FOOTBALL: Dublin defeats Jasper County, advances to quarterfinals for first time in five seasons

As a program, Dublin is plenty familiar with what it’s like to play in the state quarterfinals, having advanced to the elite round of postseason action eight times in Roger Holmes’ 22 previous seasons as head coach. 

But that tradition doesn’t diminish the importance of a ninth for players and a majority of coaches making up a 2024 group of Irish that will be experiencing for the first time a privilege upheld in the Dublin building as perhaps the next most exclusive accomplishment to reaching the state championship: Getting to practice on Thanksgiving Day. 

That was one of the latest season goals the Irish marked off with their 12th win last week by pulling away to defeat Jasper County 42-7 in the second round of the GHSA playoffs. 

And they’ll be giving thanks on Thursday, as much as any day in the next handful, for the chance they’ll have to continue their season, with traditional playoff rival Thomasville as company, this coming Friday in the Shamrock Bowl. 

“I’m excited about it,” Holmes said. “We haven’t gotten to do it since ’19.” 

Monticello’s Hurricanes proved to be as well-built a football team up front as Dublin has faced since Northeast Macon in October. 

But the Irish, just the same, more than held their own at the line of scrimmage going each way. 

Jasper County stole the game’s first possession – and points – with an onside kick, but Dublin bounced back easily to score six unanswered touchdowns, four to take a commanding 28-7 edge to halftime. 

The opening onside kick was hardly a surprise for the Irish, who had a man perfectly positioned to play it as Parker Eaton punched the ball on a low, skipstone trajectory toward the visiting sideline. 

But the grounder, which gave the impressions of a routine play, had a nasty last bounce in store that helped it leapfrog the man in Green, and find Kamarion Owens in stride behind him for a recovery that put Jasper County in business at the Dublin 41. 

After a handful of runs, the ‘Canes showed off some of their system’s elaborate misdirection, and struck first on a 21-yard Jamarkus Thomas pass completion that had the Irish slightly off-balance. 

Jasper County, initially, showed a speed option look to the left, but – as they’re known to do – turned the play into a screen pass that appeared set up to go inside. Once again, indications were a touch misleading, as receiver DeMonte Green took the ball back toward the perimeter, and eluded the three Dublin defenders with a chance of running him down to the goal line. 

The start, proceeding about as well as they could have drawn it up, had the Hurricanes up by a count of 7-0 after a successful extra point. 

But Dublin’s defense – well drilled on unusual facets of the system – would soon catch on and get a better feel for the attack, and had much less trouble keeping it contained from then on. 

Two of Jasper County’s remaining three possessions in the quickly-moving first half would reach plus territory, but each ended in a punt as the Irish slowly rattled off scoring drives to take back control. 

The Hurricanes’ next got just past midfield, but ran out of steam after Willie Batts and D.J. Woodard made easy work of the tackle on a speed-option pitch behind the line on a second down to set back a series that would end in a punt. 

Another concluded their third despite a brief red zone visit. Jasper County, down 14-7, was poised to potentially even the game after an assist in field position from a Dublin penalty assessed on the kickoff. Nolan Dean worked his way open on a shimmy and caught a rollout pass from Thomas that went 38 yards to get there, although the Hurricanes quickly lost yardage on a penalty and a fumble (that Batts stripped loose from Thomas’ hands on his way by). 

The Canes ultimately had to concede and punt it away, then met the same fate on their last possession of the half as Woodard smoked Kamarion Owens in the backfield for the stop on a third-and-2. 

Woodard and QuanTavis Lovett led the Irish defense with three tackles for loss apiece. Lovett’s were each sacks. 

Jasper County, in all, rushed for 179 yards. Jalen Stewart – the focal point up the gut – had the lead of 121 on 19 carries. But Thomas, who was 6-of-15 passing for 96 yards, had a negative net rushing total, and Owens (his pitch man on a majority of the triple-option based concepts that made up its ground attack) was held to 14. 

The Hurricanes – forced by the consistent play to win battles up front – probably found their most success with simple, straight-ahead run, working behind their well-matched interior linemen. 

“They hurt us in the first half, I think, more so with inside zone, something we didn’t work on a whole lot to be honest with you,” Holmes said. “They did a pretty good job with it. They hit us with that tunnel screen, which has been a really good play of theirs. The first time, when they scored off of it, they ran it out of a different formation than they’ve been running it out of. It caught us a little off-guard right there. I felt like in the first half, we didn’t do a great job inside, but both their guards weighed over 275 lbs. They were a physical, good football team.” 

The yards, against a tough-to-move defensive line going the other way, were just as hard-earned, but Dublin accumulated 351 on the ground with its four-headed starting backfield monster leading a balanced attack. 

Quarterback Micah O’Neal had 89 yards on seven carries. Batts toted 11 times for 85. Xavier Bostic ran 13 times for 84. Trav Bostic gained 75 on seven attempts. 

O’Neal rushed for two touchdowns and threw for a third to Batts on one of his two completions for 49 yards. Batts rushed for another score. Azontae Walker carried over both the first and last of the evening. 

The equalizing touchdown came on the end of a 70-yard opening drive beginning with runs of 11 yards, then five, followed by a double-digit gain as O’Neal busted loose off a midline read to the left, and got 15 more via penalty after getting shoved into the brick wall along the sideline out of bounds at the end of the run. 

Walker would score over the right side three plays later. 

Dublin’s next covered 67 yards, after some trouble playing Jasper County’s bouncing punt that squirted loose from several diving after it, but ended up in Irish hands. 

Trav Bostic had the largest of several chunk gains to get the ball inside the visiting 35. Several plays later, the Irish went to the air for the first time. O’Neal used some nice technique to sell the play action before sailing a 17-yard pass to Batts, who ran open by a few steps and brought it in just before defenders could catch up. 

The lead of 14-0 increased on a third Dublin touch early in the second quarter, with the Irish turning to a little of their own counter- and triple-option game to move it from their own 10 up to the plus-33. That’s where O’Neal pulled the ball again for a wide-open 33-yard sprint to paydirt. 

Trouble with the operation led to a failed point, but the lead was 20-7 with 4:01 to go. 

And a quick stop got the Irish one more chance to score with about two minutes left before the break. Their 53-yard procession survived an unpromising fourth down, as Batts picked up 30-plus off a screen pass that caught the Canes in a heavy blitz. 

The play to the 8 yard line set up a reverse from Trav Bostic to Batts, who trotted in over the left-hand side, then jet-swept for a two-point conversion. 

The teams traded turnovers on downs on a pair of long drives that took up the bulk of the third quarter, after a Jasper County three-and-out to open up. 

Dublin’s stalled on a fourth-down rainbow pass over the middle from O’Neal that Batts had in the hands, but couldn’t hang onto. 

Jasper County converted one fourth down to get the ball over midfield, but saw its last-gasp bid to get back in the game come up short after Thomas was forced out four yards shy of the marker on a third-down scramble, then stumbled on a hasty throw against a swiftly-closing blitz that one-hopped his receiver. 

Dublin drove 66 yards to increase its lead on the opening play of the fourth quarter. O’Neal snuck to the left behind a big push from his blockers for the four-yard touchdown. 

Kicker Ethan Spivey forced a fumble as the Hurricanes found some field on the return of the kickoff, and knocked the ball out for an Irish recovery at the plus-40. They converted the opportunity, and closed out the box score, with Walker’s 12-yard sweep to the right for the final points. 

Since the last quarter didn’t start with an Irish lead of the requisite 30 points to trigger a running clock, the game followed regulation timing for the rest of the night. Jasper County, nevertheless, kept ahold of the football for all but 12 seconds of the remaining eight minutes. Dublin kneeled out the rest of it after forcing a turnover on downs at its own 27. 

Some missed chances and a turnover, combined with several time-consuming possessions by Jasper County, made the night’s overall numbers somewhat modest in comparison to those of the last several Irish outings. But 42 points on 400 total yards is still a pretty good night at the office.

“Offensively, we stopped ourselves,” Holmes said. “We dropped that touchdown pass right there. But other than that, we fumbled late in the game. I thought offensively, we were pretty sharp.” 

Friday’s quarterfinal game will be the sixth time (out of 10 meetings in history) that Dublin and Thomasville have met in the playoffs. The last set were key battles in deep runs for the advancing team consecutive years between ’17 and ’19. 

Though Zach Grage, the Bulldogs’ head coach from the era, has moved on (to a short stint as head coach at Lowndes, followed by an assistant coaching stop at Valdosta leading to his current gig as AD at Brooks County), not much has changed about the program’s style or culture under his former quarterbacks coach Jonathan DeLay, who was promoted to take over three seasons ago. 

Thomasville (10-2, 5-1 region 1-High A) took care of second-round business in 42-10 fashion against Temple, after emerging runner-up from an always-salty region 1 with its lone loss by a point to champion Worth County (also a quarterfinalist after routing Dodge County Friday night). 

“We know we’ve got a really tough opponent, and one we’re familiar with in the playoffs,” Holmes said. “They’ll come in kind of loaded for bear, by all indications. We’ll just have to see if we can find a way to nickel and dime them, and hang in there.”