HS football team leads 29-0 before opponent ever has first possession
Sep 16, 2011, 10:05 AM EDT
AP Wait, what? (Counts on fingers). How is it possible for a football team to take a 29-0 lead before its opponent ever touches the ball on offense? Well, you’d have to be Pulaski Academy in Little Rock, Ark., coached by in the innovative — some say slightly deranged — Kevin Kelley. The Pulaski coach doesn’t believe in punting, and almost always goes for the two-point conversion. Oh, and he’s fond of the onside kick. In fact, in Pulaski’s game against powerful Cabot High, Pulaski recovered three of them before Cabot ever had its first offensive possession.
With Kelley calling plays, Pulaski scored on its first drive. Naturally, the Bruins then attempted an onside kick, which they recovered. Soon, they scored another touchdown. They repeated the drill — onside kick, recovery, touchdown — again. And then again. With 8:35 left in the 12-minute first quarter, Cabot trailed Pulaski 29-0 and had yet to run a play from scrimmage.
Finally, Cabot recovered the kick and began its first offensive set of downs. Cue: more unconventional calls from Kelley. On defense, Pulaski put all 11 players in the box, leaving every receiver uncovered. The strategy worked, too, as the quarterback misfired under the pressure (and, surely, the unprecedented experience) of facing an 11-man rush.
Pulaski is a small school — only 350 students — but it’s won three state titles in the past eight years. After last Friday’s 64-34 win over Cabot (in which the Bruins got 664 yards total offense), Pulaski moved to No. 3 in the state AP poll.
Of course, football coaches are for the most part a tradition-bound, meat-and-potatoes lot, and one can bet that Pulaski opponents will find a way to change the rules to keep Kelley in line. It happened with Piedmont High (Calif.) and the innovative A-11 offense, which was banned (mostly) by the National High School Federation two years ago.
But I like Kelley’s approach: he just looks at the statistics and figures punting, and kicking deep on kickoffs, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Neither does only playing one quarterback. In Pulaski’s 2010 season opener, Kelley rotated three of them. It’s kind of a Moneyball approach to football strategy, and it’s shaking up the status quo. Which is always a good thing to do.
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Down 29-0 before touching the ball [Sports Illustrated]
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- southernpatriots - Sep 16, 2011 at 12:39 PM
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Rick: You are correct. The coaches and association will ban some of the things Kelley is doing. He is definitely taking advantage of the rules and opponents as he now has the opening. When they change the rules, he will graduate up himself and bring the innovations to other levels of football.
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- agelardi - Sep 16, 2011 at 1:42 PM
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Too bad he doesn’t kick. A lost opportunity for a kid to play and maybe develop someday into an NFL player.
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- harveyballwanger - Sep 16, 2011 at 2:28 PM
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Sounds like he could be coaching at Auburn University
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- guypatsfan - Sep 17, 2011 at 9:48 AM
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No NFL coach would have the cojones to coach like this guy!
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- mogogo1 - Sep 17, 2011 at 12:26 PM
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I think unconventional approaches like this are cool and adds to the fun of HS ball. An 11 man rush?! That only works if you’re playing an offense that doesn’t have hot reads or a QB who can throw even semi-accurately under pressure. And if this guy is known for onsides kicks, you have to assume the opponent would have had the “hands” team on the field even for the first kick. So, how do they miss recovering 3 in-a-row? That’s the fun of it all, that none of that stuff would ever happen in college or the pros.
