The Morgan County Bulldogs hit the road to Elbert County on Oct. 2, a week after claiming a dramatic home victory over Hebron Christian Academy to open region competition. Despite drawing close to a comeback in a second-half battle, the Dogs (3-3) fell to the Blue Devils on Friday night after digging a 23-0 hole in the first quarter.
After the 44-32 road loss, Dogs head coach Clint Jenkins said he believes “all three phases of the game” got off to a rough start with Elbert County. Regardless of the outcome, he said he was “very proud” of the team’s ability to put up a fight throughout the evening.
“We kind of warned our kids all week about a letdown, coming after a really emotional win over Hebron, but it’s just, unfortunately, sometimes it’s part of it,” Jenkins said. “We saw it through practice this week, this last week. It’s my job to have them ready, so I’ll take the blame for it, but we didn’t have a great week, and had a hard time getting over a really emotional win.”
Shortly after the Blue Devils capped off 23 unanswered points, the Dogs gained momentum and added two touchdowns late in the first quarter. Freshman wide receiver DeAnthony Harris caught a 39-yard pass from junior quarterback Gunner Braswell, and junior tight end Myles Alexander scored a pick-six off a tipped pass less than a minute later.
The Dogs totaled 321 yards on offense, with Braswell going 15 for 22 and throwing for 149 yards. Senior wide receiver Cole Wesley took snaps at quarterback again, going 2 for 4 for 27 yards, and threw a reverse touchdown pass to Braswell in the third quarter.
Senior running back Alex Corrias led the Dogs’ running game with 110 yards and 22 carries.
“We got to make corrections and even flush the good wins, so I just didn’t think we did a very good job of that,” Jenkins said. “We fought our way back to within five points twice, but never could seem to quite get over the fact that we had just given them too much, and that’s what you can’t do [in a game].”
Jenkins said the Dogs had a few chances to make a comeback during the game but couldn’t do so because of “mental mistakes.”
“We had the ball at midfield with some opportunities late in the game, and just, you know, never really felt good about our running game,” Jenkins said.
“We’ve struggled there this year, and just, again, when we just had some missed tackles in a couple of [Elbert County’s] big plays.”
With the game now behind them, the Dogs head into their second bye week this season before returning home to Bill Corry Stadium, where they will face Franklin County on Oct.
16 for Homecoming. Jenkins said in the meantime, his team must focus on adjusting as much as possible, including areas such as blocking, tackling, and especially “the mental aspects” of the game.
“We’ve got a lot of things to work on after this one, so, just back to fundamentals, back to blocking and tackling, because those are the things that we are continuing to try to develop our guys with and make sure they understand situations better,” Jenkins said. “I really am proud that they did fight their way back in the game, but the bottom line is that we didn’t even look like the same team at Hebron. Our consistency of play is not nearly where it needs to be at this point in the year.”