Sep. 9—After their 47-14 defeat to No. 4 Calvary Day, a GHSA Class A-private powerhouse, Frederica Academy looks to get back to the fundamentals and mechanics.
In the game against the Cavaliers, the Knights (1-1) gave up 47 points on 330 yards of offense.
With a new week of practice, head coach Brandon Derrick wants his players to get back to the fundamentals and mechanics of playing football.
“We got to take better angles on defense,” Derrick said. “We weren’t in the right spot at times. We dropped on some tackles. We were high. But we run into that. When we don’t have enough kids, we can’t tackle full speed all the time.”
Coach Derrick is used to having a smaller roster than most schools the Knights face every year.
However, this year Frederica Academy has 20 players and a lot of inexperience all over the field.
The biggest inexperience for the Knights after two weeks is at the quarterback position.
After starting quarterback Thomas Veal was injured and sidelined for the Calvary Day game, wide receiver Bryce Reilly took over as the signal caller for the Knights.
“We gotta get Bryce more reps at quarterback,” Derrick said. “It was his first week — I thought he played pretty well, he was 7-for-10. He just threw one up at the end just to try and hit Jordan (Triplett) in the middle of the field. I thought overall, it wasn’t too bad. Just wasn’t too good. We were out-manned, and we played a little bit like we were out-manned at times.”
With Reilly at quarterback, Coach Derrick said he tweaked a few things but added that his offense was still able to put up a good performance together against Calvary Day.
“I thought we did pretty well offensively,” Derrick said. “Jordan still almost ran for 100 yards, Bryce had 60 yards and threw for another 70. We almost had 250 yards of offense against a really, really, really good defense. I know that our last drive we probably got 60 yards on their backups.
“But their backups are probably just as good as some teams that we are going to face. They were still huge upfront. But I just thought our kids did OK. They just got to get better like I said. Mechanics, and a lot of that is getting reps out here and it’s hard to do that when you don’t have a ton of kids.”
Right before the end of the half, the Knights had a chance to get their first points of the game. As the ball sat 1 yard away from the end zone, the Knights next play resulted in a 101-yard scoop and score for the Cavaliers. Instead of being down 28-7, the Knights were down 34-0 going into the second half.
As Knights walked off the field and back onto the bus with a 47-14 loss, Coach Derrick still liked going against the toughest teams early in the season.
“Oh yeah, I thought it was great for us early on,” Derrick said. “Mainly because we aren’t going to face anybody like that. That athletic, that big, that size.”
Coach Derrick knows his team will not have a fear factor set in as they get off the bus and don’t see Calvary Day in front of them.
“We survived and we can go play,” Derrick said of the outcome. “I think that it gets it out of the way and our kids will be ready to go (for the rest of the season).”
The Knights will host the Tiftarea Academy Panthers (1-1) at 7:30 p.m. Friday.