Navarro Football: Dawgs win third in a row
Oct. 3—The Navarro football team had a team meeting Monday morning to talk about their identity.
Well, not really.
"We had a meeting and I told them if somebody saw us play the first week of the season and then saw our game Saturday against Blinn they would say that's two different teams," Navarro coach Ryan Taylor said.
If you don't recognize Taylor's Bulldogs, that's just fine. The new look Dawgs are fun to watch and a frightening sight to opponents these days. They're not only winning — that 39-27 victory on the road against Blinn was their third in a row — but they're finding new ways to win every week.
After dropping the first two games of the season to the No. 3 team (Hutchinson) and No. 1 team (New Mexico Military Institute) the red-hot Dawgs are not only winning but discovering new ways to win. They didn't throw the ball much over their first three games and beat Kilgore a week ago with a power running game that produced an eight-minute fourth quarter drive and a dramatic touchdown in the final minute to beat the Rangers 28-21.
But on Saturday night at Cubs Stadium in Brenham, the Dawgs showed up with a couple of wrinkles that hadn't been there.
1) A lethal passing game
2) A second-half defense that was lights out.
Honest, after producing some games that had less than 200 yards (52 against NEO and 156 against Kilgore) in the air, Navarro quarterback Dane Jentsch got sky-happy and completed 16-of-20 passes for 314 yards and three TDs, including an 80-yarder to Tarribean Ramirez that gave the Dawgs a 7-0 lead in the first minute of the game.
Guess Blinn blinked on that play.
DeAnthony Gatson had a 2-yard TD run and Brandon Hawkins had a 6-yard touchdown run to lift Navarro to a 20-0 first-quarter lead and Axtel Robertson's 32-yard field goal with 4:39 left in the half gave the Dawgs a 23-14 cushion. They took a 23-21 lead to halftime.
Jentsch threw two second half touchdown passes — a 36-yarder to Jay Wilkerson that completed a 10-play 79-yard drive in the third and a 2-yard toss to Jacoby Hunt with 11:11 left in the game to make it a 37-27 game.
TJ Snowden, who has led the Bulldogs running game all year, didn't score but he had another big day, rushing for 145 yards on 14 carries.
Navarro never trailed, thanks in a big part to a Dawg-ed Defense that shut down the No. 1 offense in the country in the second half. The Dawgs allowed just six second-half points and turned a 23-20 lead into a 39-27 win, and just for a little icing on a cake baked by the defense, the Bulldogs added a safety in the fourth quarter.
During the three-game winning streak, Navarro's defense has allowed just 27 points in the second half and 21 of those came against Kilgore.
The defense was led by Ty Wilson, who made 10 tackles, Marcus Tillman, who had seven, including a sack, and Caimyn Lane, who had six tackles and three of Navarro's four sacks.
"I'm really proud of our defense," Taylor said. "That's a pretty good number (27 second-half points over three games)."
And that's a pretty good team these days.
Whether you recognize them or not ...
