Covington Catholic 38 Highlands 21

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Highlands led the game 14-10 in the third quarter, but the Colonels come back with 21 points before Highlands scores one last touchdown late in the 4th quarter.

Covington Catholic finally notches off two straight playoff wins over Highlands for the first time in program history. It was the Colonels 7th straight win over Highlands.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

 

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Caleb Jacob with 5 touchdowns tonight, tying the school's single-game touchdown record alongside Charles Frazee (1968), Rick Hornsby (1969), Tom Carmony (1982), Jude Hoffman (1992), Will Deters (2008), and Gabe Gray (2011).
 

 

[John Anthony]

Congrats to CovCath.  Birds fought hard this time around.  Appreciate everything BW did for the program.

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

Covington Catholic
1st downs: 17
3rd down conv: 4-10
4th down conv: 2-3
Rush yards: 226
Pass yards: 108
Total offense: 334
Penalties: 5-33
Turnovers: 1

Highlands
1st downs; 12
3rd down conv: 4-14
4th down conv: 2-5
Rush yards: 205
Pass yards: 39
Total offense: 244
Penalties: 5-36
Turnovers:  1

[Jack of all Trades]

4 minutes ago, John Anthony said:

Congrats to CovCath.  Birds fought hard this time around.  Appreciate everything BW did for the program.

Agree with you 100%.

[colonel-fan]

Lots of things the Colonels need to clean up. Good news is they won the game and continue to have time work on them. More good news is the continued contributions from the underclassmen.

[mcpapa]

Birds showed much better this time around. Papa knows best.   

[Bluesport]

3 hours ago, colonel-fan said:

Lots of things the Colonels need to clean up. Good news is they won the game and continue to have time work on them. More good news is the continued contributions from the underclassmen.

The underclassmen have been sensational this year, and other than Caleb. Zion Mason was the best player on the field tonight.

[Bluesport]

A Win is a Win against your rival no matter how sloppy you were at times. Tip of the cap to Highlands as they were very motivated.

[gchs_uk9]

Does this make us feel better or worse about Covington Catholic going forward in the playoffs? What about our opinion of Highlands going into 2021?

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

6 hours ago, gchs_uk9 said:

Does this make us feel better or worse about Covington Catholic going forward in the playoffs?

Honestly - for me, at least - the answer is neither. Don't take this the wrong way, this is a very good football team for Cov Cath, but they have lacked the ability to play 4 straight quarters of consistent football on both sides of the ball in quite a few games this year. And call me crazy, but I think they oftentimes lack some excitement...which I would contribute, as much as anything, to the fact that there aren't Colonel Crazies in the sideline. The Crazies are truly a 12th Man for our team in the football stadium.

We've lacked speed in the backfield on both sides of the ball, and I think that's something that several teams were able to exploit in games...most notably Lex Cath. But even Cooper had some instances last week where they showed how when it comes down to a matter of a simple foot race, we struggle.

The injury bug has been meddlesome all season as well. We lost receivers to it like Roedig and Shields, linemen and ends like Wilson, and Nally has been fighting against an injury. Almost all of those guys play both ways too. That's been an Achilles heel with the way this team runs...if you lose an offensive starter, you're losing a defensive starter too. "Them's the ropes." We've been fortunate to have underclassmen making meaningful differences, and it's undeniable after the last two games that having Mason come eligible for the playoffs is a big difference in the speed department.

We came out playing kind of mediocre last night, which is something that must be corrected in the coming days, without question. Highlands came out playing inspired, and did a good job of executing in the first half and early in the third quarter. One of the positives I've seen this season is that we have a lot of players who have spent their high school football careers pretty unaccustomed to having to battle back for a win, and they've managed to dig in on multiple occasions and battle back successfully. They also learned this year how much it stings to lose a game...which I think has a lot more value in the long run than maintaining any regular season win streaks.

I'm confident Eddie and Terry and the staff will have the guys tuned up and ready to go against Mad South on Friday, and we'll see where it goes from there.

[bluecolonels95]

5 hours ago, gchs_uk9 said:

Does this make us feel better or worse about Covington Catholic going forward in the playoffs? What about our opinion of Highlands going into 2021?

CCH struggles too much on offense and we haven’t played the toughest schedule in the world this year like previous years.  I still say Freddy Douglass and Bowling Green are the 2 best teams in 5A but we shall see I guess. It looks like we play Madison Southern next week and hopefully we can get the W there but the semi- final game will be tough and I think it will end there.
Our leading rusher shouldn’t be a QB. What happened to our RB’s this year? I say put in  Zion Mason at RB for the remainder of playoffs. He looks legit. 

[GottaLuvFootball]

I’ve said for awhile that having Caleb on designed runs up the middle so much was not a good sign.   Mason has made an impact on defense but they haven’t seemed to utilize his speed in the passing game to stretch the field.  

[Colonels_Wear_Blue]

6 minutes ago, bluecolonels95 said:

CCH struggles too much on offense and we haven’t played the toughest schedule in the world this year like previous years.  I still say Freddy Douglass and Bowling Green are the 2 best teams in 5A but we shall see I guess. It looks like we play Madison Southern next week and hopefully we can get the W there but the semi- final game will be tough and I think it will end there.
Our leading rusher shouldn’t be a QB. What happened to our RB’s this year? I say put in  Zion Mason at RB for the remainder of playoffs. He looks legit. 

Jacob is our overall top rusher for the season, yes, but he has only been the leading rusher in 3 games this season. I would agree that I'd like to see less reliance on the draw play, but I guess, hey, whatever gets the job done.

Nally is the only running back we had return this year with meaningful playing time on the varsity level, and he's been slowed by an injury the last few weeks. Reid Hummel is a junior, and is a speedster when he has room to get a head of steam, but he needs to work in being shifty and elusive. Brayden Collins is also a junior, and is a nice running back...he goes hard and runs hard. Our offensive line is where we've struggled as much or more than we have at running back. In addition to several new players starting (I believe Luke Stegman had basically played exclusively at linebacker until he was tapped as a starting O-lineman this year as well), there has been some shuffling due to injuries.

Geisler is a nice and fast running back, and shifty too, but I think he still needs time to learn the playbook as a mid-season freshman transfer, in addition to being the size of a freshman. And I can only speak from what I've seen on film, but Mason, to me, looks more built like a wide receiver and defensive back, and we desperately need those right now because of injuries.