Phil Campbell coach Ryan Swinney has a pretty good idea of what to expect on Friday night when Sulligent visits Parrish Field for a Class 2A, Region 8 showdown.
He’s seen it before.
“They’re about like what we’ve had the last two or three weeks—athletic, fast, good athletes, a pretty good team,” said Swinney, whose Bobcats opened the season with a 54-6 rout of Tharptown before dropping their last three games to Colbert Heights, Lamar County and Sheffield. “They’ve got some good-sized linemen who do a good job blocking, and they’ve got two or three guys who can run well. They have a good quarterback, too.
“They don’t do anything fancy, just a double-wing set with a lot of misdirection stuff and pulling guards and tackles. They run the ball well. They’ve got some guys that can run.”
Phil Campbell (1-3, 0-2 in region play) had trouble containing Sheffield’s speed last Friday in a 35-14 loss. The Bulldogs scored long touchdowns on their first two plays from scrimmage to grab an early 14-0 lead. The story was much the same the week before, when Lamar County routed the Bobcats 54-12.
“Defensively, we’ve played some really good offensive teams with multiple people who have speed,” Swinney said, “and we don’t have a whole lot of speed. Lamar County had two guys who could fly, and Sheffield had multiple guys who could fly. Sulligent’s the same way. We have to contain it before it gets broke loose, and we didn’t do that.
“Sheffield scored on their first two offensive plays, and we didn’t touch either one of them. The second guy, we tackled him in the end zone, and that was the first time we touched either one of them.”
On the bright side, the Bobcats did rediscover a ground game on offense that had gone AWOL the previous two weeks. After rushing for 264 yards in the season-opener at Tharptown, Phil Campbell managed just 113 combined yards rushing—and only 12 total points—in losses to Colbert Heights and Lamar County. The Bobcats bounced back last Friday at Sheffield with 160 yards on the ground but struggled at times to capitalize on scoring opportunities.
“The Lamar County game, we couldn’t get anything going. We threw it a lot because we had to,” Swinney said. “Toward the end of the game, we moved the ball a little bit, but that was by far the worst game we’ve played. They just whipped us up front on both sides of the ball all night long.
“Against Sheffield this past Friday, we moved the ball well. We had some success moving the ball on them. We took the first drive and kept it for seven minutes. We moved it down inside the ten-yard line, and then we got back-to-back penalties and ended up turning the ball over on downs. Then the first two times they touched it on offense, they scored, and it was 14-0. But offensively, we moved the ball well.
“We were able to run the ball, and we threw it a little bit. We threw a pick-six right before the half. We just wanted to play it safe with a little screen pass, but their guy reached up with one hand and made a great play and picked it off. It was 28-7 at halftime. We should have scored on our first drive, and we had a good chance of being right there with them at halftime. We just made too many mistakes.”
Phil Campbell will not be able to afford many mistakes against Sulligent (3-0, 1-0), which has sandwiched decisive wins over Marion County and Sheffield around an impressive 21-14 victory over Class 4A Hamilton. The Bobcats’ best chance will be to do what they did a year ago against a similarly athletic Sheffield team, when they controlled the clock and possessed the football with a methodical rushing attack and flirted with a major upset before falling 35-27.
Swinney said a similar script—with a slightly happier ending—would suit him just fine against Sulligent on Friday.
“Ultimately, if we could keep the ball, maintain some drives and finish some drives, that would obviously be great,” he said. “They’re a pretty physical team, pretty big and pretty physical. We’ll see who’s gonna show up and play. We’re a little banged up. The last three weeks have been pretty tough for us. We’ll see how we hold up this week.
“They’re a good team. They beat Sheffield [29-7]. I think Sheffield left some points out there, no doubt, but Sulligent is right up there with them and Lamar County. They’re big and physical and fast.”
Injuries are starting to become an issue for the Bobcats. Sophomore lineman Kaleb Solis sat out last week with a concussion, and senior lineman Caleb Hagood (who starts at left tackle and also plays defensive tackle) sustained a knee injury against Sheffield and was scheduled for an MRI on Monday. Sophomore fullback Imer Ordonez, who rushed for 57 yards and a touchdown on 20 workmanlike carries against Sheffield, left the field late in the game with an ankle injury.
“He runs the ball hard,” Swinney said of Ordonez, who leads the team with 119 yards and two touchdowns on 39 attempts this season. “He’s a tough kid. He’s just a tenth-grader, but he’s been doing a great job for us. He ran the ball hard the other night. He took some good licks.”
If Ordonez is unable to play against Sulligent, fellow running backs Seth Brindley (113 yards on 17 carries this season) and Brandon Thomas (105 yards on 14 attempts) will have to pick up the slack. Phil Campbell is led offensively by senior quarterback Peyton Thomas, who has thrown for 584 yards on 43-for-87 passing with two touchdowns and two interceptions. He has also rushed for 104 yards and three scores on 14 attempts.
Senior tight end Brody Nix caught a touchdown pass last week against Sheffield and leads the team with nine catches for 145 yards on the season. Brindley has also caught nine passes for 121 yards, and sophomore Brandon Baker has seven receptions for 110 yards.
Defensively, Nix has been Phil Campbell’s leading tackler in each of the first four games, and fellow linebacker Dakota Mansell has made 17 tackles over the past three weeks.
“He’s playing pretty good,” Swinney said of Nix, who has 27 total stops on the year. “Dakota Mansell is another guy who’s been playing great on defense for us at middle linebacker, moving side to side. Those two guys are playing pretty good.
“Brody has been catching the ball well when we get it to him. Some other guys have caught the ball well—Ben Williams, Brandon Baker, he’s doing well. We’ve got some guys who are doing a pretty good job for us.”
A trip to Bear Creek and a much-needed bye week will follow Friday’s game against Sulligent, but things will get tough again down the stretch with road trips to Mars Hill and Red Bay wrapped around a home date with Hatton. Mars Hill beat Red Bay 26-24 two weeks ago, and Red Bay held off Hatton 32-30 last Friday night.
Swinney knows better than to hope for an easy out in an ever-improving Region 8.
“There’s not one,” he said. “I haven’t seen any of those three teams on film yet, but it’s pretty obvious that Mars Hill is better. They were pretty good last year, and they’re better this year. But from what we’ve seen, it doesn’t get any harder than Lamar County and Sheffield, and here comes Sulligent. It’s not gonna be easy in any form or fashion.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us, but all we can do is keep plugging away and do the best we can. It’s about as bad a luck as you can have, to draw those three teams right out of the gate in region play.”
