If Friday's Class 5A state playoff goes down to the wire, Ooltewah place-kicker Laszlo Toser is one weapon the Owls can call on to pull out a victory against Rhea County.
photo by Dennis Norwood
Ooltewah and Rhea County will battle Friday night in Evensville in a state-wide headliner as the TSSAA state football playoffs move into the second round.
It is the only matchup, regardless of classification, on the schedule. Thirteen of the 15 remaining undefeated teams are seeded No. 1 and playing at home this week. As a No. 2 seed in quadrant two, which has three of the five unbeaten teams in Class 5A, Rhea County is the lone unbeaten squad playing at home that’s not a No.
1 seed.
Ooltewah is the lone undefeated team playing on the road in the second round.
That’s TSSAA playoff football. It’s hard to understand at times. It leaves a lot of coaches scratching their heads. Every coach is likely yearning for 2015 when the playoffs might have less chaos when the brackets are announced by the governing body after the final week of the regular season.
“My initial thought when I saw the brackets, is that I’m glad we’re going to change the playoff system next year,” Rhea County coach Mark Pemberton said. “I’m not a big fan of this one. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
That’s coming from a coach of an undefeated team that will be hosting its second straight home playoff game.
The teams that survive the Class 5A playoff – there are five unbeaten teams in the entire bracket, with three in quadrant two – and reach the title game at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville in December they would be worthy of spots on a television reality show with a similar name.
“One the other hand,” Pemberton said, “if you’re going to win it all, you’ve got to beat those other teams anyway.”
Friday’s showdown at Rhea County’s Bill Horton Field will gobble up a lion’s share of the second-round spotlight.
Ooltewah is 11-0, ranked No. 3 and winner of back-to-back District 5-AAA titles.
Rhea County is 11-0, ranked No. 6 and District 6-AAA champion.
Oak Ridge, the other 11-0 team in the quadrant, is ranked No. 7 and the District 3-AAA champion.
The Wildcats are the No. 1 seed, Rhea County No. 2 and Ooltewah No. 3.
So, the Owls and Golden Eagles, sporting contrasting offenses and hard-nosed defenses at the ready, square off Friday in what is clearly the biggest game of the season for both teams.
“It’s going to be awesome,” Ooltewah defensive lineman Tyler Palmgren said. “Both teams are unbeaten; both teams beat Cleveland; both played high-caliber teams. I think what they run and what we run should be a good matchup.”
The two teams have four common opponents – Walker Valley, Soddy-Daisy, East Hamilton and Stone Memorial.
Walker Valley: Ooltewah won 45-12; Rhea County won 41-7.
Soddy-Daisy: Ooltewah won 40-0; Rhea County won 41-37.
East Hamilton: Ooltewah won 41-7; Rhea County won 42-14.
Stone Memorial: Ooltewah won 31-0; Rhea County won 21-7.
Those comparisons probably don’t mean much, but two factors are obvious.
Ooltewah’s defense, which limits opponents to 10.1 points per game, must control Rhea’s run-oriented wing-T offense.
“They run their offense very well and they’re powerful,” said linebacker Jeremiah Jackson, the Owls’ leading tackler. “They’re a true wing-T team and they’ve trained well to run it. It’s an offense similar to Stone Memorial, but Rhea runs it a lot better.”
And the Golden Eagles’ defense, which holds foes to an average of 11.8 points, has to contend with the Owls’ pass-happy spread offense that features a 2,747-yard passer with 29 touchdowns in quarterback Kelvin Leon and three high-powered receivers – Edward Hayes, Anthony Turner and Rashun Freeman, who have a combined 156 receptions for 2,318 yards and 30 touchdowns.
Defensively, the Owls must contend with Rhea’s wing-T offense that chews up chunks of yards and clock at the same time.
Wingback Zach Daoust paced the Eagle’s ground game with 129 yards rushing, including 111 and touchdowns of 53, 27 and 5 yards in the first half, as Rhea pummeled outmanned Tullahoma, 52-14, in the opening round.
Daoust goes into Friday’s game with 1,199 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns.
Fullback Jacob York has a reputation as a great blocker, but he’s another effective weapon as a runner, as is Cody Bice. York and Bice combined for 1,555 yards through 11 games.
“Daoust has more yardage and more big plays than Bice and York,” Pemberton said. “But I’ve got all the confidence in the work in those two other guys. I’d put the ball in any of those guys’ hands in crucial situations.”
It’s easy for defenders to get lost in all the movement associated with Rhea’s offensive scheme, but that’s something the Owls can ill-afford if they’re going to deny Rhea numerous sustained drives.
“They have some lethal players,” said Owls linebacker Tyler Reid, second in tackles behind Jackson. “They love to run the ball and we have to be ready for that. We have to play more physical than we’ve been playing lately. But we’re pumped and ready to go.”
Ooltewah coach Mac Bryan says his defenders must keep their eye-focus and not be confused with what’s going on in the backfield in order to control the Eagles’ vaunted ground game.
“Our kids have to key on what they’re supposed to key on,” said Bryan, 20-3, in two seasons with the Owls, “see what they’re supposed to see and not see other things. Your eyes can’t be distracted with all the movement. You have to have very disciplined eyes.”
Friday’s face-off could go one of two ways.
It could be an offensive shootout.
It could be a defensive struggle.
Either way, if the game is close and Ooltewah has the ball late, the Owls’ heralded place-kicker Laszlo Toser is a weapon that most teams don’t have at the high school level.
“I feel very confident and I love handling the pressure,” Toser said. “I embrace it and take it as a challenge and just focus on putting the ball through the uprights.”
Although Toser hasn’t faced that situation late in a game, he’s shown he can handle it at the end of the first half.
In a 38-0 rout of Bradley Central earlier this season, the Owls got possession following a Bradley punt late in the second quarter. Leon’s 30-yard pass to Freeman moved the Owls to the Bears’ 35 with 4.4 seconds on the clock.
Toser trotted onto the field and boomed a school-record 52-yard field goal as time expired to give Ooltewah a 24-0 lead, with all the points coming in the second period.
His field goal was the difference in the Owls’ 10-7 win over Dobyns-Bennett in 2013.
“At this level, it’s very important and unusual to have a kicker like Laszlo,” Bryan said. “A couple times this year, near the end of the first half, we’ve gotten the ball with a minute or so left and I’ve said, ‘We’ve got to get to the 35 or 30 to have a shot at a field goal.’
“How many times in high school football can you say that? Most high school teams can’t do that because they don’t have a kicker like Laszlo.”
Said Palmgren of Toser’s kicking prowess: “When I see Toser out there, it’s a done deal.”
Toser spent a lot of the offseason attending seven or eight kicking camps and working extensively with kicking consultant James Wilhoit, a former Parade All-American at Hendersonville High School and who kicked at Tennessee from 2003-06.
“I worked hard pretty much every day over the summer and sessions with James Wilhoit allow you to see where you’re at with other kickers and what you need to work on.”
Bryan said the year between Toser’s junior and senior seasons allowed the kicker to mature and strengthen his leg.
“It was strong to begin with,” Bryan said. “He’s kicking almost all his kickoffs through the end zone and his accuracy has improved, and those things come with hard work.
“The other thing people overlook is that I told him after last season he needed to be our punter, if it didn’t mess up his kicking stroke. Well, he’s our punter and done a very nice job with it.”
Through 11 games, Toser averaged 31.1 yards per punt, but was effective at directional punting and down 10 kicks inside the 20 and five inside the 10.
As a place-kicker, he was true on 15-of-19 field goals, 51-of-52 extra points and blasted 70-of-77 kickoffs into or through the end zone.
It’s expected that Toser will be named by the TSSAA as a Mr. Football finalist for kickers on Wednesday.
TSSAA Second Round Pairings
All Games Start 7 p.m. Local Time
Class 5A
Ooltewah (11-0) at Rhea County (11-0)
Cleveland (6-5) at Oak Ridge (11-0)
Class 4A
Hixson (9-2) at Livingston Academy (10-1)
Signal Mountain (9-2) at Loudon (11-0)
Class 3A
Upperman (7-4) at Notre Dame (10-1)
Red Bank (7-4) at McMinn Central (9-2)
Class 2A
Jackson County (7-4) at Marion County (9-1)
Class 1A
South Pittsburg (6-5) at Copper Basin (6-4)
Division II-AA
McCallie (9-2) at Montgomery Bell Academy (8-2)
Baylor (7-4) at Christian Brothers (6-4)
(E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)
Ooltewah's Tyler Sylvester, making a tackle against Cleveland as teammate Rashun Freeman (11) provides support, and the rest of Ooltewah's defense will be tested in Friday's Class 5A state playoff game against Rhea County. Both teams are 11-0 and state-ranked.
photo by Dennis Norwood