George MacIntyre has play of year contender to keep Brentwood Academy football perfect in region

Just call it, the play.

It's the high school football moment Brentwood Academy senior Griffin Cropp will retell to friends and family for the rest of his life. And the one that may signal the official arrival of quarterback George MacIntyre — if it hasn't already been done.

And the play — an 8-yard MacIntyre TD pass to Cropp with 21 seconds left — gave Brentwood Academy a 10-7 win Thursday over host Ensworth and kept its Division II-AAA West Region hopes alive entering next week's TSSAA football regular season finale.

"I was like, 'All right, it's now or never,'" said MacIntyre, who is rated as the No. 2 quarterback in the country for the Class of 2025 by 247Sports and No. 30 overall prospect. "We had to do something with it.

"I got a little pressure early. My first look wasn't open. The second look was shady. So I just threw it to my big tight end, where only he could get it and make the play. And he made a great play."

Brentwood Academy (7-2, 4-0 DII-AAA West) has a one-game lead over Ensworth (6-3, 3-1) and MUS (7-2, 3-1) with one week left in the regular season. The Eagles host MUS at 7 p.m. on Oct. 28 to decide the top seed. Ensworth handed the Owls their lone region loss, 27-17, on Sept. 16.

The game-winning play came on first-and-goal from the Ensworth 8, a play after a holding call against the Tigers on fourth down kept Brentwood Academy's drive moving.

MacIntyre clapped his hands to signal the snap from shotgun. He danced around one defender, bouncing toward the line of scrimmage. He began to dance toward the right side of Brentwood Academy's offensive line and bounced back toward the inside of the offensive line to get Ensworth defensive lineman Ethan Utley to commit to trying to stop him.

"I thought I had him wrapped up," Utley said.

The Brentwood Academy sophomore quarterback then put on a spin move toward the Ensworth sideline. MacIntyre rolled out and found Cropp alone on the sideline and threw a perfect spiral to the tight end, who kept his toes in bounds for the catch.

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Game over.

"I guess that's George MacIntyre," said Ensworth junior Mason Curtis.

The catch was Cropp's 10th of the season and third touchdown. He has 80 receiving yards through nine games.

"It's awesome," Cropp said. "I don't have many games left with these guys. I've been here since sixth grade and played with the same guys. They are my family, my brothers."

MacIntyre, the grandson of former Vanderbilt coach George MacIntyre, finished the game 15-for-25 passing for 169 yards with the touchdown and an interception. A physical Ensworth defensive front forced four sacks. The 6-foot-6, 180-pounder, whose offers include Auburn, FIU, Michigan, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Vanderbilt, now is 118-for-185 passing for 1,630 yards with 17 touchdowns and two interceptions for the season.

"They had been doing a good job on defense the whole game," MacIntyre said. "We were finally ourselves. We didn't play like ourselves the whole game."

Reach Tom Kreager at 615-259-8089 or tkreager@tennessean.com and on Twitter @Kreager.