Even Aquaman would have been challenged to kick in the waterlogged conditions Sewanee’s Brody Palmer was asked to kick his 38 yard field goal. It predictably went wide as the rain pounded every player, coach, and spectator, and the Tigers went down 30-29 to Westminster in their home opener.
Dagem Samuel took the ball out to the 40 yard line on the opening kickoff, and Sewanee’s offense immediately got to work.
Cooper Hancock moved the ball with short passes, including a pass out to the flat to former Chatt Central star Michael McGhee to make it 4th and 2 on the 34th yard line..
A false start killed the drive though, and Sewanee was forced to punt on their first home possession of the year. On the next drive, coach Rundle’s boys tried a fake punt on 4th and 11 that came up short. Quinn Johnson, Henry Proctor and the rest of the defensive line stayed stout early in the first quarter, and Jacob Jackson snuffed out a screen on third and long to kill another Westminster drive.
After Hancock failed to hit anything farther than a few yards down the field, Jeremiah Young came in to spark the offense. His deep ball to Samuel down the right sideline just grazed off his fingertips but drew a loud reaction from the home crowd.
Halfback George Morrice ripped through the Westminster defense for 36 yards, running up the middle before cutting to his right and jetting downfield to get Sewanee downfield in a hurry. Unfortunately for the Tigers, the offense stalled out and all Sewanee got out of that explosive run was a wayward field goal.
Sewanee’s Jack Satterfield was perhaps the star of the game through the first 20 minutes, bombing great punts. His best was a 62 yarder. Westminster’s Taylor Dobbins took that stardom away right after that, ripping off an 81 yarder on the very next play.
He started running to his right, slipped through a hole, and then encountered danger. He cut back across the grain and forced a few Tigers to miss, and then outran the last safety down the opposite sideline for the long touchdown and a 7-0 lead.
The home team countered by getting the ball into the hands of their best playmaker. Samuel took the reverse, turned the corner, and ran for about 20 yards to get the ball to midfield. He then ran down the seam and made a diving catch 30 yards downfield for another chunk play. Another Samuel catch on the slant got yet another first down.
Six-foot receiver Cyrus McCullough lined up on the perimeter and caught a fade for Sewanee’s first touchdown since Spring. But instead of tying up the game with an extra point, the Tigers tried to run a swinging gate option play. McCullough gave away two points when his pitch was intercepted by Westminster’s defender, who sprinted 100 yards the other way for a fumbleception. Westminster now possessed a 9-6 lead in one of the oddest plays in college football’s history.
Elijah Teal pulled off another broken field 65 yard run for Westminster, this time as the wingback from the double-wing alignment. As the rain poured down and umbrellas popped up in the stands, the Blue Jays were flying down Harris field. Receiver Trey King scored a touchdown and incurred a penalty when he posted up a couple of Sewanee DB’s in the endzone on a curl route and trash talked afterward.
Halfbacks George Morrice and Hunter Jones used hard running and some slick moves (aided by the driving rain) to get the ball down the field. Brody Palmer cashed in with a 43 yard field goal in adverse conditions to cut the lead to a single score.
Kaleb Seay is perhaps the most versatile of the Tiger’s defenders. In the first half he could be seen laying the wood on short passes in coverage. To start the second, he flew in off the edge and dumped quarterback Wyatt Ellis for a sack. King burned the Tigers yet again on the next possession, tracking a deep shot over his shoulder for a 50 yard reception to get the ball in the red zone.
Ellis finished the drive in style, keeping the ball on the fake jet-sweep and rushing to his left. A lone Tiger tried to track him down, but a dead-leg move a la Hendon Hooker faked out his adversary and gave the Blue Jays a 23-9 lead. A Young fumble gave the ball right back to Westminster, and Taylor Dobbins cashed in with a short-range TD run to blow the game open 30-9.
Cooper Hancock was reinserted after this and led the offense downfield. He capped the drive with a gorgeous rainbow down the sideline for a 41 yard touchdown to McCullough. With the good extra point, the Tigers were now only down by two touchdowns.
The issue for the Tigers wasn’t their offense, it was their inability to stop the run. Ellis and Dobbins were a lethal duo, and the front-seven only seemed to guess wrong whenever the two ran the option. They stiffened long enough to force a field goal though, and Keegan Glaze blew through blockers to block the field goal.
Hancock continued to bomb away on deep balls to McCullough. With ten minutes to go in the game, the quarterback lobbed a 25 yard pass to his favorite receiver and McCullough caught his third touchdown of the game as the rain pelted the artificial field. The defense came up with the biggest play of the day when Alex Parris stripped Dobbins and the Tigers recovered at midfield.
The Tigers leaned on McGhee on three straight runs and brutalized the Jays. He took Blake Bolin for a 10 yard ride for a first down, and then George Morrice juked a defender out of his shoes on the 30 yard touchdown run. The holder couldn’t get the snap under control on the extra point though and the score stood at 30-29 with 7:55 left.
Henry Proctor, the Tigers’ senior leader, slammed Ellis to the ground on third and short to force a crucial fourth down. Westminster was so stunned they let the play clock run down on fourth and short, and had to punt with five minutes left. The Tigers were now 80 yards from their first win in years.
McGhee started the drive with a physical five yard run in the pouring rain, and then he dragged the entire Blue Jay defensive line around seven yards for another first down. An incomplete pass and a short run brought another third and long, and the pass was dropped behind the line of scrimmage. On the bright side, Satterfield’s punt took an incredible Sewanee bounce and landed inside the ten yard line. The Tiger’s defense held once again and Sewanee had one more chance to grab the lead with a little under a minute and a half to go in the game.
The punt was partially blocked, and the weaker kick barely moved in the air, and the Tigers took over at the 21 yard line. George Morrice’s quick dash to the edge got to the five yard line, but it was called back due to holding. An offsides call on the next play got five of those yards back.
Hancock’s deep ball to a streaking Samuel was just outside of his receiver’s reach, and Travis Rundle took a timeout to decide whether or not kicking a 38 yard field goal in the rainstorm was a better option than throwing a Hail Mary. Brody Palmer walked out to take the field goal, and of course Westminster took their final timeout to ice the kicker.
His kick went the needed 38 yards, but went just a little wide. Sewanee will rue their special team miscues for a week before they head out to Hendrix for another road game.
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