Fitzgerald will see a different Pace attack than a year ago

There was a game on the schedule, but this particular Friday was an odd one for Fitzgerald.

It was a test of patience.

"It's like the Tom Petty song," Fitzgerald head coach Jason Strickland said. "Waiting is the hardest part."

But it's a good test of patience for the Purple Hurricane, because they're playing on the absolutely final day of the high school football season in Georgia.

Fitzgerald takes on Pace Academy in the GHSA Class AA title game at the Georgia Dome on Saturday afternoon, pitting a pair of teams that played a year and two weeks earlier.

Pace made that drive south to Ben Hill County and returned home with a 49-21 loss in a quarterfinal.

But Fitzgerald's scouting report for the rematch, at a site about 10 minutes from the opponents' home, is quite different.

"They're certainly different offensively," Strickland said. "Last year, by the time they got to us, they were kind of focusing everything around the passing game. They were one-dimensional, and those things are easier to defend."

And that was led by quarterback Kevin Johnson, who had committed to James Madison.

"He could throw it, he scrambled around," Strickland said. "But when he scrambled, he wasn't scrambling to run, which made it a little bit easier to contain. In fact, at times, we only rushed one guy. We dropped 10."

And the Purple Hurricane (13-1) intercepted three passes.

But the Knights (12-2) are much more balanced, leaning more toward the run, with five players having gained at least 400 yards. And they bring out a variety of personnel packages, from power to finesse.

Pace got past Macon County 33-26 in the quarterfinals, one of five Knights games this season decided by single digits

The Knights have completely changed on defense, too.

"What it looked like was a group that just tried to line up," Strickland said. "This year, what you're seeing is they have given up some points and people have gotten some yards on them.

"But what they kind of focus on and depend on is taking the ball away."

And they're good at it.

"This is my 18th year (coaching), and I've seen some really good defenses," Strickland said. "This isn't one of the four or five best defenses I've ever seen, but it might be the best defense I've ever seen at taking the ball away. They just attack the football unlike anybody we've ever coached against."

Fitzgerald's ability to stymie that skill will go a long way toward the program's first state title since 1948.

The Purple Hurricane are grinding defenses into ground, a trend that was never more evident than last week when they popped Jefferson County 40-20 on the road.

Fitzgerald opened up with scoring drives of 14 and 15 plays, a week after getting 616 yards on the ground in knocking off defending champ Benedictine.

Running back J.D. King and quarterback James Graham have operated at peak efficiency behind a young offensive line that has surpassed expectations.

King has 2,377 yards and 32 touchdowns while Graham adds 1,436 and 18.

Fitzgerald might have two advantages: the Knights play several players both ways, while the Purple Hurricane don't, and Pace is used to facing spread teams rather than wing-T offenses.

"They want to get after the passer, play a lot of different coverages in the back end and show a lot of different fronts," Strickland said. "They've got some dynamic, exotic blitzes that honestly, we're sitting there saying 'Gosh, I hope that's what they do.' "

But he doesn't expect that, figuring the Knights will go with a more simple, base approach.

"I hope the physicality that we bring and the uniqueness to our offense is going to be something they haven't seen so far this year," said Strickland, now 68-29-1 in eight seasons at Lamar County and Fitzgerald. "Having a defense out there that long, it just wears on you. it kind of pressures you from an offensive standpoint. you feel like, hey, you've got to make a play.'

"It puts you in a playcalling mental framework of maybe taking some more chances than you would normally take."

This story was originally published December 11, 2015 at 10:13 PM with the headline "Fitzgerald will see a different Pace attack than a year ago ."