I’m satisfied with the way things shook out last week.
As a Friday night football fan, I’m pretty easy to please: all I ask for in a game is good competition, a decent storyline to follow and at least one guy giving a performance to write home (or, in my case, all of you readers) about. Last Friday’s Redman Cup rivalry game not only delivered on all three counts but went above and beyond.
How so?
As far as the competition is concerned, I knew as soon as I heard the weather would be fine that it would top last year’s. I told anyone I talked to about the game that I just wanted the score to be greater than last year’s 9-7 mark, which is pretty well par for the course for games played in typhoon weather. We got to 9-7 by halftime and, knowing what these two teams have done in recent weeks, I was expecting things to pick up in the second half.
Things did pick up, and the second half was fire. The game came down to the wire in the last minute of play and might have even ended differently had Durant not committed an ill-timed personal foul.
For the second half until the penalty, the tension in the air around Durant was so thick, you could have cut it with a Cougar’s claw.
My only gripe about the atmosphere, which was appropriately playoff-caliber, was that the cinematic tension you can get from this kind of football game was lessened by the sounds of xylophones playing soothing melodies in major scales.
This isn’t a slight against Durant’s band, which is quite good — it’s just that the musical choice was about as appropriate for the moment as scoring a “Star Wars” movie’s final battle with the theme from “Thomas the Tank Engine.”
The game was for the playoffs: it decided the fates of both Durant and Plant City, so I think we all knew that we’d see these kids give it 110%.
When I put the Gridiron Report online, I said the offensive decline Plant City had been going through for several weeks should have been a concern and that the Raiders wouldn’t beat Durant if they kept that going. Fourteen points — their total output against lowly Bloomingdale — wouldn’t cut it.
Some of the PCHS players didn’t like what I said. On Twitter, they had some emojis for my mentions and said, “They funny.”
So, I’d like to thank Durant’s Carlton Potter and Steven Witchoskey for making my case for me in the third quarter. Then, Plant City stepped up and won the game with its offense.
I made three predictions in the 2015 Football Guide: Plant City wins the district, Durant barely misses the playoffs and Strawberry Crest doesn’t come close. After checking the FHSAA district tiebreaker rules, I can now say that I’m already 2-for-3 thus far — even with one district game left to play, this win allowed Plant City to clinch the 7A-9 championship.
As for my Durant prediction: the Cougars are currently tied for third place but, with a Tampa Bay Tech loss in the next two weeks, could force a second-place tiebreaker.
Last, but not least, I have two individual efforts to single out: Antoine Thompson’s 80-yard touchdown run to pull Plant City within two points and Markese Hargrove’s game-winning, 49-yard catch-and-run touchdown. This is the stuff that the best rivalry game stories are made of.
If the next Redman Cup game is half as good, we’ll all be in for a treat.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.