One way to define a good football team, maybe an old-fashioned way, has always been this: They can run the ball – and stop the run.
Do that and you’re plenty formidable. Do that and you make it really hard for teams to beat you.
But here’s the problem for the folks who try to categorize these things, as we are this night looking back at Covington Catholic’s 43-0 win at Boone County.
Which was more impressive for the 6-1 Colonels as they improved to 2-0 in Class 5A district play: the 43, or the zero?
The Colonels’ sideline signaled the answer as the starters cheered the backup defenders on the field in the fourth quarter as Boone County’s 3-3 Rebels (0-2 in the district) had their third shot at scoring the ball.
“We emphasized it to those guys,” said top Colonel defender Aiden Jones, a 6-foot-3, 240-pound edge rusher who doubles as a post player in basketball. “We wanted it pretty bad.”
The Colonels had given up just six touchdowns in the past four weeks. But this would be their first shutout.
“We were,” Coach Eddie Eviston said of whether his team was all in for the shutout, at least once his Colonels realized they had a shot at one at the end of this game that was played with a running clock once CovCath went ahead 36-0 with 3:35 left in the third period.
But it was hardly automatic against a team with a do-everything quarterback like Jamarrion Hocker, built more like a nose tackle but active and athletic, running it, throwing it, punting it, and on one of the trick plays Boone drew up, probably hoping to catch it.
“He can move,” Jones said of Hocker, someone he’s played with since pee wee ball. And move Hocker did, carrying the ball 16 times for 32 yards and throwing it 24 times, completing 13, for 184 yards but no scores.
Every time the Rebels got close, the Colonels stiffened – once at the 5, once at the 9, and then the final time with five minutes left, at the 5 again.
“We could have easily had a tie at the half,” Boone County Coach Bryson Warner told his team after the game looking at those first two missed opportunities. “We have to rise to the occasion . . . we have to compete.”
But most of the competing in this one came from the CovCath side where the Colonels fit the definition of a good football team by running the ball for 394 yards on 30 carries while holding the Rebels to a mere 34 on 23 ground attempts.
Do the math there: for CovCath, that’s an average of more than 13 yards a carry; for Boone, the average was less than a yard-and-a-half per carry.
And while Hocker had a 65-yard pass to Tyler Whipple and a 36-yarder to Mason Hessling, his longest run was for 23 yards and when you factor in the 37 yards lost on sacks, the Colonels didn’t leave Boone much on the ground.
And with the game starting at 6 p.m. to get at least the first half in before the lights would have to take over because of some electrical issues they’ve been having at Owen Hauck Stadium/Irv Goode Field, this one finished up with all the lights on for Boone County – except for the scoreboard.
After CovCath’s first score, the soundtrack of this game was provided by the Colonels’ defensive coordinator, Terry Brown. “Three and out, that’s all I ask,” Brown told his defenders after the kickoff.
After CovCath QB Evan Pitzer’s 1-yard run to make it 22-0 in the third, Brown told his defenders he wanted them “foamin’ at the mouth and flyin’ around.” It helped that kicker Andrew Weitzel put three kickoffs into the end zone and hit two others the return men couldn’t handle inside the 10.
“I want to see the same thing,” Brown roared after Owen Leen’s second TD, from 18 yards out in the third quarter. And after the following three-and-out, “that’s how you do it, great job guys.”
“It’s hard,” Jones said of playing for Brown, “it’s disciplined.”
Well that’s the goal but the three long plays given up had Head Coach Eddie Eviston talking like this.
“I’m not surprised,” when asked if the way his defense is rounding into physical form was unexpected. “We pride ourselves in playing like that.”
But there is this. “Tonight was a kind of microcosm of where we are,” Eviston said of the long plays allowed. “We’ve got some work to do. We’re not fully there yet. But when it came down to it, we were.”
A big part of why they were where they wanted to be came from a guy on the other side of the ball, 5-8 workhorse Leen, who lugged it 16 times for 221 yards, a 13.8 average, and three touchdowns.
Backup quarterback Zaccary Roberts, on a nifty 18-yard run, Marcus Suwinski, on an 11-yard reverse, and Tyler Rennekamp on a 1-yard plunge, finished off the Colonels’ scoring.
Now it’s the bye week for the Colonels whose next date, Oct. 14, is against the hot-handed and high-flying Highlands Bluebirds, Northern Kentucky’s highest-powered offense coming off a trio of games where they’ve scored 57 points (against Ryle), 59 points (against Dixie Heights) and 55 points (Friday against Conner).
Should be fun. Probably not a shutout.
Score by Quarters
Covcath 15 0 21 7 43
Boone 0 0 0 0 0
COVCATH: Leen.Owen 2 yd run (Leen.Owen rush)
COVCATH: Suwinski,Marcus 11 yd run (Weitzel,Andrew kick)
COVCATH: Pitzer,Evan 1 yd run (Weitzel,Andrew kick)
COVCATH: Leen.Owen 18 yd run (Weitzel,Andrew kick)
COVCATH: Rennekamp, Tyler 1 yd run (Weitzel,Andrew kick)
COVCATH: Roberts,Zacc 18 yd run (Weitzel,Andrew kick)