Graham faces Pulaski County tonight in Mitchell Stadium
Oct. 20—BLUEFIELD, Va. — The details have not been going exactly the way Graham head football coach Tony Palmer had mapped out for his team this season. In spite of this, the G-Men find themselves within striking distance of one of the major goals they'd hoped to achieve this year.
Keeping the unbeaten streak moving forward remains Job One when Graham (7-0) takes on Pulaski County (4-3) at Mitchell Stadium tonight for the second Thursday night football game in as many weeks.
After last week's 49-21 Southwest District road victory over Virginia High at Gene Malcolm Stadium in Bristol, Va., Graham finds itself tied with also-unbeaten Radford (7-0) at the top of the VHSL Class 2 power rankings, both with identical 26.0 ratings.
Last year, the G-Men memorably played every Class 2 playoff game of the postseason at Mitchell Stadium — except the final one at Salem Memorial Stadium. They'd like to once again stay unbeaten at home as long as possible, then win the lone road trip.
All they can do is focus on winning out and hope the math favors them.
"We're going to go one game at a time and, wherever the cards fall, that's where we're going to be," said Palmer.
An intriguing development is that quite a few Graham starters sat out last week's game for assorted reasons. A lot of damage was done to the Bearcats with players who had chiefly served in backup roles.
Offensively, at least, it was done entirely on the ground. Jamel Floyd rushed for 277 yards and three touchdowns while Sean Hughes rushed for 152 yards and three scores.
The extended absence of injured veteran quarterback Brayden Meadows was partly the reason for last week's nonexistent air attack. Then again, Palmer is not unmindful of the ghostly advice of Ohio State head coach Woody Hayes.
"We want to try to be as balanced as we can. But if somebody hasn't stopped nothing, I'm not the kind of person who's going to change something they haven't stopped. If we're winning, it would be crazy for us to come out and throw it ... when people are struggling to stop the run," said Palmer, who was more haunted by Graham defensive miscues versus VHS than anything the offense didn't showcase.
"We gave up some chump plays on defense. Basically, I feel like they got [all of their points] off of our mistakes altogether. Their quarterback did make a nice throw on a couple of those balls. and we gave up seven points on a turnover ... he just picked it up and ran it back. But overall, we did did pretty decent," said Palmer
The G-Men still won't have Meadows calling the signals at quarterback this week or even playing on defense, for that matter. It will be at least until next week before Meadows is cleared to play, Palmer said. This week's start at quarterback will go to Jacob Shockley, who'll be getting his third start of the season in spite of only being used on one possession against Virginia High.
Otherwise, the rest of last week's missing faces will return for the Cougars, including running back Ty'Drez Clements. The run should be even harder to stop.
Tonight will mark the Cougars' second visit to Mitchell Stadium this season. Back in September, Pulaski County won a 35-33 nailbiter with the Bluefield Beavers.
Palmer would prefer this game not be as exciting as that one. But there might be potential for another humdinger. In last week's 48-7 win over Blacksburg, Cougars running back Trevor Burton rushed for 183 yards and tied a school record with five touchdowns.
"They're a good team. They run the veer and a little bit of option off of that. You've just got to play assignment football," Palmer said.
"They beat Bluefield doing the same things. We're going to have to be a disciplined team. Our guys are going to have to read their keys and execute and tackle well."
