By Bill Lumpkin III
The first half of No. 10 Mountain Brook’s football season has had more twists and turns than a Rubik’s Cube.
Last week, the “Cardiac” Spartans survived another wild fourth quarter comeback rally.
A week after blowing a two-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter and falling in a stunning 29-28 region setback at Oxford in the final 21 seconds, the Spartans were looking at déjà vu all over again against Homewood.
But this time, the Spartans put the balls in the hands of talented tailback Stuart Andrews, and he responded with 211 yards rushing on 30 carries to give him 960 yards on the season, including the clinching one-yard touchdown in the 27-22 win over Homewood (5-1) at Spartan Stadium Friday night.
“I have to admit, I was like, ‘Oh my God, here we go again,’” Andrews said. “We just had to remind ourselves the monster that was last week was behind us; we had to remember to take one play at a time and finish this game off.”
Mountain Brook (4-2) led 13-3 at the half and 20-3 in the third quarter before having to hold on for its fifth straight win over the Patriots and ninth in the last 10 meetings between the two schools.
We’re young enough to continue to age me a little bit,” said 19-year veteran Mountain Brook coach Chris Yeager, “but we’re also growing enough to give me hope. Back in the spring, I really didn’t think we were very good at all.”
These Spartans have had to learn some valuable lessons through the first half of the season, especially after last week’s tough loss.
“The whole thing from last week was we were going to need to lean into our misses, and if we did that, it would open us up to learn some valuable lessons,” Yeager said. “We really didn’t talk about outcomes. We talked about the scars and learning from those. We didn’t talk a lot about Homewood other than their scheme.”
It was the same Spartans’ plan, though, pounding with the running game over and over again (303 yards rushing on 46 attempts), before quarterback Cayden Hofbauer hit a couple of home runs in the passing game.
“That’s what we try to do,” Yeager said. “We try to mirror the (San Francisco) 49ers. We run their same stuff. If you look at them, that’s what we try to do.”
A lot of that revolves around Andrews, who now is 40 yards shy of 1,000 yards rushing on the season.
“There’s really no goal to it,” said Andrews, who had a huge 55-yard run to set up Lawson McKnight’s four-yard touchdown run for the 20-3 lead in the third quarter. “I owe everything to my offensive line.”
Yeager believes Andrews has the skills and mindset of the great backs with his vision and ability to read the play.
“I think people kind of underestimate that guy,” Yeager said. “He really does a great job of trusting his reads and his keys. A lot of time it looks like there’s nothing there, then all the sudden a hole opens up and he really trusts his guys up front.
“He really understands our schemes and alignments and what we’re trying to do. All the great ones do that.”
Mountain Brook cashed in a 13-3 lead after the first half was played in a steady drizzle. Anderson Roberts connected on field goals of 21 and 30 yards and Hofbauer, who threw for 83 yards and rushed for 65 yards, completed only his third pass of the half with a 32-yard scoring strike to Sam Smith with only four seconds left on the clock.
Homewood’s Lessons
“We really needed a game like that,” Homewood coach Ben Berguson, whose team is ranked 7th, said. “We saw we have some things we need to clean up. Maybe we’ll see that team again in the playoffs.”
The Patriots, who had won all five of their games, put together a furious rally as quarterback Will Myers completed 15 of 27 passes for 198 yards and rushed for 92 yards on 18 carries.
Kylen Newell caught nine passes for 128 yards He caught a 13-yard touchdown pass from Myers with 1:11 remaining to close the five-point gap, but the Spartans were able to recover the onsides kick and run out the clock.
The series before, Mountain Brook’s Hayes Windle came up with a huge interception to stop Homewood’s 11-play, 59-yard drive.
“It was a huge play,” Windle said. “They had all the momentum. I knew I had to make a big play”
It was a just one of a huge number of big plays on both teams.
“Homewood is a very good football team,” Yeager said. “That quarterback –my goodness is he tough. They say these games usually come down to five or six plays, and this week, it turned out better for us. We’ve been in this situation three times and I don’t think they had been in that kind of situation before.
“This was a nice win, but it’s like I tell our guys, everybody is playing for November.”
