CCC FOOTBALL: St. James wins over MA in battle of new coaches
St. James running back Cole Anderson is tripped up by MA’s Chance Wilson in the Trojans’ win on Friday. (Tim Gayle)
By TIM GAYLE
It was an intriguing matchup featuring two first-year head coaches known for their previous work as coordinators.
Montgomery Academy’s former defensive coordinator, Ethan McBride, would match wits with St. James’ former offensive coordinator, Neal Posey, in the 2023 season opener at Carlisle Field.
The intriguing part of the matchup faded quickly after kickoff. After all, it takes players to make schemes work and the defending 3A state champion Trojans had a few more weapons in their arsenal as KJ Jackson and Cole Anderson each accounted for three touchdowns in a 49-13 romp over the Eagles in the season opener for both teams.
There were no surprises from Jackson, the Arkansas commitment who completed 5 of 7 passes for 118 yards and a touchdown and rushed for 63 yards and two more scores on six carries, all coming in the first half.
The surprise might have been Anderson, the senior who patiently waited for his turn behind the school’s career rushing leader, Cosner Harrison, exploding in his first start with 208 yards and three touchdowns on just 10 carries.
“We knew he could run last year,” Posey said, “but Cosner was the guy. Cole has embraced getting the carries. He’s worked on seeing the holes and seeing them develop. When he gets to those holes, his speed does the rest. I was so proud of him.”
Anderson made short work of the Eagles’ defense, rushing 46 yards for a touchdown on the second play of the game, adding an 80-yard sprint to the end zone in the second quarter and scoring on his only carry of the second half, going 70 yards for his third touchdown to wrap up the night for the Trojan starters.
“Ultimately, I’m our defensive coordinator and I’m extremely frustrated with our defensive coordinator right now,” McBride said. “It’s a culmination of a lot of things. These guys are learning when I make one wrong step and another person also makes a wrong step, that’s cumulative and when you’ve got a guy that is as explosive as No. 21 (Anderson) is for them, he can make you pay the price really quickly.
“It’s incredibly frustrating. It seems like when we made our mistakes, they also hit right where those mistakes were at.”
Those mistakes added up to nearly 500 yards of offense for the Trojans, who scored 35 first-half points with a pair of touchdown scrambles by Jackson and held the Eagles’ offense scoreless and to just 29 rushing yards on 25 carries for the game.
“Hats off to St. James,” McBride said. “Any time you’ve got a program that goes and wins a state championship, you wonder how they’re going to pop out afterwards. And they came to play. They didn’t miss a beat. With a coaching change, that’s a testament to Coach Posey, keeping that team rolling. Honestly, they looked just like they looked coming out of the state championship game.”
Part of that was Anderson, who turned ordinary plays into long runs almost every time he touched the ball.
“I knew once I got past the front line, if I could break free, I was gone and nobody was going to catch me,” Anderson said. “That’s what I just hoped for every time I got the ball.”
Another part of it was Jackson, who broke loose on a 37-yard scramble late in the first quarter and a 17-yard scoring scramble with 10 seconds left in the first half for a 35-13 lead.
“He read the defense, that they were bailing on the pass,” Posey said. “He tucked it and made something happen. He’s just a good player.”
Montgomery Academy scored both of its touchdowns on fumble returns, using a Graham Martin sack of Jackson to cause a fumble, leading to an 18-yard return for a touchdown by Will Hardin and a hit on Anderson that resulted in a fumble and a 48-yard return for a touchdown by David Whisenhunt.
“The guys played really good,” Posey said. “The two fumbles hurt us. Those are on me. Bad play calls. Our offensive line played great. They made some big holes.”
After Anderson’s scoring sprint three minutes into the second half made it 42-13, both teams turned the game over to their reserves.
“I thought it would be closer,” Anderson said, “but our line did a really good job creating holes and we broke away.”
Both teams are on the road next week, with Montgomery Academy (0-1) traveling to Trinity and St. James (1-0) traveling to Handley.
“We’ve got a lot of things we’ve got to improve on,” McBride said. “We knew going into it with so many young guys that there was going to be some lumps. Just about every play, when you look at what happened, you say, ‘That was a 10th grader, that was a ninth grader.’ That’s part of it. I can remember my first year (at Montgomery Academy in 2020), we played St. James and they had a lot of ninth graders and 10th graders starting. I remember Coach (Jimmy) Perry saying, ‘I can see the future.’ I feel the same way. The future is very bright for this program. We’ve just got to keep working.”