Each Week following Spartanburg Viking Football games, I’m going to take a couple of days and think about the 3 most important things I saw on the field. Some good, some great, some not so good. I’ll try to break through what mattered, and what not to overreact to. So here’s 3 things from Week 0’s loss to Langston Hughes.
1- It was great to be back playing football. Right off the bat, let me tell you that Langston Hughes is the most complete team I’ve possibly ever seen. They were massive, incredibly fast, and the absolute most disciplined team I’ve seen in terms of not making first game mistakes. Now – onto the Vikings….I was very impressed with how we played. The Vikings had terrible field position the entire 1st Quarter and the Panthers never ran an offensive play on their half of the field during the first 12 mins. The Viking Defense, which features several new starters and saw starting LB Bennie Littlejohn leave due to injury, held the Panthers to just 1 score in the 1st Quarter. The Red Zone Defense was very impressive. The Panthers scored most of their points late in the game after many starters had come out. It was 14-9 at the half
2- The RB room is special. It’s that simple. Drek Carter is back for his 3rd year and we know what he can do. Saturday night was our first look at the FRESHMAN RB Keke Kelly. His explosiveness is unreal for his age. He’s quick, shifty, and runs north-south. He’s going to be Very special. The Vikings also ran in a TD from the 2 with Raheim Jeter which was an issue for us last season.
3- Oh man are we deep at WR. The Vikings have 2 seniors in Andrew Danton and Que Moore who even the Panthers, who only gave up 10 points per game last year, struggled to stop. Juniors Ra’el Senghor and Khamari Cunningham have a ton of speed, and then there’s the Sophomores Justin Rice and Calvin Choice. Rice had an amazing TD reception falling backwards late in the ball game. This is as deep of a WR room that I’ve seen in my 13 years at Spartanburg.
Here’s the bottom line – The Vikings played one of the top 3 teams in all of Georgia and while it’s a loss…I believe it accomplished what Coach Hodge wanted out of it. The Vikings found out who we can go to battle with…and as we all know…Region Two 5A and the playoffs are going to be a Battle! The Spartanburg Vikings host Dutch Fork in their home opener this week. Yep – another tough test to get us ready for a run at State.
