Jones County facing a better team than most seem to realize, says Rogers
Jones County has been ranked in both state polls all season.
Carver-Atlanta hasn’t, and that’s pretty baffling to Jones County head coach Justin Rogers.
“They’re big-time underrated,” Rogers said of the Greyhounds’ Class 5A quarterfinal opponent. “I don’t know why they haven’t been getting more love. Oh yeah. They’re real good.”
Carver was sixth in the final regular-season Georgia Sports Writers Association poll, and it has remained ranked after finally making the poll in late September.
It hasn’t, however, made a dent in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll despite being one of nine Class 5A teams to finish the regular season with one loss or undefeated. The lone loss was to then-No. 5 Class 6A Alexander, 23-20.
Kell stayed in the AJC poll despite being 3-3 at one point, finally dropping out after losing to Carrollton on Oct. 20. But two-loss Bainbridge stayed ranked, at No. 7, even after getting hammered by Warner Robins 35-6 in the Region 1 championship game.
And the Maxwell Ratings had Carver ranked 102nd at the end of the regular season, the lowest-ranked one-loss team from the three largest classifications. It had the strength of schedule 231st, also the weakest of those bigger schools.
The Panthers only had three non-region games, going 2-1 and beating Class 6A Tri-Cities by 28 points. Alexander ended up 6-5. And Carver’s beat the other three playoff teams from its region by 18, 7 and 1.
Carver certainly has Rogers’ respect, and plenty of it.
“They do it like you’re supposed to do it,” Rogers said. “They have an identity. It’s not real complex, which the good teams aren’t. The good teams, they do what they do and they try to do it better than you.”
The winner gets either Carrollton or Warner Robins, and travels, based on Tuesday’s GHSA coin flip giving the top part of brackets the home field for the semifinals if seeds advancing are the same.
The teams will play at Grady Stadium, which was renovated before the 2010 season and has synthetic turf, leading Jones County to get a practice in Wednesday at Mercer.
Grady will be an easy ride for the large collection of Jones County faithful, located less than a mile off I-75 at the main Georgia Tech exit.
“Hound nation, man,” Rogers said. “Our fans travel phenomenal.”
The Panthers will be interested in earning some respect, and continuing their deepest playoff run since a quarterfinal visit back in 2007 when they lost 48-6 at No. 5 Cairo in Class AAA. Carver lost in the first round a year later, and then was absence from the postseason for three years followed by five straight first-round losses.
Jones County’s defense will get a test against a quarterback (Octavious Battle) who has completed 72.5 percent of his passes for 2,755 yards and 21 touchdowns, and a running back (Jo’quavious Marks) with 1,874 yards and 18 scores. Quindarious Monday (very soft Auburn commit) has 887 receiving yards while Deanthony Ball has 803 yards.
“The running back’s a beast,” Rogers said of sophomore Marks, who had 277 yards and three touchdowns against Flowery Branch. “He can tote it. Some people said he may have gotten an offer from Alabama Saturday. He can tote it now.”
Monday was Region 6’s MVP, while Battle was the offensive player of the year and defensive end Jatavius Ponder the top defender. Monday is being recruited as a safety.
The Greyhounds may have a little more confidence than usual, considering the circumstances of their second-round win at Wayne County.
Jones County all but flipped the offensive philosophy back to the familiar pass-oriented scheme of recent years with the loss against Griffin of versatile quarterback Teldrick Ross.
Then, four plays in, running back Drake Bolus – who has some basic quarterback skills and is all but a coach on the field – went out with a shin and ankle injury.
Quarterback Hunter Costlow stepped up and passed for 305 yards, and junior running back Semaj Ingram stepped up and ran for nearly 100 yards. The defense helped ease concerns against an offense also without its starting quarterback.
“Obviously it was a nice surprise at how well the kids handled the moment,” Rogers said. “Things didn’t go well for awhile there. It was awesome to see how the kids responded, didn’t blink an eye.”
The Greyhounds will need to return to some power, or a bit of a power mentality, to a point.
“This week, we’re going to have to lean on our offensive line,” Rogers said. “If we’re doing a lot of east-west running, sideline to sideline, that’ snot going to pay off well for us.
“They’ve got a lot of team speed, and we’re going to have to be precise and come at ‘em.”
And Carver has 56 sacks, led by Ponder’s 18.
Jones County hopes to exorcise memories of its last quarterfinal playoff trip to Atlanta, in Rogers’ first year when the Greyhounds lost to Mays, at Lakewood Stadium, on the game’s final play. Mays was ranked seventh/ninth entering the playoffs and went on to lose 25-18 to Northside in the championship game.
Carver may not have the same hype coming in, but that doesn’t matter much to Rogers.
“I’m serious, they’re a really good team,” he said. “They keep you off-balanced, they’re well-coached.”