Durant’s Oct. 20 loss to Tampa Bay Tech puts the team in a must-win situation.
In many ways, the game Durant played last Friday night was a noticeable improvement over last year’s 7A-District 9 title game against Tampa Bay Tech. Unfortunately for the Cougars, the end result was not one of them.
Following that 55-28 loss to the Titans, the Cougars are down — but they’re not out.
What happens next? This week becomes a must-win situation for Durant, which will now have to resort to the FHSAA points system to make the playoffs. A loss to a Bloomingdale team that did not make the playoffs in 2015 or 2016 and will finish this season with at least three losses could allow other teams in the region — such as Lakewood Ranch, which averaged less than one fewer point per game than Durant going into last week — to catch up or even pull ahead.
The Cougars did enough last week to beat many teams. They gained 366 yards on the ground and scored all four touchdowns that way, and Cameron Myers led the way with 282 yards and three of the scores. They started the game off on the highest note possible when Myers scored on an 80-yard run during the game’s first play from scrimmage and kept things interesting for a little while.
Two things in particular hurt the Cougars, and these are things I think the team will have to watch out for should it hang on to a playoff spot after next week.
First, the defense showed it can be exploited through the air. We saw a glimpse of this two weeks ago with Plant City, but Michael Penix Jr. threw a gem against Durant: 13 completions on 19 attempts for 222 yards and four touchdowns. The Cougars couldn’t force Penix to turn the ball over and they couldn’t prevent him from making big plays — sometimes, even with good coverage. This will be the third consecutive week Durant takes on a pass-friendly offense in Bloomingdale.
Second, Tech found a way to disrupt Durant’s offense. The reason Durant couldn’t get much going before garbage time in the second half is because, after giving up 21 points through two quarters, Tech committed to stacking the heck out of the box to make sure Myers and David Tabakovic had as few opportunities to find running room as possible. Though Tabakovic was able to muscle his way through defenders more often in the second half, the Cougars weren’t able to move the ball as well as they had been and Tech was able to keep the game under control. I think they’ll have to use quarterback Carlton Potter a little more often from this point forward, especially with Armwood ending the regular season and a potential playoff matchup with Venice or Tech on the horizon.
Durant’s remaining strength of schedule works in its favor, largely thanks to that Armwood game. The Cougars will get at least 30 playoff points out of that one — or 50, if they have another upset win up their sleeves — and my prediction is that they’ll notch 45 from this week’s game. But no matter how the cookie crumbles this week and next, few teams in the Tampa Bay area will monitor the standings as closely as Durant.
