In partnership with the Newsplex, we’re bringing you the second annual edition of the Scrimmage Play Six, a series that highlights six of the area’s top prep quarterbacks. We continue with Buckingham’s John Edwards.
For the Newsplex’s segment on John Edwards, click here.
It’s fairly common coach parlance whenever there’s a significant injury occurs in a critical area of the team, it’s all about the next man up. Last year John Edwards rose admirably to the call for Buckingham County. What amounted to essentially a season long arm injury to then senior Cam Johnson thrust Edwards into the starting role at quarterback where it was his job to facilitate the Knights offense, which for most of the season was a heavy dose of its two running backs, Kenneth Johnson and Kyree Koonce.
Edwards completed roughly 50 percent of his pass last year, but with the running game so strong behind an experienced offensive line and the receiving corps almost brand new all around, he only dropped back to throw 30 times. That looks like it’s going to change in 2013.
For starters Edwards and his receivers Justin Ayres and Leon Ragland have a lot more experience after a full season and offseason working together. Of course with the strength of Buckingham’s youth football programs, this trio has played together forever, so chemistry is never really a problem.
“I’ve been throwing passes to Justin and Leon since I was 10 years old,” Edwards said. “We know each other really well. Buckingham has always had a strong youth league football program and so we all come up together and stick together.”
But at the varsity level now it appears that the Knights will look more to the air more in the way they did during the 2011 season under standout Tarian Ayres. Of course adding to the need for a more balanced approach offensively is the transfer of Koonce to Monticello. The rushing load will obviously fall on Johnson now, but it will be up to Edwards to pick up some of the slack on his own there and then add the needed yards in the air.
“It’s going to be a little different, it’s still the same basic thinking but we’re adding a lot of different looks,” Edwards said. “I think there are going to be more opportunities for me this year, but also for some of the other guys around me.”
His experience last year has helped from confidence stand point as his knowledge of the playbook is strong and thus allows him to focus on the never ending minutiae of being a quarterback.
“I know the system, I know the routes, I know the players,” said Edwards. “So I’m trying to focus on the little things, the details, my mechanics the finer points. That’s what I want to work on.”
In the last four years the Knights have won a pair of James River District titles and four Region B playoff games. Having helped in a big way to lead Buckingham in 2012, Edwards will play a significant role in trying to make it five straight playoff appearances for the Knights.
