Clarke Central High School head football coach David Perno talks to CCHS players after the Classic City Championship on Sept. 4. With a region record of 1-0, Perno looks to stay undefeated with the upcoming home game against Jackson County High School on Friday. “We look forward to playing in front of a home crowd. Even though (the crowd) may be smaller than normal, it’s still gonna be in front of more of our people,” Perno said. Photo by Luna Reichert
The Clarke Central High School varsity football team kicked off region play with a win against Apalachee High School and hope to improve their region record to 2-0 with a win over Jackson County at home this Friday.
CCHS senior Will Robinson will get the start at quarterback over sophomore Prince Ave Christian School transfer Lucian Anderson III. Robinson threw for 175 yards with a 65% completion rate in the first region game of the season.
“We don’t really have a choice right now (on who should start). Will did some things this weekend that I was extremely pleased with and I could see he wasn’t looking over his shoulder,” Perno said. “Will’s just a little more steady (than Anderson) from my standpoint and he runs a little better.”
CCHS middle linebacker Joshua Henderson, a senior, anticipates a solid performance on Friday from a Gladiator defense that has put up an average of 16 tackles for loss and 0.5 sacks per game thus far in the season.
“We’ve been digesting their film. I’m not worried about anything, we have an outstanding defensive coordinator, we have outstanding position coaches on the defense, they’re gonna have us prepared,” Henderson said. “The game plan is going to be simple, when you play defense you just gotta play fast and physical. The game plan is never too complex no matter who we’re playing.”
Perno says the biggest area for improvement moving forward is the team’s performance on first down.
“First down, we weren’t very good. Third down, we were outstanding. We got to be better on first down. We had a couple penalties, couple negative plays, but it was just fortunate that we were so good on third that it kind of covered that up,” Perno said. “The most impressive thing about it was the distribution. We got some big plays from Nono (Jairus Mack), we also got ‘em from (Justin) Hodges, we got them from AJ (Jewell), Sean Leahy made a couple, Will Robinson made a couple running, and our running back situation Will Richardson and Felix Braddy are starting to come around.”
