Daniel Doing It With D

As we head into Week Ten of the high school football season just two unbeatens have survived to this point.

Woodruff has rolled through Appalachian AA behind quarterback Jake Lambert, who’s as gritty as he is talented.

Daniel is the other and the Lions defense has been the big story as they’re one win shy of a second straight 10-0 regular season.  Daniel allows fewer than four points a game and has four shutouts.  Additionally, the highest point total they’ve allowed an opponent is eight, which came against Southside as the result of a kick-off return.

You’re likely familiar with what they say about defense winning championships and so forth.

You may have seen Jake Delhomme throw a TD pass to a Buffalo defensive back on Sunday, one of three picks tossed by the Panthers QB in the loss to the lowly Bills.  That Carolina is 2-4 now makes them just as lowly.

The big dilemma is that they put their eggs in the Jake basket a few years ago and now that he’s 34 and starting to show leaks they’re faced with Matt Moore as the option for the future——he doesn’t look like a very good option—-and the prospect of not having a first-round draft pick next April. 

So, it appears the best bet to getting some competition for Delhomme next year——read that as an insurance policy—-will have to come through free agency or not at all.

Here’s one of the many asides to Saturday’s stunning Clemson win at Miami.  I thought afterward the interesting visits Clemson offensive line coach Brad Scott has made to what is now called Landshark Stadium.

The home of the Dolphins, Marlins, and Hurricanes also was one the site of the Carquest Bowl.  It was there in January of 1995 that Scott, in his first season as USC’s head cocah, guided the Gamecocks to a thrilling, three-point win over West Virginia in what was South Carolina’s first bowl win.

So there he was in his first trip back to the stadium since that game nearly 15 years ago watching things play out in victory for Clemson, running onto the same field with the same exuberance as he did before but on the other side of the rivalry.

I could see why the Marlins can’t wait to get their own stadium and have drawn flies for many years.  While it’s a relatively impersonal and generic football stadium, you can tell that’s what it was built for.  Envisioning the baseball configuration down there gave me a full understanding that it is an awful ballpark.