A new star was born Friday night at Bobcat Field as junior quarterback Chris Tyson threw for two touchdowns and ran for four more, and Erath High knocked off its second unbeaten opponent in as many weeks when the Bobcats trampled Rayne High 49-21.
The Bobcats (3-0) rolled up nearly 600 yards of total offense, with Tyson accounting for nearly 450 yards of that on the air and in the ground as the Bobcats scored four straight touchdowns to take a 28-7 halftime lead and coast to the win.
|
Advertisement
|
But unlike last week, when Tyson and the Bobcats just played ball control in the second half to hold off E.D. White 7-6, Byler turned his bunch loose in the second half to roll up three more scores in the lopsided win over the Wolves (3-1).
“Our quarterback just played super tonight, and the offensive line just did a great job of blocking,” said Byler. “We knew coming in that we could run the veer offense against them, and our defense did a great job of stopping them in the first half.”
With Tyson at the helm, the Bobcats had no trouble crawling out of a 7-0 hole early after Rayne quarterback Tyler Venable scored on a two-yard run with 5:10 to play in the first quarter.
The Bobcats, who didn’t score on their first two possessions but moved the ball well, struck quickly on their third possession near the end of the first quarter when running back Tate Bodin took a pitch from Tyson and rolled 76 yards around right end to tie the score at 7-7 with 1:25 to play in the third quarter.
After that, Tyson turned up the heat, scoring three second-quarter touchdowns. His first came on a 27-yard quarterback keeper off a busted play with 8:52 left in the half. Just under two minutes later, Tyson struck gold again when he threw the first of his two first-half touchdowns, a 49-yard bomb to Joshua Pillette that put the Bobcats ahead 21-7.
“It’s like coach said, we knew we could run the veer offense on them,” said Tyson, who threw for three touchdowns in the season opener against Vermilion Catholic. “And coach told me before the game that he wanted me to be more of a passing quarterback then a running quarterback.
“Everything was just clicking off the veer tonight.”
The Bobcats were sitting on a two-touchdown lead with 27 seconds left to play, when Tyson delivered the knockout punch with a 40-yard strike to Aaron Darby, who ran the remaining 16 yards untouched into the end zone to put Erath up 28-7 at halftime.
“They had the line stacked on that play, and we reacted to it, and I just dropped back and threw it over the top of the safety, who was in single coverage” said Tyson.
“Our young receivers were just amazing tonight,” said Byler, referring to sophomore wideouts Pillette and Darby, the recipients of the two Tyson touchdown passes. “It’s super to watch how far these kids have come so quickly.”
The shell-shocked Wolves, who had 15 first downs Friday night but only 255 yards total offense, came out in the second half looking to cut into the Erath lead. But Rayne fumbled away its opening possession of the half, and Tyson and the Bobcat offense dissected the Rayne defense with a nine-play, 78-yard scoring drive that ate up nearly four minutes of clock.
Tyson wasn’t content to just run and throw on the drive. He actually caught a pass on the drive from Jake Renard. Tyson handed the ball off to Renard on an end around, but Renard suddenly pulled up and heaved the ball across the field to a wide open Tyson for a 16-yard gain to set Erath up at the Rayne 11-yard line.
Two plays later, Tyson punched it in from six yards out for his fourth touchdown of the night, and Erath was cruising at 35-7.
Antonio Wheeler, who had 124 yards rushing for Rayne, finally broke Erath’s string of 35 unanswered points when he scored on a 28-yard run with 1:14 to play in the third quarter.
But Erath wasn’t content to sit on the ball in the fourth quarter.
The Bobcats scored twice more in the final period, with Tyson delivering the final knockout blows on touchdown runs of five and 30 yards to put the icing on the 28-point win.
“He just takes those busted plays and makes something happen,” said Byler of Tyson, who rushed 15 times for 238 yards and completed six of 12 passes for 161 yards. “He’s really fun to watch out there.”
“We played a vanilla 50 defense, and we didn’t stunt anybody,” said Byler. “We knew they could run the ball, and we were determined to stop them from breaking the long runs.”
Tyson said he was nervous before the game, “because we lost to them last year. But our offensive line executed well, and the points showed up on the board. The offensive line just did a hell of a job tonight. We just executed really well.”
Erath scored on seven of its nine possessions Friday night.
“At the beginning they were running their strong safety to the right side of the veer, so we just switched off on them, and they never really adjusted. We just ran where they weren’t, which was their backside, and, in fact, I think all of our scores came on that backside of their defense,” said Tyson.
Venable, Rayne’s quarterback, completed nine of 21 passes for 92 yards, most of those in the second half when the Wolves were trying to play catch up.
Comments