The Grayson County Cougars fell in their first preseason scrimmage at Hancock County on Friday evening by a 52-0 score.
Hancock is coming off a regular season district title in 2020 and is favored to potentially repeat again this season.
The Cougars started the game with the ball and began with a pair of completions from Hunter Felty to Jeren VanMeter and Greyson Chaffins.
From there, Grayson had three consecutive negative plays. One of which was on a 4th down and 7 from their own 43 yard-line.
“We didn’t come over here to work on our punt game,” head coach Bryan Jones said. “There were a lot of situations that we went for it on fourth and extremely long that we wouldn’t do in a regular game.”
The Hornets wasted no time taking advantage of the Cougars’ planned aggression as quarterback Cole Dixon found Kaleb Keown for a 30-yard touchdown.
The second possession for GCHS saw Felty fumble a bad snap with Hancock recovering giving them the ball back on the 21.
This time, the Cougar defense battled hard after being put into a tough position. The Hornets would still punch it into the endzone on 4th and goal from the eight to give them a 16-0 lead.
Jones made a change at quarterback for Grayson for the next possession. Kolby Chaffins entered and had two incompletions on the drive and the Cougars were forced to punt. A bad snap on the punt gave Michael Wood very little time to get it away and the ball went less than a yard giving Hancock fantastic field position again.
It would take the Hornets two plays to get into the endzone again to make it 24-0.
Felty re-entered at quarterback and after losing yardage on the first two plays of the drive, he found VanMeter down the near sideline for a 19-yard completion. A run by Wood would gain six yards but consecutive bad snaps forced Grayson to punt the ball away.
For the first time in the game, the Cougar defense wasn’t put into a bad position and stood strong in forcing Hancock into a three and out.
The Grayson County offense found a rhythm next. Felty slipped a sack on second down and found Wood for a first down to give them the ball in Hancock territory.
Wood would lose yardage on a run and an incompletion should have brought up third down. The head referee though, incorrectly, said it was fourth down, and the Cougars had a negative play giving the ball back to the Hornets.
Two plays later, they found the endzone again to give them a 32-0 lead, that would extend into halftime.
The third quarter saw both teams use JV teams with Hancock scoring a pair of touchdowns in that portion to make it 46-0.
The final Grayson County possession was highlighted by a 21-yard pass from Felty to Wood, but they still turned the ball over on downs.
Hancock County scored another touchdown on the final play of the game to give the final overall score of 52-0.
Despite the score, Jones still looked at some positives.
“We threw the ball pretty well at times,” he said. “We gotta sure up some things on pass protection. Our rollout protection really wasn’t that bad, but our straight dropback wasn’t.”
Felty finished 7/9 passing for 82 yards. VanMeter had 2 catches for 34 yards and Wood had 2 for 33 yards.
“I made the decision coming into this game that the first possession we were going to throw every down,” Jones added. “Another possession we stayed in a certain formation. There were some things that weren’t characteristic of a real football game just to make sure we got certain formations, certain plays, certain things tried, that would be somewhat unrealistic.”
Hancock County brought back a lot from last season’s team and that experience showed.
“(Hancock) returns 99% of their team that won the district last year,” Jones said. “It wouldn’t be surprising to me if they were 10-0 going into the playoffs. That’s a very real possibility if they stay healthy.”
Grayson County will be back in action on Friday night for their final scrimmage against Hopkins County Central.
“(Hancock) exposed us in some areas. We have got to go to work,” Jones added. “We get another scrimmage before we see Edmonson on the 19th. We’ve got a lot of work to do over these next four days of practice to sure some things up both sides of the ball, but primarily upfront.”
The Cougars will officially open the season on August 19 at home against Edmonson County.
By Sam Gormley, Play-By-Play Announcer/Local Sports
Reach Sam at sam@k105.com
