Last week, the biggest question going into Friday night was pretty straight-forward: Who is the best team on the Plant City outskirts?
This week, it’s a little different: Where can the Plant City Raiders go from here?
Wayne Ward has been the Raiders’ head coach for the past four seasons, picking up seven wins and one postseason appearance in his first two. But, the 2012 season was a little different — four wins, partly because of a nasty four-game losing streak.
Ward wanted to turn the program back around in 2013. And, so far, he and the rest of his program have done a better job than many people expected.
THE BEST OFFENSE …
All of the Raiders’ wins this season have been variations on a theme — the age-old saying, “Defense wins championships.”
Make no mistake: It’s always good to have an offense that brings blowout potential on any given Friday, and Plant City has that, too. The Raiders have scored 25 points or more in three of the team’s four wins, with a season-high 40 in a stunning upset over the Bloomingdale Bulls.
But, the unit to watch here is the defense, and Ward will back that up.
“The whole defense — those guys just keep putting us in position to win the game,” he said.
We made note of how stacked this team is defensively in our 2013 Football Preview, and D-I schools have been noticing, as well.
Defensive end Sedrick King will play for the University of Central Florida, along with quarterback Landon Galloway. Montel McBride, who is planning to play on Alabama’s oft-fearsome offensive line, was told by Bama coaches that he’s more than welcome to try his hand at switching to the defensive line.
John Broome and Jyquis Thomas have garnered recent attention from D-I programs, such as Youngstown State and Wofford College. In the near future, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear of standouts, such as sophomore Tavares Chase, receiving offers, now that Plant City seems to be on scouts’ maps.
One of the strengths of this defense is its size. They’ve got some big kids all over the place, but the secondary is where it’ i especially notable.
Many of the team’s starting defensive backs are at least 6 feet tall, and Chase is the tallest at 6-foot-2. He might even hit a growth spurt at some point, a scary prospect you’re a quarterback on the other side of the ball.
The trend of tall corners and safeties has been skyrocketing since 2012, when the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks created the biggest secondary unit in the league and turned in a defensive performance for the ages — led by the 6-foot-2 Richard Sherman, whose historic season made him arguably the best cornerback in the NFL, and the hard-hitting Brandon Browner, who, at 6-foot-4, is one of the tallest corners in football.
The Raiders have been playing lights-out defense for most of the season, giving up a total of just 23 points in all four of their wins. That includes two shutouts against Wharton and Bloomingdale — two offenses that have a similar ability to hang with anyone on a good evening.
SPEED BUMP
The team already has matched its win total from 2012 and looks like a playoff contender. But, the one knock on this otherwise great season has been district play.
These district games have been the only nights where Plant City has looked beatable, although they’ve only dropped one of the two. They managed to grind out a 14-13 win over Durant on Sept. 20, thanks in part to the defense coming up with clutch plays in the fourth quarter, but last Friday was a different story: The Raiders fell in overtime, 19-13, to East Bay.
It had little to do with the pass defense. Indians quarterback Chris Carpentier only notched three completions and threw a goal-line interception on fourth down that sent the game into overtime. One of the completions was the game-winning touchdown pass to Anton Crutcher, but that wouldn’t have happened if the Raiders could have contained the run game in the second half.
“East Bay played a pretty good game,” Ward said. “We made too many mistakes, and they actually capitalized on them. In overtime, we had an opportunity to go up and, you know, we fumbled the ball on the 1-yard line. And they made a play.”
Ward and the Raiders know this team’s capabilities when everyone is focused, so they’ve been working to get back into the same form they were in at Bloomingdale two games ago. They didn’t have a bad game against East Bay, so the goal of this week’s practices was simple: minimize mistakes.
“Offensively, Hassan [Bailey] and Landon [Galloway] have been doing a really good job,” Ward said. “So, despite that we’re a little banged-up up front, we still came out and produced, and did a pretty good job of moving the ball.”
Galloway, despite throwing two picks, played well in the first half, with 74 rushing yards and a touchdown. His fumble in overtime cost Plant City the game, further driving home the need to work on ball security this week.
A TEST FROM THE WEST
Generally speaking, Tampa Bay Tech fields a good team year in and year out. This year, though, they’re in a similar situation to Plant City: They’ve been playing mostly out of their minds.
A 23-12 home loss to Newsome in the season opener is the only blemish on Tech’s record, but it just proves anything can happen early in the season. Since then, Tech is 4-0 and has only scored fewer than 31 points once — in a 14-7 win over Plant — in that span. The defense hasn’t been quite as effective as Plant City’s, recording one shutout and allowing 45 points in the wins, but the Plant game shows that the Titans’ defense is capable of playing well in important games.
“You’ve got to be disciplined to play a team like this,” Ward said. “They’re very athletic. We’ve got to make sure we read our keys and focus on the small things.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.
OTHER AREA ACTION
Riverview at Strawberry Crest
LAST WEEK: Strawberry Crest clipped Durant, 11-10, while Riverview got punished by Plant, 47-14.
NOTES: The Chargers have certainly played better games, but a win is a win, no matter how you look at it. Crest is riding a three-game win streak into this matchup, which they’ll be hosting. On another note, we’re not sure what was going on with Plant, but they definitely took it out on Riverview. If you go by trends, then the Sharks are due to win this game — they’ve gone win-lose-win-lose all season. But, if you go by skill level, then it’s not a stretch to see the Chargers keeping the win streak alive after this one.
Durant at Newsome
LAST WEEK: Strawberry Crest bested Durant, 11-10.
NOTES: Durant may have just lost to Strawberry Crest, but that’s not to say that the Cougars had a bad game. They gave it a good effort, and a similarly good effort should help them get past a reeling Newsome squad coming off of two consecutive losses. The Wolves can boast about being the only team to take down Tampa Bay Tech this season, but they haven’t looked like world-beaters since then.