by Rusty Ellis
The final week of the football season has arrived, and the Upperman Bees find themselves exactly where they believed they would be at the start of the season: in the Class 4A State Championship against Pearl Cohn.
It comes on the heels of an emotional 21-14 victory at Greeneville, a game that saw the Bees fall on their heels early before settling in and dominating at the line of scrimmage to take a 21-7 lead late in the fourth quarter. The Greene Devils scored on a big passing play late, but a Bronzden Chaffin run on 4th-and-1 sealed the seven-point victory.
Time to celebrate, right? Not these Bees. Head coach Adam Caine says his team has taken on the Mamba mentality with it’s last goal in sight.
“I can’t remember exactly who it was, but one of the players sent that Kobe Bryant clip from the 2009 NBA Finals saying the job’s not finished,” Caine said. “That’s been the mindset. These kids are eager to get out there and compete for a state championship…there’s a lot of focus, and that makes it easier to tweak things and adjust things.”
Standing in front of the Bees are the Pearl Cohn Firebirds, another 14-0 team that’s been in the state title game as recent as last year. The result then was a 34-30 loss to Anderson County, but this year’s Firebirds have Caine’s full attention for the plethora of weapons.
“I would stack that roster up against any in the state,” Caine said. “Private schools, 6A, whatever, so you’re going to have to tweak some things to match up with them…any key to winning this game starts with finding a way to slow their offense down.”
And it’s certainly a tall task in slowing down a Firebird attack, led by quarterback KeShawn Tarleton. The numbers speak for themselves, as the PC signal-caller has thrown for 33 touchdowns and run for six more. He’s also taken care of the ball with only four interceptions in 167 passing attempts, while throwing for 2,152 yards.
Then, there’s Zeion-LaFrederick Simpson , a running back who’s run for 997 yards and 16 touchdowns on offense, to the tune of 13.3 yards per carry. He’s also a force on the other side of the ball, as he’s combined for 122 total tackles, six sacks and 34 tackles for loss.
Both he and Tarleton are 4A Mr. Football finalists, and they’ll garner a lot of attention from the Bees defense.
None of that factors in other playmakers like Javion Kinnard (18 total touchdowns), D’arious Reed (11 receiving touchdowns) or Emanuel Russell (eight sacks, 27 tackles for loss). All of this adds up to the Bees needing their best efforts to win.
“We focused on the last five games they’ve played, and in those games, there’s been four 90-plus yards offensive plays,” Caine said. “Those are just back-breakers, so we’ve got to limit those…we’ve got to get their kids on the ground when they do make plays. We’ve got to read our keys and get to our spots, it’s like what we talk about every week, but reading those keys and getting to those spots have to happen a lot faster.”
It’s a battle of two contrasting styles. Pearl wants to get their playmakers in space and create those explosive plays Caine referred to earlier. Upperman meanwhile has spent all season dominating the line of scrimmage and pounding teams with their ground-attack.
One thing that’s been consistent all year has been the noise that Upperman’s heard from the beginning of the season to now, regardless of the 14-0 record. Whether it’s online message boards or other opinions around the state, there’s been a certain attitude surrounding the Bees.
It’s not fazed them, as the record indicates Upperman is quite comfortable in the underdog role.
“We thrive on that, it seems like there’s a lot of that every week no matter who we’re playing,” Caine said. “We could probably scrimmage our middle-school team and people would say they would beat us by 100, which is rare for a 14-0 football team…the thing we don’t like is people acting like we’re garbage, and the thing is we work really hard and we push these kids really hard. We put these kids through it more than anybody.”
Make no mistake though, just because the Bees are firing themselves up by taking in all the doubt doesn’t mean they don’t have respect for their opponent.
“I’m honestly excited to be going up against one of the best teams in the state for a gold ball,” Caine said. “That’s exactly what you play for…we’ve got a lot of respect for our opponent. Any praise or accolades that Pearl is getting is warranted, they are as good as advertised and we see it on film, so that part of it is not as much of a rallying cry for us.”
At the end of the day, Caine simply wants his team to get the respect that a 14-0 team should receive, and he knows competing for a state championship is the way to get it.
“We’ve earned the right to be here,” Caine said. “We don’t mind playing that underdog motivation card. If it’s going to help us play better, that’s great and we’ll embrace it, but at the end of the day, our biggest focus is embracing the preparation. When it’s time to compete on Saturday morning, we’ll need to embrace that side of it as well.”
Upperman will take on the Pearl Cohn Firebirds in the Class 4A State Championship on Saturday at 11 A.M. Est. Live audio coverage will be available on UCR’s Facebook page and YouTube channel, beginning at 10 A.M. Est.