Gilmer 54, Chapel Hill 31

By Joe Dodd

CHAPEL HILL — For a little more than nine minutes Friday night, Gilmer’s second game of the season looked as though it might follow an uncomfortable path.
Then, in a span of eight seconds, everything changed.
Austin Blakeley returned an interception 62 yards for a touchdown. On Chapel Hill’s next snap, the Bulldogs fumbled, and Carlos Brooks scooped up the loose ball and returned it five yards for another score.
A 7-0 deficit had become a 15-7 Gilmer lead, and the Buckeyes never trailed again on the way to a 54-31 victory at Bulldog Stadium.
For Gilmer coach Alan Metzel, the way his team responded before those two plays was as important as the plays themselves.
“The first and foremost thing is that when adversity hit, we hung in there,” Metzel said. “That was really pleasing to me.”
It was a different outcome from Gilmer’s 52-40 season-opening loss at Pine Tree, when four turnovers repeatedly interrupted the Buckeyes’ attempts to rally.
This time, Gilmer didn’t turn the ball over and took it away four times.
Metzel said he gave his team three points of emphasis Friday morning.
“One, win the turnover battle. We did,” he said. “Two, win the line of scrimmage. We did. Three, dominate on special teams, which we did.”
The combination helped Gilmer even its record at 1-1 and snap a three-game losing streak against Chapel Hill.
The Bulldogs struck first, driving 90 yards after Gilmer’s opening possession ended with a punt. Lemuel Stinson scored on a 9-yard run with 6:51 left in the first quarter for a 7-0 lead.
Gilmer’s next possession also ended with a punt, and Chapel Hill moved from its 29 to the Gilmer 40 before Blakeley changed the game.
The senior intercepted Ja’Kaivian Snow and raced 62 yards for the touchdown with 2:24 remaining in the quarter. Alan Sanchez’s extra point tied the game.
Eight seconds later, Gilmer had another touchdown.
On Chapel Hill’s first play following the kickoff, Snow had trouble handling the snap. The ball came loose, and Brooks gathered it at the 5 and scored. Tayveon Horne ran in the two-point conversion to give Gilmer a 15-7 lead.
Metzel said neither return was simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time.
On Blakeley’s interception, teammates immediately became blockers and created a path for the return without committing a penalty behind the play. On the fumble, Brooks approached the loose ball under control, gathered himself and secured it before trying to score.
“That’s a drill,” Metzel said. “He did it textbook, like they work on every single week. That didn’t happen by accident.”
Gilmer carried the momentum into a 27-point second quarter.
Zade Taylor scored on touchdown runs of 37 and 39 yards, Brooks broke loose for a 38-yard touchdown, and Ismael Camara powered in from a yard out with five seconds remaining in the half.
Chapel Hill countered with Stinson’s 46-yard touchdown run and Snow’s 60-yard touchdown pass to Aydan Holmes, but Gilmer took a 42-21 lead into halftime.
The Buckeyes did most of their damage without throwing the football.
Gilmer rushed 53 times for 376 yards, an average of 7.1 yards per carry, and finished with three 100-yard rushers.
Horne carried 23 times for 139 yards. Brooks, a sophomore, rushed 13 times for 119 yards. Taylor added 101 yards on 11 attempts.
Gilmer attempted only 10 passes, completing four for 57 yards.
That imbalance was intentional.
Metzel said Whitehouse had run 58 times against Chapel Hill a week earlier, and Gilmer entered Friday planning to test the Bulldogs the same way.
“We were going to sell out to running at them,” Metzel said. “I was very pleased with the patience. I thought the coaching staff did a great job of staying true to the game plan.”
Even as Chapel Hill brought more defenders into the box, Gilmer continued to find room.
“Our line did a good job of getting a push,” Metzel said. “Sometimes even if there was an unblocked hat, it was at five yards. We’ll take that.”
Metzel singled out several linemen after the game, including Justice Byrd, who earned the team’s Hogball Award, and Ryan Blume, Gilmer’s Defensive Player of the Week. He also pointed to Aaden Borelly-Brown, a newcomer who recorded a nine-yard sack and provided pressure from the defensive front.
“Justice Byrd won the Hogball Award this week and really played a good game,” Metzel said. “He’s setting a tone for the line group, and we’re really pleased with that.”
Metzel said Blume “played a heck of a game” and graded especially well for a defensive lineman, while Borelly-Brown’s emergence was another encouraging development.
“He had a big nine-yard sack and got some real push up there on the defensive line,” Metzel said. “I was really pleased to see him emerge a little bit.”
The result was an unusual kind of Gilmer offensive performance — one built around controlling the line of scrimmage and keeping Chapel Hill’s athletes on the sideline.
Gilmer held the football for 31 minutes, 7 seconds compared with Chapel Hill’s 16:53. The Buckeyes ran 63 offensive plays and picked up 26 first downs.
“We have an unusually large team,” Metzel said. “We’re trying to play to our strengths. When you’re playing against really good teams where they have skill guys too, the more we can keep them off the field, the better off we are.”
The emergence of Brooks gave Gilmer another option in accomplishing that.
Brooks — whom Metzel said the team calls “DJ” — had already established himself as a running back and linebacker through junior high and freshman football. Friday was his breakout performance on the varsity level.
“He’s one of those guys that’s very instinctual,” Metzel said. “Some people, they process the game fast in their mind, and I think DJ is one of those guys.”
Metzel pointed to Brooks’ patience as a runner and his ability to find openings rather than simply trying to outrun defenders.
“He just has a feel for where they aren’t,” Metzel said. “That was exciting to see him bust out and have such a good game.”
Horne provided another dimension.
In addition to his 139 rushing yards, Horne finished with 240 all-purpose yards. His biggest special-teams contribution came immediately after Chapel Hill pulled within 42-31 on the first play of the fourth quarter.
Horne took the ensuing kickoff at the Gilmer 32 and went 68 yards for a touchdown.
Instead of Chapel Hill cutting a 21-point halftime deficit to 11 and gaining momentum, Gilmer had pushed the margin back to 17.
“He’s a very talented guy,” Metzel said. “Like you saw him on the kickoff return, catches it and 68-yard touchdown. He’s versatile. He’s taking his game to another level.”
Horne later supplied the final score on a 29-yard touchdown run with 5:02 remaining.
Gilmer’s 54 points included five rushing touchdowns, two defensive touchdowns and Horne’s kickoff return. The Buckeyes did not throw a touchdown pass.
Taylor nevertheless remained central to the offense.
His two touchdown runs came on zone reads when Chapel Hill committed to the running back and Taylor pulled the ball and escaped around the edge.
“He’s such an explosive runner that that’s going to put pressure on defenses,” Metzel said.
Metzel was equally pleased with Taylor’s development as the team’s senior quarterback and leader.
“He’s coming into another level of confidence as the quarterback, as the leader, the person that is able to go talk to any group on our team — offense, defense, any group — and they listen,” Metzel said.
The Buckeyes still had areas that concerned their coach.
Chapel Hill finished with 447 yards, including 271 passing, and Stinson rushed for 171 yards and two touchdowns. Snow threw touchdown passes of 60 yards to Holmes and 26 yards to Maliek Brown.
Metzel said Gilmer’s gap integrity improved significantly from the Pine Tree game, but breakdowns in the secondary contributed to Chapel Hill’s biggest plays.
“There was a time or two where a guy saw the quarterback rolling out or running, and they let their guy go and started moving forward,” Metzel said. “We have to be able to be more disciplined in doing our job.”
Missed tackles also allowed several plays to become bigger gains.
“When we get to the point of attack, get the guy down,” Metzel said. “It’s not more complicated than that.”
Offensively, Metzel wants the Buckeyes to capitalize when their running success forces defenses to leave receivers in one-on-one coverage.
Taylor completed 4 of 10 passes for 57 yards Friday.
“If you can run the ball, you can force the defense’s hand,” Metzel said. “Now you’re one on one. Well, then you’ve got to win those. You win those, you score lots of points.”
Still, the improvement from Week 1 to Week 2 was unmistakable to Metzel.
The offensive line graded better. Gilmer corrected many of the defensive problems that hurt it at Pine Tree. The Buckeyes won the turnover battle and produced touchdowns on offense, defense and special teams.
Perhaps most importantly to Metzel, he saw signs of the team beginning to police and lead itself.
“The sideline went up a notch, where it’s becoming more team-led, player-led than coach-led,” he said. “Those are the best teams when it’s coming from the players.”
The victory also ended Chapel Hill’s three-game winning streak in the series, but Metzel said that wasn’t what mattered most.
“To me it was more about us than it was them,” he said. “I felt like our guys needed the breath of fresh air of a win — to go, ‘Oh yeah, what we’re doing, we’re on track. We can beat very quality teams, even away.’
“We just wanted to win, and so to me that was the important thing.”
Two games into the season, Metzel said he believes the Buckeyes are beginning to confirm what he thought was possible before it began.
“They’re confirming to me that they have the character, that we have the skill, that we have the lines, we have the components to do some great things this year,” Metzel said. “We still have much work to do, but we have the raw material to do some really good things.”