They went back to their roots, strapped on their boots, and kicked Chester right out of the playoffs.
For the past 2 games, the Clinton Red Devils’ quick-strike offense made time of possession an irrelevant stat. But in Friday’s 48-20 win over the Cyclones, Clinton made it count.
77-yard drive.
80-yard drive.
40-yard quick-strike.
66-yard drive.
And that was just the first half – 40 plays for more than 300 yards in that half, to build a lead that a valiant Chester effort just could not overcome.
By game’s end, Rhett Gilliam had 20 carries for 165 yards, and Javen Cook added 14 carries for 130 yards.
It was Clinton old-school football.
Grinding it out.
In the process, that left Chester’s uber-talented quarterback Trooper Floyd on the sidelines; and when he was on the field, he was running for his life. Floyd got Chester a quick-strike pass for the Cyclones’ first touchdown, on an all-out Clinton blitz; but Chester was able to manage 308 yards of total offense compared to Clinton’s 484 yards.
Time of possession wound up remarkable close – Clinton 24:52 to Chester 23:01 – but the results of the possessions were vastly different.
By contrast, in Clinton’s 1st round win, Pelion held the ball for 31:15 in order to score no points. The Red Devils quick-struck over and over and over in the 56-0 win and advancement to Friday’s 2nd round against Chester. The Red Devils’ regular season-ending 42-22 win over Liberty also was a quick-strike domination for Clinton (just 30 plays for 416 yards, Liberty ran 60 plays to gain 310 yards).
This coming Friday, it will be the No. 1 team in the state in Class 2A, undefeated Batesburg-Leesville traveling to Clinton in the 3rd round (B-L defeated Andrew Jackson, 49-14).
Chester was a formidable opponent many times for the Red Devils when both were in 3A and were region opponents. Now, both are in 2A but in different regions.
The first half of this playoff game was classic Clinton grind-down-the-defense football.
“We just want to give the glory to God first and foremost,” said Clinton Football Head Coach Corey Fountain. “The defense played outstanding from the beginning of the game to the end of the game. We got some subs in there at the end. They got us with that little speed back at the beginning of the game. We told them at the beginning of the game, they are going to give us their best shot. They are going to try to beat us as many times as they could, try to be physical, and we’ve got to withstand, hit back and punching them in the mouth, and that’s what our guys did, and I’m proud of them. Offensively we didn’t execute that good in that first drive, but we locked in and everybody started blocking.”
Looking at Gilliam’s success running behind Clinton’s big line, Fountain said, “We saw that they were setting the defense away from where Zoom (Javen Cook) was, and Coach A (Louie Alexander) did a good job setting those plays. They were not keying on Rhett at all, and our offensive line did a good job and Rhett did a good job finding the hole.”
Defensively, Fountain said the guys were where they were supposed to be on screen passes, never got fooled by a screen, and were never out of place, “and, defensively, I thought we executed the game plan very well.”
Starting the game in 44-degree clear weather, Clinton got a full taste of fall football at Wilder Stadium. Both teams were sluggish in their first possessions, but Clinton then came out with a heavy dose of Rhett Gilliam on the ground and sustained its next drive with no-huddle power football. That one went for 77 yards and a short Gilliam scoring run.
Gilliam scored again from 30 yards out to cap an 80-yard drive, before Chester struck on its long pass with 23 seconds to play in the first quarter.
A Chris Boyd kickoff return set up Clinton at the Chester 40, before the Red Devils tried a home run pass toward the end zone that fell incomplete. But that let Chester know they couldn’t simply stack the box to stop the run. Javen Cook took advantage of that for his 40-yard TD scamper, ending the first quarter.
Next came Clinton’s 66-yard drive capped by a Noah Garrett scoring catch.
The Clinton defense stopped the next Chester drive with a fumble recovery at the Red Devil 9-yard line just before halftime.
By that time, Clinton had run 40 plays to gain more than 300 yards and eat up 14 minutes of the game clock.
A Brett Young interception and Cook run into the red zone led to a Tushawan Richardson scoring run for Clinton, as the third quarter wound down. That was a 7-play, 54-yard drive.
In the fourth, an Austin Boyd interception set up an Angelo Cromer scoring run; and answering a Chester score, KJ Vance found pay dirt after a Gilliam run for the Red Devils.
Clinton’s grinding offense amassed 24 first downs in running 53 rushing plays that earned 432 yards. Richardson added 52 yards on 3 of 9 passing. Clinton was 5 for 6 in the red zone.
The Clinton defense held Chester to 3 of 12 on third downs and just 131 yards rushing. Floyd was able to complete 10 of 24 passes for 177 yards.
“A lot of credit goes to our guys executing the game plan and stacking good practices,” Fountain said. “We’ve got to continue stacking good practices, starting Sunday looking at the game film, and developing the game plan, and looking forward to Batesburg-Leesville.”
