Each Monday, Sporting Times Senior Writer Tyler Mansfield will provide a “What We Learned” column, which will breakdown what he examined from the games he covered the previous weekend – ranging from top performers to dominant and sleeper teams and much more.
Here are his takeaways from an eventual Week 1:
- South Warren is loaded with talent
One thing was made clear Friday night in the South Warren-Hopkinsville game – the Spartans are once again loaded with talent.
South dominated on both sides of the ball – especially on the defensive end – and rolled to a 49-17 road win to open the season. The Spartans scored three defensive touchdowns – two of those coming from WKU commit Clayton Bush – and shutdown an explosive Hopkinsville offensive unit.
Offensively, South Warren quarterback Gavin Spurrier showed no signs of rust and passed for 124 yards, while Cameron Harrison – making his first start at running back – unloaded for 153 yards and three touchdowns on 16 carries.
If the Spartans keep performing the way they did last week, their season could very well extend all the way to Lexington.
Up next for South Warren: vs. Warren Central at 8 p.m. Saturday in Citizens First Bowl at WKU.
- Bowling Green will make proper adjustments
Heading into the season, it was predicted that Bowling Green would look a bit different when it stepped onto the field for the first time in mid-August.
That prediction was true, as there were a handful of new starters and movements on both sides of the ball, but that didn’t have any effect on the way the Purples ran their program.
Bowling Green was still an organized, fired-up football team that filled the stands with many fans wearing Purple and Gold and opened the year with a 20-13 win over Central Hardin in Saturday’s Rafferty’s Bowl in the debut of new head coach Mark Spader.
Now, seeing that score – just a seven-point win in an event that BG usually dominates – may raise some questions, but it’s simple and comes down to this: the Purples are in an adjustment period.
There’s a new coach at the helm. There’s many new starters. Then-underclassmen are now stepping up into starting roles and emerging as leaders. All of these things take time to adjust to – and Bowling Green will make proper adjustments and continue to make progress as the season progresses.
Up next for Bowling Green: vs. Pleasure Ridge Park at 7 p.m. Friday at El Donaldson Stadium.
- Player of the Week
South Warren running back Cameron Harrison earns Week 1 Player of the Week honors.
In his first game as the starter at the position, Harrison broke loose for over 150 yards and three TDs and helped the Spartans record their dominating win at Hopkinsville.
“First off, shoutout to the whole offense,” Harrison said Friday. “Without the offensive line, none of this would have been able to be accomplished. “Gavin (Spurrier) – he’s such a smart quarterback. He just put me in the right spots, and great play calls from the coaches.”
