I watched the whole SP/Dudley game from start to end. First let me say that Dudley definitely looks the part across the board. This teams has studs everywhere that will eventually play on the next level. Big linemen on both sides of ball, tall fast receivers, a qb with a rocket for a arm and speed everywhere. The sophomore receiver #1 is special. He will be a National recruit by the end of his junior year.
Hats off to South Point. The Raiders hung in there as Dudley hit them with hey makers early. SP could not move the ball and Dudley was getting whatever it wanted on offense early especially in the passing game. The kickoff return for a td was huge for SP’s confidence that cut the score to 21-13. Also I think it was huge in the way the officials called the game the rest of the way. Officials are human and I thought the officials were believing that Dudley was going to just run away with the game as they have probably observed them do all year. I think once the officials realized that SP was coming to compete in this game, the officiating leveled out. Also Dudley who hasn’t played a competitive game in weeks had some doubt creep into their young guys heads.
Once the rain started it seemed that SP was way more comfortable playing in those conditions. Dudley pretty much abandoned the passing game for awhile which really helped SP’s defense dial in on their running game.
Defensively Dudley played with five d-linemen and let the rest of the defense run to the ball. This strategy backfired spectacularly on them. This strategy is effective against a Charlotte Catholic type of running offense but not against the Red bone. You have to assign someone to each option and play assignment football every play. Dudley appeared to never assign anyone to the SP quarterback and it paid dearly for this mistake. The SP qb kept it over and over again with much success. Once the Dudley secondary begin to over compensate by trying to come up in the quarterback alley and take that away, SP begin sprinkling in passes with great success. Dudley was officially done at that point because they had no defensive answers. SP gained confidence and really begin rolling. The only question was how many td’s would SP score after that.