Lausanne football beats Notre Dame for second straight state title

COOKEVILLE — Everything broke perfectly for the Lausanne football team this season. And Saturday, things broke perfectly for Corteze Love.

Love, a senior, recorded 12 tackles to win defensive Most Valuable Player honors as the Lynx won their second consecutive state championship, defeating Chattanooga Notre Dame, 41-13. It was the first game of the season for Love, who attended Power Center Academy last year while playing for Lausanne as part of a co-op agreement. 

When that attended, he transferred from Lausanne but was ineligible for a calendar year after his last date of participation. If the Lynx had played Thursday — as Division II-AA has done in the past — he still couldn't have taken part.

But he could Saturday.

"I made the statement about a month ago," said Lynx coach Kevin Locastro. "I we got to the state championship game that it would be incredible for him to play and get the defensive MVP. And gosh dang if he didn't do it."

Love's presence was very welcome against a tricky Fighting Irish singe-wing that relied on multiple fakes and lots of deception.

"I worked hard for it, worked hard in practice every day," said Love. "It wasn't very hard because I knew the team was going to lead us to this point. It feels amazing."

"Amazing" is also the word to describe Eric Gray. The junior — who won his second straight Mr. Football award last Monday — ran for 281 yards on 25 carries and scored on runs of 39, 35, 19, 12 and 44 yards.

He ends the year with 3,181 yards and a Shelby County record 49 touchdowns in 13 games. Only Whitehaven's Mark Dodson, who ran for 3,295 in 2012, has run for more.

"Our offensive scheme was actually something that we didn't do a lot, which was to fake it to me and give it to No. 10 (Devin Boddie, Jr.) and get some misdirection going," Gray said. "But give me the ball and I'm dangerous with it, so they just kept riding me.

"Our offensive line came to play hard tonight. They've worked for it all season long. We wanted to show that we weren't going to do 12-9 again (the score of last year's title-game win over Knoxville Webb.)

"We didn't want a close game."

It really wasn't after the second quarter. University of Memphis commit Nyle Love capped a 12-play 85-yard drive with a 2-yard run to give Lausanne (13-0) a 14-7 lead. Then after a bad snap on a Notre Dame punt gave the Lynx the ball on the Irish 35, Gray weaved his way through the defense for his second score.

Lausanne took a 34-7 late in the third when Gray popped it in from 12 yards. That ended a 6-play, 84-yard drive that featured nothing but Gray runs.

"The thing is, if I'm playing Lausanne, the No. 1 thing is I don't want No. 1 to beat me," said Locastro. "I'm going to try to load the box and I'm going to try and get safeties down and try to get as many hats on him as I can.

"And I think people tried to do that to us but we were still able to have success."

Consider Notre Dame suitably impressed.

“He's the best runner I've seen since Santonio Beard,” said Irish defensive coordinator Curt Jones, referring to the former all-state standout from Nashville Pearl-Cohn who later went on to play at Alabama.

“He's got extraordinary vision and his ability to cut back and find a seam and break arm tackles is something we haven't seen.”

Lausanne (13-0) is now the sixth Shelby County football team to win consecutive state titles but only the second to do so with back-to-back perfect seasons. MUS went 13-0 each year while winning titles in 2008 and 2009.

The Lynx also extended their state-long winning streak to 27. MUS' 28-game streak — the Owls won the first two in 2010 after their title years — is the longest in Shelby County history since the modern playoff era began in 1969.

"Coming back two times is very hard to do," said Nyle Love, who is Corteze's cousin. "Last year was special ... but we came back this year and put more points on the board. So they're both special."

Reach John Varlas at john.varlas@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter @johnvarlas.