Irish QB Darras Dazzles Chargers With Passing Show

Film sessions all week didn’t do McMinn Central much good in Friday’s TSSAA Class 3A quarterfinal playoff game against hard-charging Notre Dame.

“We knew they were a good ball team from what we saw on film,” Chargers coach Josh Goodin said. “But the films didn’t do them justice. We couldn’t matchup with them.”

It was obvious from the start.

The third-ranked Irish (12-1) did to McMinn Central exactly what they’ve done to other opponents all season – they hammered the Chargers into submission in the first half.

Notre Dame scored 20 first-quarter points, added 22 in the second, had an insurmountable 42-7 lead at halftime. The second half was played with a running clock.

Final score: Notre Dame 48, McMinn Central 7.

The victory avenged a 41-20 regular season loss to the Chargers in 2012 and sent the Irish into next week’s semifinals against Alcoa (12-1). That game will also be played at Finley Stadium and the kickoff is at 7 p.m.

Alcoa, 14-4 in semifinal games over the years, rallied to beat Christian Academy of Knoxville, 35-24.

Legendary coach Gary Rankin’s Tornadoes are 13-1 in championship games.

Alcoa, however, will have to come up with a defensive effort designed to slow Notre Dame quarterback Alex Darras, or it will suffer the same fate as the Chargers.

Darras, a junior, in just over two quarters completed 19-of-23 passes for 299 yards and four touchdowns, two to Anthony Flemister of 31 and 6 yards. He also found Kareem Orr on a 30-yard scoring strike and Patrick Johnson on a 37-yarder.

All four touchdowns came in the first half when the Irish gunslinger hit 17-of-19 for 273 yards.

“This has to be the best I’ve thrown all season,” Darras said. “I just try to do what the coaches ask me to do and be accurate with my throws. I think that’s what I did tonight.”

Accurate?

Darras had nine straight completions for 99 yards to start the game before missing on the 10^th, which was intended for Flemister. By the time Darras finally missed, the Irish had a 20-0 lead on Auston Banks’ 15-yard touchdown scamper and back-to-back scoring tosses to Flemister, who wound up with seven catches for 74 yards.

Darras and Co. were having fun.

“It was awesome,” he said. “We usually throw about 15 passes a game, but when McMinn Central tried to stop our run we knew we had to start passing the ball to help spread them out.”

For the entire first half, the Chargers’ pass defense resembled Swiss cheese.

And Darras looked like he had never started the season with low confidence after coming back from a right foot injury (he broke the fifth metatarsal bone) in the offseason.

“My confidence was low starting the season,” he said. “I couldn’t get in the swing of things. But once everybody got into a better rhythm we were OK.”

Darras consistently found open receivers over the middle and many times the receivers made big yardage after the catch and the Chargers simply could not contain the Irish’s passing attack.

Notre Dame coach Charles Fant was impressed.

“Alex was incredible,” he said. “He was pin-point accurate. We put in a couple of new wrinkles tonight just because he’s been throwing the ball so well. He’s just putting the ball on the money. He’s such an intelligent player and this game is starting to click for him.”

Flemister couldn’t stop smiling when talking about Darras’ performance, which was aided by an offensive line that gave him plenty of time to throw.

“It’s amazing to play when he’s on like that,” Flemister said. “He’s shown constant growth over the season and is emerging as one of the premier quarterbacks in our area.

“It’s good to have a quarterback that good who can read (the defense) that well. It makes it so much easier for the receivers. We don’t have to do much other than catch the football. He makes a lot of stuff happen.”

And Flemister believes there are better days ahead for Darras.

“He’s had a couple of games like tonight, but I don’t think he’s played his best game yet,” Flemister said. “He’s been real good these last few weeks in the playoffs though. Amazing, really.”

Orr was gushing over the Darras performance turned in under the bright lights of a critical playoff game on Friday.

“Man, he got the job done,” said Orr, who caught six passes for 128 yards. “I think he had a great game against East Ridge early in the year, but this was a pretty good one, too. I’m very impressed.”

Orr said he thought the Irish passing game would come into play because they expected the Chargers to stack the box, trying to slow Notre Dame’s rushing attack.

That plan also failed. Irish running back Auston Banks rushed 12 times for 141 yards – an 11.8-yard average per carry – and scored on runs of 15 and 5 yards.

With Darras’ passes constantly finding their marks, the Irish just kept throwing to amass the big first-half advantage.

“That was a lot of fun,” Orr said. “We thought they would key on our running game, so we thought we could throw it a little bit. When Alex finds his receivers, he knows we can make some big plays.”

Fant said Darras began to turn his season into a higher gear the week the Irish drubbed Signal Mountain, 35-3, with the second-lowest point total in the Irish’s 12-game winning streak.

Darras went for 146 against the Eagles, but his 299 yards against McMinn Central are a season-high. So are the four touchdowns.

“In that Signal Mountain game we started seeing him release the ball really well,” Fant said of Darras. “The thing with Alex is he never consistently had high-percentages with his passing. Since Signal Mountain it’s something like 67 percent.

“I never know what the stats are right after a game, but this one really felt good on the sidelines watching him throw the ball.”

Frankly, Goodin got a little tired of it after a while.

“He did a great job finding open receivers and we didn’t put much pressure on him,” Goodin said. “When a kid of that caliber gets that much time to throw he’s going to pick you apart, and that’s what he did to us tonight.”

(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)