The rust of nearly a month without games – and practices also jumbled as a result of the weather – was apparent Saturday morning at Donell Woods Stadium/Kirk Warner Field.
The Liberty County Panthers left little doubt in the game’s outcome too.
Behind a stingy first-team defense and Jah’barri Felix’s historic passing day, the Panthers had no problem in a 54-12 rout of the Groves Rebels.
“Sometimes you can get complacent when you’re practicing and you’re not playing any games,” Panthers coach Tony Glazer said. “But we had good practices the last couple of weeks. I saw in warmups we had good energy. We were ready to play.”
Felix, a sophomore in his first year of high school football, threw for 219 yards and four touchdowns in the first half alone. He ran for two more scores, and his 44-yard ramble in the waning seconds of the third quarter set in motion the fourth quarter’s running clock.
That helped to shorten a lengthy game that was elongated by 34 accepted penalties between the two teams. Liberty was called for 16 penalties, costing the Panthers 131 yards, and the Rebels had 145 penalty yards assessed on 18 accepted infractions.
Felix started the scoring with a 27-yard connection with Aaron Brown on Liberty’s opening drive of the game. After he threw an interception inside the Rebels’ 15-yard line on the next possession, the Panthers kicked it into high gear.
Felix scored on a 1-yard sneak on the next series and then threw touchdowns passes of 35, 36 and 29 yards, the first another strike to Brown and the final two to Jalen Hurd for a 34-0 halftime lead.
“He’s getting better every week,” Glazer said of Felix. “He was hitting guys in stride, making the right reads, controlling the offense. He was on top of his game today. Our offense goes as he leads us, and he led us up and down the field today.”
Elijah Brown pushed the lead to 40-0 on Liberty’s first drive of the second half, scoring from 3 yards out, and Jacquillyone Grovenor went 52 yards with an interception to give the Panthers a 46-0 lead with 4:49 to go in the third quarter.
The massive lead allowed the Panthers coaches to get their reserves into the game early and give all their players in uniform Saturday morning playing time. With a short turnaround between games – the Panthers played Tuesday night at Southeast Bulloch – getting the starters out and rested was pivotal.
“It helped being able to take our starters out and then allowing everybody to get in,” Glazer said. “That’s a coach’s dream, to let everybody on your roster to play. A lot of guys were able to get a lot of reps.”
The Rebels scored twice on Liberty’s reserves, once on Israel Simmons’ fumble return and again on Trenton Tukes’ 42-yard touchdown pass to Jarrett Dorsey.
But after the Panthers recovered a second Rebels onside kickoff attempt, Glazer sent enough of the first-team offense back out to seal the deal. On the next snap, Felix dropped back to pass and then took off, splitting a handful of Rebels defenders on a 44-yard TD run that stretched Liberty’s lead back to 52-12 with 7.8 seconds left in the third quarter.
“He’s been trying to get one all year,” Glazer said of Felix’s long touchdown run.
Felix finished with 245 yards on 11 of 17 passing. The Panthers racked up 355 yards of total offense.
Liberty’s defense held Groves to minus-17 yards rushing and racked up 11 tackles for loss, including three sacks. The Panthers also forced two turnovers.
“We’re tough to move the ball on. That’s been our M.O. all year,” Glazer said. “All in all, when we’re playing, and they have three downs to get 10 yards, our defense has done a good job. They’re playing hard, they’re playing aggressive. They’re locked in to what we’re doing scheme-wise. As the season goes on, we’re able to do more because they understand what we’re doing.”
