I was at the game and I'm still not sure what happened.
The first quarter was 0-0. Both teams were strong defensively and each offense had maybe 1 first down or maybe 2. We were winning the field position game by virtue of our punter. I may be a a little confused, but I think it was 0-0 when we had them buried at the 1 yard line. We had a procedure call that moved it out to the 6. A couple of plays later, Bearden threw to a wide-open receiver, who raced down the field and scored. And that was it.
From that point on, our safeties and defenders were burnt. We had a few good plays and good stands, but it was not enough to put together anything sustained. Bearden spotted our weaknesses and exploited them expertly. We just didn't seem to want it. (Not taking anything, anything away from Bearden, but this wasn't the Blount team of several weeks ago). We just rolled over. I'm sure that there will be Bearden fans that will get on here and post a bunch of trash talk, but, in fairness, the team Bearden beat was not the same team as the one that played throughout the season.
Not to get too off-topic, but several fans are commenting that our last three games are typically against weaker opponents (McMinn, Bradley, Heritage) then we played Cambell Co., and its like we didn't have any energy or stamina or something. Once we got behind 7-0, we bent. The backbreaker was bearden scoring with 16 seconds to go in the half. That made it 17-0, and took a lot out of our players.
Bearden showed me something. I think if we played our top game, like we have basically every other game this year, it would have come down to one score. From what I saw, Bearden would have won it, even against our A game, but it would have been a game.
This is one of those games where you hate to see it end this way. This one will sting for a while. I'm sure Coach Meadows will regroup and come up with some new plans for next year. This offense was a radical departure from previous seasons and basically put WB "on the map" as a team to be reckoned with.
This sets up an interesting observation .... Farragut gave up 35 points to WB and barely beat them. Farragut gave up 30+ to Ooltewah and barely beat them. Bearden skunked us both. I'm beginning to think that Bearden has gotten must stronger than Farragut as the season has rolled on since their 2OT loss. And, I do think that Bearden wins the battle of West Knoxville. Should be a great game.