Published Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Defense to be King on Friday

The Newnan Times-Herald

There's not much mystery to it now.

"When you get this far along, everybody you play is good ," said Newnan head coach Mike McDonald as he prepared his Cougars to take on M.L. King Friday in Drake Stadium in the second round of the state Class AAAAA playoffs.

The Lions boast statistically the best defense Newnan has faced this year and one of the best running backs.

"They are a very talented football team," McDonald said. "They're athletic, big and good.

"They're everything you expect to play against when you get this far."

The Lions are 10-1, their lone loss coming to Region 2-AAAAA champion Stephenson, 20-0, in game seven of the regular season.

MLK has reeled off four wins in a row since that setback, all shutouts, which brings their total to seven on the year.

That defense will go up against the Cougars' spread attack which is averaging just over 34 points per game and has scored 34 or more points in seven of their 11 games.

Offensively the Lions' go-to guy is running back Mack Brown who has committed to the University of Florida.

Newnan fans will remember him from the 2007 playoffs when he played against Newnan at Redan before transferring to MLK.

McDonald certainly does.

"We had problems stopping him then as a sophomore," the coach said. "He's tough to tackle, changes direction so well and has the ability to bounce off tacklers."

He scored Redan's only touchdown in Newnan's 17-6 first round victory.

"But he's not the only weapon they have," McDonald said. "They can beat you in a lot of ways including throwing the ball when they have to."

MLK beat Jenkins of Savannah in the first round of the playoffs, 35-0, while Newnan disposed of Valdosta, 28-9.

The Cougars rallied from a 9-7 deficit at halftime to win their post-season opener against the Wildcats.

"Our kids didn't panic," McDonald said. "We just kept on playing.

"We made a few adjustments at halftime, but mainly we just played better in the second half than we did in the first."

Newnan has now scored a total of 50 points in the third and fourth quarters in the last two wins over East Coweta and Valdosta.

The Valdosta game also produced the Cougars' most dramatic goal line stand of the year when they stopped the Wildcats on fourth and goal at the two in the second quarter while leading at the time, 7-6.

"We hadn't been in that kind of situation much all year," McDonald said. "We practice and practice it all the time and I'm glad we do. It paid off for us against Valdosta."

The Valdosta "name" had no effect on the Cougars.

"We just tried to treat it like we treat every game we play," McDonald said. "We do what we think is necessary to be successful.

"I never got the sense of our kids being in awe of Valdosta. To them they were just another team we had to play, another team we had to prepare for just like we do all our games."

Friday marks the first ever visit to Newnan by MLK.

This is just the eighth year of varsity football for MLK which is competing in the playoffs for the seventh straight year after posting its seventh straight winning season.

The Lions lost to Tift County, 24-14, in last year's first round of the playoffs.

Tift then came to Newnan the following week and lost, 42-0.