Football Playoffs: After Home-Field Run, Irish Hit The Road

If there’s one thing Notre Dame’s Fighting Irish have enjoyed recently about the TSSAA state football playoffs, aside from the victories, has been home-field advantage.

The Irish have played at home – either on campus at Jim Eberle Field or at Finley Stadium – for for five consecutive postseason games. They are 4-1 in those games with the only loss a 28-19 decision last season to Alcoa in the Class 3A semifinals. Alcoa lost 7-0 to Christ Presbyterian Academy in the title game.

In 2014, Notre Dame beat Chattanooga Christian, Upperman and McMinn Central before running into the Gary Rankin-coached Tornadoes. The Irish opened this year’s playoffs with an impressive 38-0 rout of Sequatchie County.

“We’re on a roll,” Irish coach Charles Fant said. “It’s the best we’ve played all year. In fact, for three games in a row, it’s probably the best this team can play.”

Well, Notre Dame’s security blanket – playing at home at the most important time of the season – will go away Friday when it travels to Upperman to take on the Bees in the Class 3A second round.

Upperman, then an undefeated title threat, is the last team to dish out a postseason road loss to the Irish, posting a 19-10 victory at Tennessee Tech University on Nov. 22, 2013.

Fant and his players have distinct, distasteful memories of that cold, rainy night when the quarterback Connor York-led Bees ended Notre Dame’s championship hopes in the quarterfinals.

“It was a cool environment,” Irish quarterback Alex Darras says. “Because of the rain that week, their home field was a mess, so they moved the game to Tech. The stadium was bigger; there were a lot more people there. The game went back and forth and then (linebacker) Tyler Enos got hurt, who was great in the middle, and their quarterback broke a play right up the middle to give them the lead.

“We had to force some things and they wound up scoring again.”

A week before the Upperman game, the Irish knocked off Polk County, 24-14, in Benton.

This week the Irish (8-3) will go through a familiar playoff scenario, but they hope to rewrite the script’s ending with a victory to extend their season. Notre Dame avenged the 2013 loss to Upperman with a 55-7 rout of the Bees in last year’s second round on the Irish’s home turf.

First, they have to tackle what can be a stressful plan to make sure everything the team needs – from shoulder pads to ankle braces to eye-black – for the game is tucked away safely on the bus for a 2-hour, 110-mile jaunt to Baxter.

“The number one thing is time,” Fant said. “I have to make sure we have time to get everything done and that includes what time to get the players released from school to what time we leave, when we have our final walk-through and our pregame meal to what time we arrive for the game.

“We have a checklist for managers, our dads that we call our ‘roadies’ that help us out and the coaches and players. When you put something on the bus, you initial the list so we know the person responsible for that item. Before we pull away I get the list and check it one last time to make sure we have all we need. From that point every coach sweats until we get to the stadium hoping we have everything.

“So, playing at home is a lot easier. If there’s something we need at the field, we just jog over to the school (a distance of about 40 yards from the Irish sideline) and get it.”

Darras, a senior, said he doesn’t recall ever forgetting to put a needed piece of equipment in his travel bag during his time at Notre Dame, but knows it sometimes happens.

“We’ve had guys bring two left shoes, something like that,” he said.

The team’s pregame meal and final walk-through can vary in terms of when and where.

Fant recalled stopping in a mall parking lot for the walk-through prior to the Irish’s road game at Marshall County in 2011.

The Irish then ate and got back on the bus for the rest of the trip. Notre Dame lost that first-round game, 28-6.

Sometimes Fant will ask the home team if we can use their gym or baseball field for the final prep session.

“Because this game is so far away, we might stop at a rest area somewhere around the middle of the trip,” said Fant, who added he honed most of his organizational skills while working with Robert Akins (now the coach at Ringgold). “He’s one of the best I’ve ever seen do this kind of thing.”

Fant tries to shoulder most of the burden of road-game planning himself, thus shielding everyone else included in the travel party.

‘It’s a headache,” he said. “I want that on me and not my coaches and managers, those I delegate and the players. I don’t want anxiety or stress for anyone else. As the head coach, you take the stress for everyone.”

Once the bus is loaded, the final concern is something Fant has no way of controlling.

Traffic.

“One time we were going just up the road to Central and one of the tunnels near us happened to be closed and traffic was horrible,” Fant said. “We got behind by about 30 minutes. We really had to scramble to get ready once we got there.”

What is a relief to Fant and the Irish is the fact that York, the former Bees signal caller, is playing football at East Tennessee State. As a senior, York put up 5,135 total yards with 72 touchdowns while leading the Bees to a 13-1 season – the only loss was a 75-18 destruction by Alcoa a week after the Tornadoes ousted Notre Dame.

Two weeks earlier, Upperman thrashed Tyner, 70-49, in round one.

But, Upperman (9-2) is not without outstanding talent this year.

The Bees gained 402 yards in last week’s easy 35-15 win over Red Bank and senior signal caller Daylen Watts, was held to 147 passing yards and one touchdown.

On a sloppy field, Upperman resorted to a ground game that produced 255 yards and four scores. Running back Jake Middlebrook carried 20 times for 100 yards and added a 1-yard touchdown run. Austin Butler had 78 yards and two rushing touchdowns and Watts scored once on a short run.

“(York) was probably the best player I ever went against in my career,” Fant said. “One game before us, he had 700-plus yards against Tyner. We did OK against York, but he changed the game with that run right where Enos would have been had he not gotten hurt.

“But they still have a dang good quarterback (Watts) this year. There’s no doubt the kid makes their offense go. He’s not at York’s level, but he’s not far off.”

Notre Dame’s three losses this season came against Tyner (27-21), Knox Catholic (35-17) and undefeated East Ridge (14-9).

Since the East Ridge game, the Irish have reeled off four straight wins by outscoring Signal Mountain, McMinn Central, Red Bank and Sequatchie County by a combined 158-30. Included in that streak are one shutout and two other defensive efforts that held opponents to nine or fewer points.

“We’re hitting our stride at the right time to be playing our best ball,” Darras said. “We were out of sync earlier in the year because we were struggling with playing as a complete team. We decided to eliminate individualism because we knew there was nothing wrong with the playbook. Now, we’re all on the same page and we’re going into the Upperman game high on confidence.”

The Notre Dame-Upperman winner advances to the quarterfinals and will play at the Chattanooga Christian-East Ridge winner on Nov. 20.

TSSAA Football Playoff Schedule

Second Round

Chattanooga Area Schools

All Games Start at 7 p.m. Local Time

Class 1A

Fayetteville (9-2) at South Pittsburg (8-3)

Class 2A

Tyner (8-3) at Boyd-Buchanan (11-0)

Marion County (10-1) at Forrest (10-1)

Class 3A

Chattanooga Christian (8-3) at East Ridge (11-0)

Notre Dame (8-3) at Upperman (9-2)

Class 4A

East Hamilton (7-4) at Stone Memorial (11-0)

Class 5A

Rhea County (8-3) at Farragut (10-1)

Oak Ridge (10-1) at Ooltewah (9-2)

Division II-AA

Baylor (8-2) at Memphis University School (7-3)

McCallie (5-5) at Montgomery Bell Academy (9-1)

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