Storm have one mission: stop Lone Oak's Brown

Friday, October 10, 2008

When the Hopkins County Central football team makes its journey to play at Lone Oak tonight, the Storm will have one mission: Stop one of the state’s most versatile players, Jamarielle Brown.

Central (3-2) has had two weeks to prepare for the Purple Flash (5-0), using the time to identify the Storm’s areas of weakness and ways to contain Brown, and at 7:30 p.m. today the team will discover if the right aspects were addressed.

“We really concentrated on technique in the offensive line,” Central coach Rick Snodgrass said. “We didn’t feel like we were really getting as much out of our run game as we really wanted to. Just going back and doing some of the little things with our quarterback, getting him some more pass protection.”

Snodgrass said he used the team’s bye week to focus on strengthening Central’s own faults, but this week the Storm prepared solely for Lone Oak.

The Purple Flash offense has averaged 56 points per game, but has remained balanced with 232 rushing yards and 284 passing yards averaged per game.

The stats can be misleading, however, as most of those yards are created by one man, Brown.

Brown is the team’s leading rusher and passer. As a runner, he has carried 47 times for 491 yards and six touchdowns. Throwing the ball, Brown has completed 68-of-107 passes for 18 scores and just four interceptions.

Junior defender Josh Adamson said Central has a good idea of how to contain Lone Oak’s explosiveness.

“In certain offenses they tend to run more, so our main concern right now it to keep it contained and keep them from busting the big play,” he said. “We put in some new stuff just to keep Brown contained because we know he can roll out and break it down the sideline. Our main goal this week is to keep it inside so can’t rollout.”

Senior linebacker Denzel Arrington expressed quite a bit of confidence when it comes to expecting what Lone Oak’s offense will bring to the table.

“We’ve seen enough of them to where we’ll know what they’re going to do,” he said.

Even Storm quarterback Jake Powell knew of Brown’s reputation.

“He’s a good athlete,” Powell said. “He likes to do roll-out passes where he gets to choose whether he wants to run or throw the ball down field. He can throw. We’ve seen him throw some 65-yarders.”

No matter who has the ball, junior defensive end Anthony Qualls said the key is, “Just not to give up the big play and just keep playing until the end.”

Despite Brown’s versatility, Snodgrass said he likes the match-ups because of Central’s defensive speed. Against a team that likes to spread the ball as Lone Oak, the Storm should be able to utilize their quickness to fly to the ball.

As for the offense, the match-ups could once again favor Central.

The Purple Flash defense has allowed over a thousand yards through the air this year, which should play into Powell’s hands as the 12th best QB in class 4A for passing yards per game.

“They play a lot of man coverage and we feel like we have some guys that can shake them loose on man coverage,” Snodgrass said. “We’ve got some guys that can run at the wide receiver spot.”

While Lone Oak boasts 4A’s highest-scoring offense thus far, the Storm are quite capable of wracking up the points as well. Central has averaged 33 points a contest, including 63 points against Fulton County and 55 over Muhlenberg North.

Powell said establishing the running game, not the pass was the difference in the team’s high offensive games.

“We hit them big with the run and come back and throw screens, things that wear down the (defensive) line,” he said.

Snodgrass said he considers Storm senior running back Troydale Rorer one of the best in western Kentucky.

For those Central fans making the trip to Lone Oak, the Purple Flash’s formations could seem to mirror those of the Storm. That’s because Snodgrass said the teams do a very similar system and attend some of the same clinics.

“I would venture to say our terminology is really similar and everything that we do is going to be similar to what (our defenders) see in practice every day,” he said. “From that standpoint, there shouldn’t be any surprises, but you still have to line up and play.”

With two similar teams playing each other, Snodgrass added special teams plays and turnovers could be the difference.

When asked the keys to the game, the players each had their own response, but each sounded prepared for tonight’s battle.

“Play hard the whole game,” Powell said. “We can’t put our heads down and give up the big play.”

Arrington replied, “Don’t give up.”

And Qualls simply stated, “Stay focused.”