‘Old school’ mentality leads Devils to second win

A few Culpeper fans braved the elements Friday and made the trek to The Pit to watch the Blue Devils pick up their second win of the season — not that I can blame the ones who chose to stay home.

Non-stop rain turned the field into soup and the cold made the wet conditions that much more unbearable, but the Blue Devils fans in attendance did get treated to a football history lesson during the 14-6 slugfest.

The Blue Devils brought an old-school feel to the Foxes’ well-hidden stadium with the way they ate up the clock with a physical running game and smacked King George in the mouth at the point of attack on defense.

“From where we were in week 1 to now is worlds apart,” CCHS coach Mike Williams said Friday night. “We made a big mistake early on, but the guys didn’t get down about it. Instead, they got mad about it, went down and scored and took control of the game.”

There’s no question Culpeper put on a ball-control clinic Friday night, but the Blue Devils also left some points on the board.

“The weather had a whole lot to do with that,” Williams said. “Everybody was bobbling the ball. The weather gave us problems, but the boys found a way to overcome.”

The Blue Devils limited the Foxes to just three offensive plays in the first quarter, and King George only totaled 35 plays while Culpeper ran 59.

The plan coming into the soggy game was to pound the ball down the Foxes throats, but the Blue Devils probably didn’t expect to have all of their 296 yards come by way of the running game.

Quarterback Donald Downs missed on all four of his pass attempts during the first half, and the Blue Devils didn’t go to the air at all in the second half.

“We definitely wanted to run the ball in these nasty conditions,” Williams said. “We felt like it was going to take a pretty good bunch to stop us once we got going.”

Junior Larry Williams was the Blue Devils’ workhorse, tallying 152 yards on 27 carries. Most of Williams’ yards came between the tackles, and many of them were racked up while dragging two or three tacklers.

In his first game of the season without taking a snap from under center, senior Cortez Rollins pounded away at the Foxes’ defense to the tune of 88 yards on 12 carries. He also showed off his vision by taking advantage of a cut-back lane and burning King George on a 39-yard scoring jaunt.

The Blue Devils put on one of their best performances of the season Friday, but it’s a good thing the Virginia High School league doesn’t count quality points like the BCS because, at times, the game got a little ugly.

Culpeper was happy to escape with the win, but if it weren’t for a bevy of untimely penalties and turnovers the Blue Devils’ eight-point victory could have looked more like a blowout.

The Blue Devils were penalized eight times for 80 yards, including back-to-back holding calls that negated runs of more than 20 yards and stalled what could have been a scoring drive at the end of the first half.

Culpeper was also plagued by fumbles. The Foxes only points of the game came when a snap flew over the punter’s head, and Downs lost the ball twice in the second half.

Downs’ first fumble ended an eight-play drive in the third quarter on the Foxes 20-yard line, and his second gave King George the ball on Culpeper’s 34 with 8:30 left in the fourth.

But luckily, the defense bailed the offense out on both occasions.