Late Thursday night, a little less than 24 hours before his Colbert Heights team was slated to kick off perhaps the biggest game in the program’s 52-year history, head coach Taylor Leathers was asked if he had a gut feeling on how the Wildcats would fare in their second-round matchup with Weaver in the Class 3A playoffs.
“I don’t really get gut feelings,” Leathers said, “but I know this—our guys will show up and lay it all on the line for forty-eight minutes, and we’ll see what happens.”
Hindsight, of course, is 20/20, but in retrospect Leathers’ response could use a little clarification. For starters, he may not get gut feelings before a game; during a game, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely. Secondly, Leathers knows his players will play as hard as they can for 48 minutes—assuming those 48 minutes are enough to settle things. On occasion, they’re not.
Friday night, as it turns out, was one of those occasions. Down 21-0 early in the game, Weaver would not go quietly into the November night. Over the course of the final three quarters, the Bearcats took advantage of a questionable fourth-down targeting call against Colbert Heights, an onside kick, a high snap on a punt, an untimely fumble and their own quick-strike offense to pull even at 28-28 with barely a minute remaining.
As the game headed to overtime, Leathers looked across the field at Bill Bryan Stadium, studied Weaver head coach Daryl Hamby for a moment and had—wouldn’t you know it—one of those gut feelings.
Leathers thought back to the previous week, when Hamby and the Bearcats, trailing by a point, had elected to go for two following their touchdown in the second overtime against first-round opponent Plainview. They converted, pulling out a 30-29 win on the road that punched their ticket to round two.
With the film-study image of that two-point play still fresh on his mind, Leathers made a decision.
“The first thing in my mind when I looked across the field was, ‘He’s gonna do it again,’” Leathers said. “I looked at Coach Hamby and thought, ‘If I don’t do it first, he’s gonna do it.’ We decided to try and beat him to the punch.”
The Bearcats got the ball first in overtime [at the Colbert Heights 10, as AHSAA rules dictate] and scored on their third play, kicking the extra point to take a 35-28 lead. The Wildcats answered with a score on their third offensive play when senior quarterback Kevin Shaw found the end zone on a keeper to cut the lead to one.
Leathers didn’t hesitate.
“They had moved the ball effectively in the second half,” he said, “and we had stalled somewhat offensively. We felt like the best decision to be made there was to go ahead and end the game, rather than try and extend it.
“I knew if we didn’t execute the play, our season would end, but there were a lot of factors involved with that decision. I felt like it was the right call. Sometimes, in the moment, you just get a gut feeling. I knew that if we kicked [the extra point], they would score and put the pressure back on us offensively. I didn’t want to be in that position.”
The Wildcats immediately lined up to go for two, tried—unsuccessfully—to draw the Weaver defense offsides with a hard count, and then took a timeout to finalize the play call (without question the most important play call of Leathers’ coaching career, and probably the most important play call in the history of Colbert Heights football).
They came back out in the same formation, with Shaw—who had already rushed for 161 yards on 21 carries at that point—taking the shotgun snap. The senior QB gave the ball to his younger brother, freshman receiver Carson Shaw, moving toward the right sideline on a jet sweep.
“It’s been a good play for us,” Leathers said. “Carson’s got the option to run or throw. It’s an RPO, a run-pass option. In our timeout, we went over the X’s and O’s again of how to execute the play, just to make sure we were familiar with it. We thought he would either run it into that front pylon or he’d be able to throw it to an open receiver.
“When we said, ‘Hey, let’s go for the win here,’ all the players were on board. They were excited about finishing the game right there. The execution was perfect.”
Carson Shaw took the ball on the jet, and the Bearcat defense took the bait. Just as he had done on a far less consequential two-point try roughly a month earlier in a rout of Colbert County, the freshman lofted a pass over oncoming defenders and into the waiting hands of senior receiver Devin Holt in the end zone. Ball game.
“As soon as Devin caught it,” Leathers said, “it was pure elation.”
Colbert Heights players stormed onto the field and mobbed Holt, forming a blue and white dog pile just beyond the back of the end zone. Wildcat fans who made the long journey to Weaver made sure they got their money’s worth, rushing the field to celebrate a 36-35 win that propelled their team into the state quarterfinals for the first time ever.
“It was an incredible moment for everybody there,” Leathers said. “We always talk about leaving your mark, leaving your legacy on Colbert Heights football. We challenged our guys before the game. We reminded them that no team in Colbert Heights history had ever won eleven football games, and no team had ever earned a third-round berth. That was fresh on their minds. We told them, ‘Don’t let this be the last time you wear the blue and white.’
“I couldn’t be more proud of the players. The Lord has blessed us all year, and I feel like He had His hand on this football team right there at the end of the game.”
Given the drama that unfolded in overtime, the events of regulation—those first 48 minutes—must have seemed like a distant memory by late Friday night. There were plenty of highlights for the Wildcats (11-1), though: A fumble recovery by senior linebacker Korey Saint in the game’s opening minute that set up senior fullback Dylan Chandler’s one-yard touchdown run, his 21st of the season; a fumble recovery by defensive tackle Isaiah Miller that led to a 23-yard touchdown toss from Carson Shaw to tight end Evan Norton on the final play of the first quarter; Kevin Shaw’s three-yard touchdown pass to Chandler early in the second quarter to make it 21-0; and a fumble recovery by Kevin Shaw on Weaver’s first drive of the third quarter, which set up his own 41-yard touchdown strike to Chandler Willis that made it 28-14.
The Bearcats (7-5) completed their comeback, however, tying the game and setting the stage for the heart-pounding finish in OT.
“I knew they were very talented,” said Leathers, whose team had allowed a total of just 42 points during a seven-game win streak heading into the second round. “They’re a fast-strike team. They run a lot of zone read, a lot of RPO’s, and that puts you in a bind defensively. They have some tremendous athletes at Weaver. They made some big-time plays, and that’s a credit to them. They had a great plan going in, a solid plan.
“It was just a pleasure for me as a coach to be a part of a game like that. Our guys played with passion. They really wanted to make a statement and do something that had never been done before. I couldn’t be more proud of our players and especially our seniors. They took it upon themselves to make history.”
With their eighth straight win, the Wildcats earned themselves a home game in the quarterfinals at Amos Mitchell Stadium. The day after Thanksgiving, they’ll be battling two-time defending Class 3A champion Piedmont (11-1, including a 33-27 win over Weaver) for a spot in the state semifinals.
“It’s amazing,” Leathers said. “All the glory goes to God. To be in this position, playing football on The Mountain the day after Thanksgiving, is just amazing.”