Dublin aces stiff test against AAAAA Perry to take record to 2-0

It’s widely known that Dublin has a penchant for punching well above its weight. 

But only once in a while does a much larger school pick a fight with the Irish, and find out. 

Recent AAAAA powerhouse Perry, presumably expecting a more comfortable week 2 matchup than its opener with Peach County, ended up as the predicate of another statement win Friday night as the Green and Gold delivered a second-straight K.O. 

Dublin (2-0 overall) rushed for 568 yards, and spurned the Panthers on downs four times, as it put away a 41-20 victory to loudly declare something that many already knew: This Irish team is a real-deal contender. 

“It’s a big statement,” said sophomore quarterback Ryland Yates, who ran for three of Dublin’s six touchdowns. “It shows who we are and who we can beat.” 

Though there are plenty of Irish teams of years gone by who would put their play up against any challenger in the state, opportunities like this to measure yourself against one this high in classification, and with a built-in advantage in roster numbers and depth, only seldom actually happen. 

Ahead of Friday, the only opponent in the modern era with more than four A’s beside its name to pay a visit to the Shamrock Bowl was Perry’s county neighbor Veterans, which they would also send home with a loss in 2016 after Tyler Strickland’s pick-six and a pulled fourth-quarter extra point kick swung the 21-20 upset. 

Friday, everyone on the home sideline was eager for a similar chance to prove their mettle. 

“When they’ve got 1,700 kids and we’ve got less than 600, I think that’s a big win,” said Irish head coach Roger Holmes. “We pride ourselves in playing up.” 

The door was a stubborn one to close, but Dublin jammed it shut in the final nine minutes of the fourth quarter with two stops inside its own 20, and close to a 97-yard drive to add a clinching touchdown after the last. 

Perry stuck around with some substantive comeback hopes despite the back-to-back Irish touchdowns in the third quarter that had them trailing 34-13. 

“I thought we lost our composure a little bit there in the fourth quarter,” Holmes said. “Did enough things to cause you to let a team like that back in it, but our defense kept coming up with big red zone stops.” 

Quarterback Jhamard Cobb’s 76-yard touchdown bomb to J.D. Arnette, on a much-needed deep strike, kept the Panthers in the ballgame, down 14 with nine minutes to play in the fourth. 

Then they kicked onside and recovered, as Carson Camp’s dribbler toward the Perry sideline escaped four sets of Irish hands before getting covered up by J.J. Scott. 

The Panthers reached the Dublin 16 for a chance to narrow the gap to a touchdown, but Ja’Karian Jones batted down a pass, made a tackle and rendered the tight coverage on a partial drop in the end zone to prevent a score on the final series. 

“It felt good, it felt amazing, just shutting them out so they couldn’t score,” Jones said. 

Dublin set to work grinding clock with about eight minutes to play, and things were going well after two first downs until a fumble occurred on the hit by Perry’s Kyle Jones, and teammate Trystan Rhoades recovered to give the Panthers another small glimmer of hope. 

Despite the benefit of a 15-yard hands to the face penalty to reach the red zone again, the Panthers couldn’t take advantage. 

The Irish rallied for a fourth stop by stuffing three-straight runs, and Arnette took a touchdown pass off the hands on fourth down. 

“Hopefully a big statement, all around the world,” Dublin’s Jones said. “We’re ready, we’re coming for it. They thought they could walk in here and take over… Can’t do that. Not in Dublin.” 

Continuing their early-season rise… 

Yates completed his hat trick with a short run after commanding the longest Irish advance of the night from the shadow of their own end zone to the other tip of the field in the final four minutes.  

It was another confidence-building win for the first-year starting quarterback, who rushed for 79 yards on 10 carries and completed two clutch passes to Will Wallace, totaling 22, from the driver’s seat of an efficient attack. 

On nine possessions, Dublin was stopped short of a touchdown only three times… twice by turnover and only a third by the first-half clock as a potential touchdown pass to take an earlier two-score lead drifted just out of Wallace’s reach in the corner of the end zone as time expired. 

“I thought (Yates) had a great night,” Holmes said. “He beat himself up a little bit there, after he had a wide-open pass… and he missed him on the last play of the half. He had his head down, and I said, ‘Hey man, you’re gonna make some and miss some. Just go play and do what’s right.’ But I thought he did a phenomenal job of running the option game tonight, and he made a lot of checks at the line of scrimmage.” 

Yates said he felt his feel for the game and confidence making decisions under pressure all improved in a second start. 

“Some reads and some clutch throws, I would say,” he said. “That’s probably what got us to keep going forward. The option, reading it was pretty key tonight, and then that throw on third down and 12, I want to say, the fish flat to Will Wallace (in the second quarter), was a really good spark to keep us going.” 

Jamarcus Knight led Irish running backs with 189 and a touchdown on 10 attempts of his own, which included a couple of big plays that provided an early spark for the offense. 

Trav Bostic broke the biggest run of the night from 80 yards for Dublin’s first third-quarter touchdown, his second on 13 attempts for 154. Fullback Dontavius Cannon contributed 85 more on 12 touches, and V.J. Bond 61 on seven. 

Ball-security was the only aspect of the performance that left anything to be desired, as the Irish fumbled five different times, though favorable bounces led to recoveries on all but two, and efforts of the defense, which stood tall on two other first-half drives that reached plus territory to force field goals, were more than adequate to atone. 

Perry’s young D, which replaced all 11 starters this offseason, continued its early-season search for consistency. Though the Panthers had comparatively few busted plays to the last week, when Peach scored numerous explosive touchdowns in a 63-24 rout, decent-sized gains were still pretty routine for Dublin, which found a lot of success with speed sweeps to the outside, and misdirection playing off the possibility that opened some running lanes inside. 

By the end of the night, just about every element of its offense, and backfield, had gotten involved in the productive game. 

“Our biggest question going into this game was what defense were they going to play?” Holmes said. “(Against Peach County), they’d been in three or four different things, and they picked one and they stayed in it all night, and they never changed. It gave us an opportunity to kind of mix it around a little bit on what we were trying to do.” 

Though it meant the game wouldn’t finish up till post-11 p.m., a roughly hourlong lightning delay that came with about 2:31 remaining in the first quarter might’ve been the best thing that happened for the Irish, by giving them a chance to get their bearings and adjust some things in the locker room prior to halftime. 

“We watched all the plays on the film and tried to show ’em what we thought we were doing right and wrong,” Holmes said. 

Though it was mostly defensive questions that needed answering, the time was valuable for the offensive staff to solidify their thinking after hitting big plays on the last two of their five snaps before the hiatus. 

“We really didn’t know what defense they were going to be in at the start of the game,” Yates said. “Coach Holmes had no clue. It was only five plays, but it was enough for Coach Holmes to get a read on what they were doing and the best plays to run.” 

The Panthers had hit with near-lightning quickness as they took the ball on a scripted sprint down the field lasting every bit of two minutes and 15 seconds to score the game’s first touchdown after taking the opening kick. 

Their second drive, after an untimely fumble two plays into Dublin’s opening series at its own 27, got two chances to punch it in, after an Irish stop was nullified by a penalty for roughing the kicker, but ultimately settled for a Camp field goal after an illegal substitution turned its yardage to go on the ensuing fourth down from one, to six. 

Cobb found Arnette up the seam for a big play to start their third possession, though a defensive rebound had another Camp kick pending on fourth down as play was stopped with some flashing and rumbling in the near distance. 

He immediately connected from 40 on the return to play to take Perry’s lead to 13-7. But by that point, the tide was already turning. 

Earlier, the Irish had needed only three plays to reach the other house on their second possession, as Knight swept left and took it just shy of 50 yards over midfield, and Yates scored on a 22-yard keeper to carve out a much-needed foothold in the game, down 10-7. 

Post-delay, they got right back to work, and rattled off an 80-yard drive to tie things up, though a troublesome PAT snap cost them a shot at the lead after Bostic rounded the right edge for the score from 20 yards early in the second quarter. 

There were a few snags early in the drive, as Dublin survived another fumble, and rolled the dice to go for a fourth and one from their own 29, though Yates easily picked it up on a dive over his interior blockers.

The remaining 71 yards went pretty smoothly, with double-digit gainers by himself and Knight setting up the Bostic score. 

Fumbles plagued the Irish after a Perry three-and-out started their next session from the 17. The rock popped loose twice more on the end of an early first-down run, and on a Perry hit in the backfield in plus territory. But both times, it bounced favorably into the arms of green shirts, and the drive rolled on. 

A shot to the end zone just missed, but Yates dialed up Wallace on a big third-down connection to keep the threat alive. Knight, on another patient cutup on a wide run to the left, got around the corner to score and put Dublin on top by a score of 19-13 with 3:28 remaining in the half.

The defense that came back down the hill was ready to dominate. 

Though its immediate stop had already been signed and sealed just prior to the delay, Dublin forced a quick three-and-out Perry’s next turn with the ball around midfield, and got the football back for an opportunity to go ahead as the Panthers took a chance on a fourth-and-two from their own territory, and Blake Luecke drove back Marquez Ragin for a tackle behind the line that set Dublin up at their 37. 

“We came in the game everywhere, all out of place,” Jones said. “But our coaches put it on the board, helped us out and we just got it right.” 

Adjustments made during a second intermission seemed to have Dublin’s attack even more finely tuned. 

The Irish opened with the football from their own 20, and Bostic hit the accelerator on a run to the right perimeter for a footrace touchdown on the second play to extend their lead to 27-13 without a minute gone from the third quarter clock. 

Perry’s best drive since the first mixed the runs and screens to reach a scoring chance. The Panthers fed it to Ragin on four straight plays with a few yards left to score, but Jaydon McRae took him down short of the goal line on both the last two, then joined Knight and NaZyon Mitchell in eating up Cobb left of the formation on fourth down. 

Dublin covered 93 yards on a scoring drive in response to add a third touchdown to the lead. 

Yates snuck it in for his second touchdown run to make the score 34-13. 

With two wins down, the Irish will be back in the Bowl looking to pick up a third as they welcome fellow unbeaten Baldwin (2-0, off wins over WACO and Hephzibah) Friday to conclude what will be their most eventful week of game prep so far. 

“It’s homecoming, which is great for the fans,” Holmes said. “Coaches hate it, so you’ve gotta stay within the concept that the football team’s job is make sure everybody leaves happy. I don’t know anything about Baldwin, except I saw where last week their quarterback (Kamden Patterson) was responsible for six touchdowns. So it means that they’ve got a stud back there. We’ll get to work on them in the morning.”