Rhea @ Powell

[UnsilentMajority]

Rhea down 7-6 at halftime.

[wingman10]

Rhea is staying close

[ChattanoogaFBFan]

Powell wins 14-6. Rhea got the ball back late after powell fumbled going in, but just not enough time to do anything. Is what my buddy at Rhea just sent me.

[osunut2]

This turned out to be an excellent game. Rhea is much improved from a year ago, and it showed. Powell made a lot of mistakes, although I'll chalk some of that up to week 0 jitters. Overall, Rhea appeared to control the line of scrimmage for much of the night, and with their size and talent up front, they will be able to have the same success against many other opponents this year. They have a good feature back (Sharp) and a veteran QB (Dotson) who took care of the football and made some good decisions.

 

Powell bounced back defensively after a rough first quarter. They gave up 137 total yards in the 1st quarter (6 points), but only 85 after that. On the flip side, Powell only had 11 total yards in the 1st quarter, but about 250 after that. Defensive depth will be an issue for this team, but they did an excellent job bouncing back from a rough 1st quarter, especially after spending so much time on the field. Great sign there. The secondary looked very good. Overall on defense, plenty of speed to prevent the outside run, but this team has to work on getting stronger up the middle. Losing Tony Foster and such an experienced LB corps showed.

 

The Panthers had a couple of poor snaps that were drive killers and 10 penalties on the night. Montario Washington and Hagen Owenby are both going to have a solid year, and Marcus Weaver looked great playing Darian Logan's position from a year ago. I like where the offense is, at this point. The offensive line got pushed around, largely due to Rhea's talent up front, but they were still able to create space (Washington averaged 6.5 yards per carry). The receiving corps looked good, but they need to improve their downfield blocking, which was a huge plus for this team the last 2 seasons.

 

Powell has a very tough test against Austin-East this week, one of the Panthers' stiffest tests from a year ago. AE was pounded by West last week, but this should be a excellent game.