Irish's Murphy Wants Out Of Football Hibernation

Hopes Notre Dame Can Find "Nine More Points"

  • Saturday, July 25, 2015
  • Larry Fleming
Six local football players took part in the Region 3-3A media day on Thursday. From top left and clockwise: Brandon Mason, Chattanooga Christian; Jeremiah McKibben, East Ridge; Robert Murphy, Notre Dame; Nathan Billingsley, Howard; Nathan Johnson, Signal Mountain and Tra Stamper, Red Bank.
Six local football players took part in the Region 3-3A media day on Thursday. From top left and clockwise: Brandon Mason, Chattanooga Christian; Jeremiah McKibben, East Ridge; Robert Murphy, Notre Dame; Nathan Billingsley, Howard; Nathan Johnson, Signal Mountain and Tra Stamper, Red Bank.
photo by Dennis Norwood

Notre Dame is blessed with good football players – a lot of them.

But what the Irish are looking for this year is at least nine more points.

The Irish lost to perennial state title contender Alcoa, 28-19, last season on a cold night at Finley Stadium in the Class 3A state playoff semifinals. That snapped the Irish’s 11-game winning streak – they lost 15-12 to Knox Catholic in the season opener – and ended the school’s bid for its first gridiron championship.

Those are the nine points Notre Dame coach Charles Fant wants to find in 2015 and reminds his Irish frequently of last year’s scoring shortcoming.

“Whether you’re conditioning or weight lifting, coach always tells us one more time for nine points,” Robert Murphy said Wednesday at the Region 3-3A media day held at Howard High School. “That gets us fired up to finish things off.”

Murphy, a 6-foot-1-inch, 249-pound offensive and defensive tackle, said the Alcoa game is not a just bad distant memory. It stings to this day.

“That loss will live with me the rest of my life,” he said. “I remember about half our wins, but that loss really hurt. I can’t even watch a film of that game. That loss makes us even hungrier this season.

“I tell you, guys that weren’t even on the team last year – the freshmen, the transfers – see how hurt we are about losing to Alcoa and how much we want to get back to where we were or go even further.”

The Irish, who are part of a new region, along with Signal Mountain, Red Bank, East Ridge, Chattanooga Christian and Howard, appear focused on stopping three semifinal playoff losses and reach the championship game.

Fant’s squad was picked to win this year’s region title, but that’s just the first step in the process.

Step two is the season-opening game on Aug. 21 at Chattanooga Central. Phase three is the rest of the season.

“Going that far in the playoffs last year, bonding as a team and winning like we did was amazing,” said Murphy, who had 49 tackles that included five sacks and 19 tackles for loss that led to his being named District 6-AA’s best defensive lineman in 2014. “We can’t predict the future. We have to show up with effort – nobody can coach effort – and heart. We’re not the biggest players and not the largest team, but we will out-work you.

“I’m ready. I’m like a bear that’s been hibernating in a cave. I live and breathe football; football is life.”

A year ago, Notre Dame sledgehammered all but two opponents and outscored their entire schedule of challengers 590-100. The Irish held nine teams to seven or fewer points, including three shutouts.

And what is Murphy doing to help the younger players to buy into what the veterans are trying to do eight months after Alcoa snuffed out perhaps the best run of  wins in the school’s history?

“I want to instill in the underclassmen that this is a brotherhood,” he said. “They have to depend on each other to make a play. There is no ‘I’ in tackle. They have to understand that somebody sacrificed their body to put them in a position to make that play.”

Signal Mountain’s Skye Wilson, a bruising wingback and linebacker last season, is no longer with the Eagles. Wilson suffered a season-ending knee injury in 2014 against Notre Dame and missed the rest of his sophomore season.

Wilson rushed for 698 yards and 13 touchdowns and added 179 receiving yards and three touchdowns.

Nathan Johnson says not to worry.

“Our running game will be better than ever,” the 5-foot-10-inch, 195-pound senior said. “We have a good rotation of backs at my positions with me, Lee Nagle, Garrett Hensley and Cole Johnson. I was at right halfback last year and Skye was on the left side.

“All of us together are going to contribute and help the team just as much as the other guy. There’s always competition.”

New Eagles coach Ty Wise, who played collegiately and had National Football League stints in San Francisco, Philadelphia and Chicago, said Johnson could be an effective receiver out of the backfield this season.

“I can be pretty good,” Johnson said. “It’s going to be new with me with the different formations we’ll have (Wise will use wing-T and spread formations), but I think I can contribute as a receiver.”

The Eagles, in addition to their region schedule, also will face East Hamilton, Ooltewah, Tyner, Cleveland and Giles County this season. Ooltewah, Cleveland and Giles reached the 2014 playoffs

“I like the challenge of our schedule,” Johnson said. “We’ve been challenging each other all spring and summer, so the schedule is just another challenge.”

Red Bank’s Tra Stamper is going to be a twice the load for opposing teams this season.

The 6-3, 275-pound senior will line up at his usual defensive end slot this year, but will also see plenty of duty with the Lions at fullback.

“It’s going to be hard for some people to tackle or block me,” he said.

Stamper is not only blessed with bulk, but possesses superb speed as well. Lions coach Chad Grabowski told the gathered media Stamper probably runs a 4.6-second or 4.7 40-yard dash.

In a later one-on-one interview, Stamper smiled and said, “It’s probably more like 4.7 or 4.8.”

That’s still moving pretty well for a youngster his size.

A veteran at end, the big Eagle is making an adjustment to fullback.

“It’s easy right now because we’re just practicing,” said Stamper, who has a college offer from UT-Martin. “I’m sure when we get into our games it’s going to be a lot harder. I expect to be blocking more than running. I played a little at fullback last year, not a lot though. I’m confident I can handle the job.”

Stamper was an All-District 6-AA selection while registering 57 tackles and 10 sacks during his junior season.

Howard’s Nathan Billingsley played football as a sophomore, but not his junior season. Now he’s back with the Hustlin’ Tigers.

“I was here, just didn’t play football last year,” he said.

Why did he rejoin the team?

“I wanted to rebuild the pride in my school and I really love playing football,” said Billingsley, who will play slotback and middle linebacker.

Billingsley is hopeful he can shore up what was a porous defense a year ago.

While going 0-10 Howard gave up a whopping 492 points. In their first four games, the Tigers were outscored 196-13 and in the last three the glaring discrepancy was 151-7.

Howard has lost 17 straight games and dropped 39 of its last 50 games since posting their last winning season in 2010.

“We have to reach the point where we know how to win,” Tigers coach Mark Teague said.

An improved defense could go a long way in Teague’s attempt to turn around the struggling program, which produced the likes of Reggie White and Terdell Sands in years past.

“We’ve worked on defense a lot,” the coach said. “I’m a defensive guy at heart. I hate 7-on-7s, just despise them, and my focus is defense. I talk to the kids about how important defense is to winning. Last year was frustrating. We had to start on fundamentals and work up because we had a lot of ninth-graders on the team.”

Although he wasn’t on the field last year, Billingsley is aware of the team’s defensive struggles. But he doesn’t talk much to teammates about last year.

“That’s because it really wasn’t a good defense,” he said. “We’re all out there now just trying to do our best. Coach tells all of us if we give 100 percent on every play we can play on this team. He’s been preaching tackling and he’s talking about rugby tackling. He wants all of us to tackle well.”

East Ridge coach Tracy Malone describes weakside defensive end Jeremiah McKibben a “head-hunter” the senior embraces the moniker.

“I’m a blitzer,” said McKibben, who had 10 sacks and six tackles for loss among his 35 total stops in 2014. “I just go and get the quarterback.”

While he’ll also be play as the team’s A-back on offense this season, McKibben’s real passion is on the other side of scrimmage.

“I’m a defensive guy,” he said. “That’s what I’ve done ever since I came to East Ridge. I’ve just started developing myself on the offensive side.”

The Pioneers went 3-7 last year with two losses by seven points and two by one. It wasn’t like they were being blown out week after week.

“I’m hoping for at least six wins and get to the playoffs this year,” McKibben said. “This has been a great week of practice. We’re really getting physical now because next week we go into full pads. Everyone’s in a good mental state and we’re ready.”

Chattanooga Christian is familiar with two teams – Notre Dame and Signal Mountain – it’s now aligned with in Region 3-3A.

A year ago the Chargers competed with the Irish and Eagles, but only for 1 ½ quarters and that resulted in lopsided regular-season losses. The Irish beat the Chargers, 42-7, and the Eagles romped, 49-14. Notre Dame faced CCS later in a first round playoff game and went home with a crushing 55-14 victory.

“Last year we felt we could compete, but just got worn down against Notre Dame and Signal Mountain,” said Brandon Mason, a 5-9, 167-pound senior receiver/running back/safety. “Coming out for the second half in those games coach (Rob) Spence felt like we had some people that gave up and he was mad about that.

“We had some real bad apples on our team and they would take (criticism) differently than the guys that took it seriously and said, ‘OK, we’ve got this.’ This year’s team is a lot better. We trust each other and have bonded. We’re very strong mentally and now know what it takes to compete for four quarters against those teams.”

Mason played only three games at receiver in 2014 due to an injury to running back D.J. Toney.

“When D.J. went down I had to play running back,” Mason said. “I didn’t catch a lot of passes as a receiver and that’s my best position. In 7-on-7s this summer, I was able to focus on catching passes and that was good for me. I got to see a lot of coverages and how the defense breaks down and which people I can take advantage of.

“If I get a single corner on me, it’s man defense and I can beat him right off.”

 (E-mail Larry Fleming at larryfleming44@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @larryfleming44)

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