be some emphasis on defense. Northside doesn’t have the same experience and depth playing with Oliver, but the Greyhounds still will have to stop the run, primarily with Oliver (172 yards) and Desean Dinkins (282 yards) and avoid long defensive stints on the field.
Northside had 20 more snaps a year ago.
Jones County has a new offensive line, but the Eagles still have to get Hunnicutt and running back Chandler Ramage off the field and avoid surrendering big plays.
“We got on our heels a little bit, and they hit some big plays,” said Kinsler, whose secondary struggled in that game but improved soon after. “We didn’t do some things real well up front.”
This year’s meeting might have big plays but is unlikely to match the same scoreboard shootout because both defenses are superb. The pressure will be on all three levels of defense: the line and linebackers to disrupt the quarterbacks and the linebackers and defensive backs to cover.
Three of the 45 passes thrown a year ago were picked off, and Jones County’s Terell Solomon is the lone returnee who had an interception.
Jones County is a little bit undermanned, with linebacker Logan Gordon (shoulder) questionable. Linebacker Cameron Gibson went out in the opener with an ACL tear.
The Eagles, who lost starting safety Chris Haughton for the year in the season opener, were a little shorthanded a year ago, with linebackers Kam Burnett and Josh Vickers and defensive lineman Robert Jones out. Lacking three starters would impact anybody, but Kinsler thought tentativeness from that unit that was of greater note.
“The thing about when somebody is executing their offense, if you get on your heels, and especially when somebody is executing really well, it’s hard to slow that down,” Kinsler said. “When you start playing on your heels, you start pressing in everything you do.
“The speed of it, I don’t say our guys misjudged it or anything like that, but we didn’t handle the speed of the game very well that night.”
Jones County hit some big plays, and the increased confidence helped the hosts play faster and keep the Eagles squarely on their heels.
Thursday night will provide Jones County with its most eye-opening road experience, including last year’s quarterfinal against Mays at Lakewood Stadium in Atlanta. Perfect weather -- partly cloudy, upper 70s -- should greet what should be an overflow crowd at 7,900-seat McConnell-Talbert.
“That’s what’s cool for this community and the kids,” Jones County head coach Justin Rogers said. “Because of last year, our kids can get to experience some great atmospheres this year. Thursday night’s game is gonna be a playoff atmosphere. It’s going to be phenomenal.”
This story was originally published September 16, 2015 at 10:02 PM with the headline "Playoff-type showdown set for Northside, Jones County ."