After his team came up with its second straight redzone stop in the second half, Micky Sullivan’s immediate reaction said it all. The Fork Union head coach followed up a question to an official with the exact same question – Collegiate has how many timeouts? None. The Cougars had no way of stopping the clock which was just waiting to be run out. But nothing’s ever been as easy as taking a knee for the Blue Devils this year, so it’s easy to understand the repetition.
“We feel like we’ve been in the playoffs for the last seven weeks,” Sullivan said. “It feels like we’ve been in these situations for a real long time now.”
Behind three plays in the first half and a slew of defensive stops in the second, the Blue Devils pulled off what most outside Fork Union thought was next to impossible – FUMA may have started the year at 1-3, but after squeezing into the last playoff spot and knocking off heavy VISAA Division 1 favorite Liberty Christian last week, the Blue Devils made it all worth while as they narrowly escaped Collegiate in the championship on the road Saturday afternoon, 16-14.
“I don’t have any hair left,” Sullivan said. “It’s all gone and I think I look like I’m 106 years old, but it was a great win for a great bunch of kids. It’s been a fun ride.”
While the Blue Devils ran just nine offensive plays and earned one first down in the second half, the big plays they capitalized on in the first half were enough for them to lean on. But that didn’t mean it was easy.
With its back to its own endozne early in the first quarter, Fork Union scored the game’s first points on third and long from their own 10-yard line when quarterback Christian Hackenburg hit Richie Dyer on a screen pass and the electric running back cut-right, cut-left and flew down the field for a 90-yard score.
“Coach said we needed a big play there so we made one,” Dyer said. “The line blocked great, I don’t know what happened but it all just came together.”
Not long after that, Collegiate was attempting to punt when a bad snap was followed up with intentional grounding in the Cougars own endzone, resulting in a safety for FUMA.
Making good on the safety, Andre Parker gave the Blue Devils all the offense his team would need for the rest of the game when he took one of his six carries for a 48-yard touchdown run. With the game looking like it was headed for a similar result when these teams met in the regular season – a double-digit FUMA win – the Blue Devils found themselves in a precarious position.
“You know we practice all week saying that we needed to make sure that we didn’t take Collegiate lightly like LCA did to us last week or we’d get in trouble,” said Blue Devils lineman John Tu’uta.
From Parker’s touchdown forward, the ball seemed to be cemented in Collegiate’s hands. The Cougars began the third quarter with a seven play drive that featured a pair of fourth down conversions the second of Wilton Speight’s two touchdown passes on the day to make it 16-14.
The next two Collegiate drives didn’t end so well. After earning first and goal early in the fourth quarter, the Cougars propensity to rely on the pass nipped them when Quadariis Newkirk stepped in front of a short pass from Speight at the one yard line to save a touchdown with an interception.
“I had been praying all week that I was going to come out here and make big plays for my team,” Newkirk said. His interception wasn’t the last time he’d make a big slpash.
Once again the Blue Devils had to punt, and once again Collegiate waltzed down the field to set up first a goal. However a holding penalty on first down pushed the Cougars back. On second and long, Parker came up with a tackle for a loss on a draw play from out of Collegiate’s spread formation, then lineman Hannibal Grudy sacked Speight to force fourth down with less than two minutes to play.
“It was really tough,” Parker said of playing nearly the entire second half on defense. “But whenever we keep our heads up and believe in ourselves, this defense can be unstoppable.”
Parker wasn’t wrong. Newkirk struck again. The sophomore defensive back came up with the Blue Devils final tackle on defense with the Cougars well short of the end zone to deliver his team’s first state title since 2002.
“I can’t really describe it,” Tu’uta said. “To come back from 1-3 when everyone said we were done, it’s been life changing.”
With an overall record of 7-5 to finish the year, Sullivan knew that winning the last contest of the season wasn’t going to be any kind of cake walk. The Blue Devils love their coach, but they also like to make him sweat it out.
“If you go back and look at the games we’ve won, they’ve been like this all year,” Sullivan said. “This a funny bunch – and I think they’d be the first to say so themselves – they’re the bunch you love to hate. They’ll drive you crazy. They’ll let a team drive down the field, but when it counts the most they’ll stand up straight and do their job.”
With this state title, Sullivan has now won a championship for his school in three different decades, but was quick to parlay the credit to the rest of his staff.
“(My assistant coaches) called all the plays on offense and defense,” Sullivan said. “They’re a heck of a staff and without them none of this would have been possible.”
