Bucs improve to 9-0 with victory over Tuscaloosa County
HOOVER – The Class 7A No. 2 Hoover High School football team certainly wasn’t looking ahead to next week’s big matchup against No. 1 Thompson for the Region 3 championship, but the Buccaneers were in a halftime fight with a two-win Tuscaloosa County team already out of playoff contention.
Thankfully for the Bucs, the ground game was dominant en route to a 48-21 win.
Jaylen Taylor, a 210-pound junior, rushed for 117 yards on seven carries, scoring two touchdowns to lead an attack that produced 245 yards on the ground. It opened things up for senior quarterback Josh Lundy, who threw for 177 yards and three touchdowns.
Hoover improved to 9-0, 6-0 in region play and will play at Thompson next Friday. TCHS dropped to 2-6, 1-5.
“He’s a powerful kid, now,” Hoover head coach Josh Niblett said of Taylor. “He’s a plus-500 squatter. He loves the power game, but he gets behind his pads and he runs with his knees up. When you are able to do that, you can give yourself an opportunity to get yards after contact.”
Hoover also got run game production from Dylan Pauley, Ahamari Williams, Brian Porter and DJ Black. Porter scored on a 5-yard run in the fourth quarter and Black had 57 yards rushing late in the game, including a 4-yard run.
Taylor scored on a 1-yard run in the second quarter to put his team up 21-7. This came after a 24-yard gain where he spun off defenders and nearly fell to the ground, but propped himself up. He added a 24-yard touchdown run in the third.
Lundy threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Joseph Buffett on the first drive, and threw touchdown passes of 4 and 15 yards to RJ Hamilton. Hamilton, a sophomore who has committed to Vanderbilt to play baseball, had six catches for 105 yards.
“It started off a little bit slow, but we had to pick it up,” Hamilton said. “The offensive line did a great job and Lundy put the ball in the playmakers’ hands, getting it to us and letting us make a play.”
TCHS cut the halftime lead to 21-14 on two touchdown passes from Brax Garrison, and Lundy threw a late second-quarter interception, but it was all Bucs in the second half as they scored four straight touchdowns.
“You watch them on tape and they’re big and they’re strong,” Niblett said. “They just kind of shot themselves in the foot during the year. They had some opportunities in games.
“They were due to play a really, really good game and in the first half, hats off to them and the plan they had, but a lot of hats off goes to our kids too for not flinching at the half and now we’ve got to get ready for a big game next week.”
Niblett said he would enjoy Friday’s win, valuing any Class 7A, Region 3 win. He would wake up Saturday morning, watch some College GameDay, go for a run and start honing in on Thompson, also unbeaten, later in the day.
“We’ll give our kids a plan and an opportunity and, I promise you, they’ll be ready to play,” Niblett said.
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