Everyone Blitz talks to outside of the South Adams locker room says the same thing: this team should be a Class 1A state title contender.
I’ve heard it countless times. I heard it again from people on Friday night. And as much as South Adams coach Grant Moser does not push that particular agenda publicly, the public does the work for him. And it always starts the same place: offense.
Did you see how many yards James Arnold threw for? Friday night it was 246 to go with four touchdowns.
Did you see how many yards Christian Summersett ran for? Friday night it was 114 on six attempts.
Did you see how fast those wide receivers ran? All four of them that caught passes on Friday against Bluffton averaged double digit yards per catch.
And somehow, defense is the biggest factor in how South Adams rolled by Bluffton 60-7, including scoring 42 unanswered points. Their offense is king to so many that praise South Adams football, but it was as clear as ever to Blitz on Friday night that the Starfire defense is infallible. It starts with the school record they set: fewest rushing yards given up in a game. Bluffton ran for -57 yards – you read right, negative – with rusher, not a true quarterback under center. It bested the previous South Adams mark, set in 1999, by 34 yards.
In week two at Lewis Cass, the South Adams starting defense had given up -4 total yards of offense before being pulled.
“We are playing hard and we are playing fast. We are in a lot better shape than we were week one. We are just moving, stomping forward” South Adams senior Nick Miller said.
Stopping the run the way they did, getting into the Tiger backfield, forced the Bluffton pass. And Moser will be the first to tell you, the Starfires were not expecting Bluffton to rally off 29 pass attempts after they received word on Thursday that Bluffton starting quarterback Hayden Nern was out and Lukas Hunt was in for that QB spot. Hunt took big hits, spent the night with heavy pressure and did find some success through the air, much more than he did on the ground.
“We did not expect that at all,” Moser said of Bluffton’s reliance on the pass. “But the adjustment was we were just going to go man coverage across and bring pressure on Hunt. He really impressed me with how tough he is. One of the toughest kids I have ever coached against, the hits he took and kept coming back was incredible.”
Yet nearly every time Hunt and Bluffton moved the ball, South Adams had a stopper. And it was everyone. Drew Stutzman and Alex Gorney picked off passes; Aidan Wanner nabbed two himself, including a long pick-6 in the third. Trey Schoch, even coming out without an interception on the night, was targeted all game by the Bluffton pass and nearly every time, he came out the victor. As the South Adams sideline shouted to him often, he just kept doing his thing until Bluffton respected his defense.
Miller, Austin Gorney, Brayden Gilbert and Jacob Plattner all registered whole or partial sacks. South Adams’ defense stood out strong.
And it makes me question, why could the hype around this potential 1A juggernaut be so one sided? It shouldn’t.
South Adams is a defensive team. They had Bluffton almost perfectly scouted, even after a late week switch on the Tigers’ frontline and even after the Starfires themselves had players held out much of the week to heal up minor war wounds.
“This is big for us. This is the best team we’ve played all year. Our defense played absolutely phenomenal,” Moser said. “Putting pressure on Hunt all night and our DBs, they’ve been hungry all year for a spread team where they got the chance to showcase their talent a little. We have ton of talent and ton of experience on that defense that showed tonight.”
We look at how difficult it could be for teams to beat South Adams this regular season. For right now, Blitz has to really question that regardless of what the offense does for the Starfires, how is anyone going to be able to consistently penetrate a defense that is repeatedly having their way three weeks in.
These opinions represent those of Blitz and Outside the Huddle. No opinions expressed on Outside the Huddle represent those of any of our advertisers. Follow Blitz on Twitter at Blitz_OTH
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