Cedar Grove vs. Peach County
The 3A title game will be one of the more intriguing matchups that will take place at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on December 11th. These two teams are no stranger to playoff success and have a combined for 76 wins over the past 3 seasons. Cedar Grove lost in the finals last year, as did Peach County. Both programs know that they belong at the top and they each have plenty of fire power to help them get there. Two great coaches, a plethora of standout players, and two raucous fan bases will make for one great environment in MBS at 1 pm on 12/11/18. The paths to get back to the coveted title game have been different for each of these two teams. I personally feel that Peach County has had the more difficult road in which they had to play a very physical and very disciplined brand of football for 4 quarters to beat the likes of Calhoun and Westminster in the manner which they did. Cedar Grove is just so immensely talented that it makes it look like their road was super easy with several blow out victories along the way. In many of those wins, especially the early rounds, Jimmy Smith was very gracious to the other team and pulled most of his starters after amassing insurmountable leads just after the halfway mark. Regardless, both programs are playing excellent football and are executing on both sides of the ball at a high level. Now let's take a look inside the matchups and see who has the advantage in the Benz!
Peach County avenged one of the great robberies of all time last week when they took down Calhoun on the road. Oh how sweet it must have been to knock out an opponent that had left such a sour taste in the mouths of the Trojans just a year ago with the help of some men in stripes! Chad Campbell's squad will not be satisfied with just avenging last year's title game debacle however. No, they are looking to win the State Championship for the first time since the heroics of Luke Crowell denied Gainesville a game winning 2 point conversion in 2009! Campbell and the Trojans brought a very workman's like attitude into the Calhoun game on Friday and I expect no different against Cedar Grove. The Peach County defense was able to lock up Calhoun's receivers in man coverage and play 7 to 8 men in the box. They also picked their spots quite well with their blitzes and were able to provide constant pressure to the quarterback. Sergio Allen, Bryson Dent, Jamir Best, and Cedric Hillsman all had sacks in the semifinal game and they are all an equal threats to get to the QB on every play. Best is a matchup nightmare because of his size and his quickness and his athleticism was on full display when he sprinted 15 yards deep, employing a devastating swim move on a Yellow Jacket blocker along the way, and blocked a punt early in the game this past Friday. The unsung hero for the Trojans in the Final 4 was Joshua Dickson. Dickson is not your typical nose guard as he is 5-10, probably not more than 195 pounds, and he wears #3. However, he is quick as lightning on the interior and he also had 2 sacks against Calhoun. When 5 players on your team have sacks in one game, you are getting after it in the pass rush department! Peach County's combination of strength and quickness will be key in their matchup with Cedar Grove.
Offensively, Peach County was stymied for the most part by the Calhoun defense. The Yellow Jackets play a physical brand of football and Lamb is one heck of a coach, so this is understandable. Despite being limited, the Trojans did find the endzone twice on offense and their special teams helped them out by providing short fields. The defense got in on the act of scoring as well with a 52 yard pick 6 by junior Justin Harris in the 4th quarter to seal the deal. Jaydon Gibson was efficient in the passing game for the Trojans completing 11 out of 17 attempts, but only totaling 117 yards. One of those passes was a 31 yard strike to Justin Harris ( momma there goes that man again!) that got Peach County into the endzone in the 2nd quarter and gave them the lead for good. Credit Campbell and the PC staff for seeing Calhoun locked up in man coverage on that play and manipulating the safety with run action and a running back crossing the formation in the backfield to draw up the safety to the side of the post route by Harris. One on one matchups such as this will be crucial against Cedar Grove and the opportunities will be there, the question is can the receivers get separation against the Saints secondary? Peach County will look to be more productive in the running game as well. The Trojans only totaled 116 yards rushing on 34 carries for an average of 3.4 yards per carry. The more that Gibson, Woolfolk and Whittington can produce behind Senior Center Dyaln Perry and the rest of the Peach offensive line, the better those playaction shots will be. By the way, Dylan Perry can accurately shogun snap and subsequently pull out and lead block in high school.... Not exactly common or easy to do. (BEAST!)
Chad Campbell's offensive unit will be tasked with finding that consistency in moving the ball that they are looking for against a stellar Cedar Grove defense. The Saints have only given up 39 total points in the playoffs and about 30 of those were in garbage time against a good North Hall wing-t offense that continued to fight once Jimmy Smith pulled his starters out after building a 42 to 3 lead. The Saints are very physical and players like strong safety Montre Montfort arrive to the ball with bad intentions! Montfort absolutely wrecked a Pierce County receiver this past Friday and sent the ball flying into the air to grabbed by teammate and fellow defensive back (FRESHMEN) Rashod Dubinion who showed off his play making ability and took the rock deep into Bears territory. Pierce barely eclipsed the century mark in terms of rushing in the semifinals and only averaged 2.5 yards per carry. Credit a lot of that to Cedar Grove having 2 SEC caliber defensive linemen in Rashad Cheney Jr. (6'2" 270 with offers from Alabama, Georgia, and everybody else) and Dante Walker (6'3" 240 committed to Arkansas). Cheney is very versatile and the Saints will line him up at 3 technique, and a 9 technique, he can eat up double teams, shed blocks and make tackles for a loss versus the run and also rush the passer. Cheney is going to pose a large challenge for Dylan Perry and the rest of the Trojan trench men! Walker is an edge rusher that can play with his hand in the dirt or standing up and he has a variety of moves that he likes to utilize to evade opposing offensive tackles in route to the quarterback. Walker will test the elusiveness of Jaydon Gibson in this game.
As good as the defense for the Saints has been in these 2018 3A State Playoffs, they have not needed to be. The Cedar Grove offense has purely and simply dominated this season. For example, North Hall was a quality 3A football team this year and their defense had played lights out all season, holding other quality teams such as Dawson County and GAC to point totals of 17 and 21 respectively. The Saints had 22 points in the 2nd quarter alone against the men from Murrayville and that brought them to 35 at the half. 44.6 points per game is a lot easier to achieve when you have arguably the best receiver in the country in Jadon Haselwood. The former UGA commit, and yes he may still end up a Dawg, cannot be covered one on one in high school. As a defense, you're going to have to play a safety over top (and I mean way over top). The thing that make this Saints offense so dangerous though is how good they are in the run game. Robert Jones III is a homerun hitter in the backfield and the offensive line does a great job in the zone run scheme of winning the point of attack with double teams and being able to cleanly and timely come off those double teams to secure a block at the second level. A back with the speed of Jones III doesn't need a ton of help and the road grading that is done in front of him is almost unfair. It's going to be fantastic to watch the Saints offensive line battle with the likes of Dent, Best, Hillsman, and Dickson for Peach County. Peach County likes to play man coverage and gain an extra hat in the box. It'll be interesting to see if they are confident enough in the coverage skills of Daelan Smith and Justin Harris to lock up one on one with Haselwood in order to not allow Cedar Grove to gash them on the ground. I would not be suprised to see cover 1 with a safety cheated over to Haselwood as Cedar Grove QB Kendall Boney has not attempted more than 18 passes in a playoff game this season and Robert Jones III is fresh off a killer performance on the ground with 259 yards and 2 TDs (one 87 yard burst) against Pierce.
This game is going to be one of repeated body blows and then the big cross knockout shot to the face. Both of these teams are going to try to establish the run. The problem is, the thing I like the most about each team, and what I believe their biggest strength is, is their defensive front. Cheney Jr and Walker are going to be very difficult for Peach County to get movement on and I don't believe that Cedar Grove is going to be able to run much of their gap scheme (a.k.a. pulling linemen) runs at all due to the quickness of the Peach County interior linemen and the speed at which inside linebackers Zaviann Bonner and Sergio Allen play and can shoot open windows. I think that it will be very tight early and that the two teams will trade defensive stops. I do think that Justin Harris, accompanied by safety help from Talique Allen, will be able to prevent Haselwood from making too many big plays, although he'll get his no doubt. Peach County will find a way to put an extra man in the box and force Kendall Boney to make plays down the field with a stout pass rush barreling down on him. Cedar Grove will also shut down the Peach County run game, but Jaydon Gibson will find a way to avoid the rush of Walker and company enough times to find Millar Thomas, Terkel Jefferson, and Justin Harris to move the chains. I believe that Gibson's elusiveness and competitiveness in the redzone will be the difference and that state championship will go to the 6.5 point underdogs from Fort Valley for the first time since since 2009 via a Rene Galan field goal!
Peach County 27 - Cedar Grove (-6.5) 24
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