Baylor roars past mistake-prone McCallie for rivalry blowout
By the time Baylor School unveiled its impressive drone light show at halftime Friday night, the host Red Raiders and their fans were already flying high.
Baylor scored on its second play from scrimmage, jumped out to a huge lead in the first half and never looked back in a 44-12 win over archrival McCallie at Heywood Stadium.
In a state-ranked battle of the top two teams in TSSAA Division II-AAA, the No. 1 Red Raiders more than lived up to their number while taking control of the East Region standings.
"I told my team during pregame that we have to control the storm," said Baylor defensive back Jamyan Theodore, who had three interceptions — including a pick returned for a touchdown — in the first half of the victory.
"We knew it was going to be a big game with a big crowd with a lot of talk and emotion. We just had to stay calm and do what we do. We showed today that we're the best defense in the country."
Baylor (7-0, 3-0) dominated the game from the very beginning, scoring on the second play from scrimmage as David Gabriel-Georges raced 52 yards to give the hosts a 6-0 lead less than a minute into action after a failed PAT.
Gabriel-Georges added a second score for the Red Raiders on a 2-yard run in the first quarter. The sophomore finished the game with 232 yards on 17 carries, including three touchdowns.
"That just showed that we were better when we could score first," he said. "That was where we grabbed the momentum."
The Baylor defense, led by Theodore, kept the second-ranked Blue Tornado from mounting any kind of comeback in the second half. Theodore's picks of McCallie quarterback Elliot Drapeau were highlighted by his 30-yard return for a touchdown to make it 20-0 early in the second quarter.
"That was incredible," third-year Baylor coach Erik Kimrey said. "He's a special talent, and he's got a great knack for the football. Jamyan has a great future ahead of him."
Baylor took a 27-0 lead into halftime after first-year starting quarterback Briggs Cherry connected with Cam Sparks for a 23-yard touchdown strike.
McCallie (5-2, 2-1) attempted to rally in the third quarter, putting together a seven-play drive to open the half and scoring on a 3-yard pass from Drapeau to Carson Lawrence. Baylor quickly responded, getting a 69-yard scoring run by David-Georges two plays later.
"Credit to their defense," said first-year McCallie coach Joel Bradford, who was the team's offensive coordinator the past five seasons before moving into the lead role. "They have great players, a great scheme and a great coaching staff. But you can't turn over the football, and we did that tonight. So our defense was playing a lot of snaps and we couldn't get any rhythm."
McCallie scored again on a short run by Keylan Syam before Baylor's Shekai Mills-Knight finished the scoring on a 20-yard run with less than six minutes remaining in the game.
Kimrey said that as big as Friday's win was for his team, he knows that there's more work to be done this season, including the possibility of a playoff rematch with McCallie, which defeated the Red Raiders in the DII-AA BlueCross Bowl state championship game at Finley Stadium last season.
That was the Blue Tornado's fourth state championship in a five-year span. Baylor won the other DII-AAA title in that stretch, beating Nashville's Montgomery Bell Academy for the 2022 crown.
"These guys know that our goal is to play for a championship and try to win one," Kimrey said. "We fell just short of that last year. So we will dial it back in and get back to working on getting better."
Contact Jim Tanner at sports@timesfreepress.com.
Baylor roars past mistake-prone McCallie for rivalry blowout | Chattanooga Times Free Press
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