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Panthers' best bet: Be Panthers

By Chris Hobbs | Hickory Daily Record

Published: November 26, 2009

LENOIR - As one of the steadiest quarterbacks to ever play high school football in the area, Chuck Cannon long ago understood the danger of thinking too much about what is at stake.

"I think you gotta do and be who you are," said Cannon, head coach at Hibriten and the quarterback of the 1979 Panthers team that reached the state 3A semifinals. "If you're at this point and you change and do lots of things you weren't doing during the year, it might work or it might blow up in your face.

"(Veteran coach) Pete Stout told me 'Don't try and do a whole lot different; that missed alignments and assignments beat you more than mismatches of talent.'"

There will be plenty of talent on both sides of the field on Friday night at 7:30 p.m., when top-seeded Hibriten (13-0) entertains No. 4 seed Waynesville Tuscola (11-1-1) in a third-round state 3A game.

The winner meets No. 3 Asheville (11-0-1) or No. 2 West Rowan (13-0) in the West 3A championship on Dec. 4.

Hibriten faces having to go into Friday night's big game without two star players, but Cannon says he can't – and won't – let that become a focus for his players.

Leading rusher Leo Guevara (119 carries for 1,030 yards and 20 TDs) and quarterback Michael Isbell (570 rushing yards, 583 passing yards and 16 total TDs) will be game night decisions as both recover from sprained ankles.

Both injuries came in last week's 40-6 second-round victory over Concord, leaving the Panthers with a set of junior varsity quarterbacks – Jordan Rutherford and Michael McCaleb – at the helm of one of the area's most explosive offenses of the past two decades.

Rutherford, a freshman, played steady in the win over Concord and will start Friday night, Cannon said, as he tries to get his depth-to-the-gills team to keep doing what it does best – run the football.

"Realistically, if Jordan is doing great, he will be in there," said Cannon. "If he is goofing up, you'll probably see the other one (McCaleb)."

If the Panthers concentrate, Cannon said, they can win. Even without Guevara and Isbell in the lineup, they have 15 other players on the roster who have carried the ball this season.

Of those 15, four remain who have rushed for 328 to 817 yards and a combined 27 rushing TDs, led by Tyler Harshaw with 817 yards and eight scores.

"I'm trying to tell them (his players) … don't flinch," said Cannon. "We practice more than one guy at a position so he ought to know what to do.

"We can't ask him to do more than he can do. We'll run the base offense."

It's an often overwhelming option offense, sprinkled with just a few passes, and is one of just seven in area conferences since 1996 to post more than 400 yards per game.

Only one other team in an area league in the last 14 years, the 1997 Mooresville team (416.6), has averaged more than the 368 rushing yards the Panthers have this season.

Five years ago, Cannon tried the spread offense so many coaches like. He hated it.

"I think in high school, you gotta be able to run it," he said. "You can't recruit receivers and quarterbacks, but you can find a fullback.

"We ran a spread for a year and I didn't know what to do on third-and-3. You throw an incomplete pass and punt. It took me a year to decide that was not us."

The next year, Cannon returned to option football and what has worked so well for the Panthers, who have won 37 of 52 games since.

"I think our kids are very unselfish and buy into our system," Cannon said. "To play at Hibriten, you block first and run the ball second. It's our system, it is what we do here."

Third-round opponent Tuscola, which has won 11 straight since opening with a loss to Polk County and a tie with Asheville, brings a more balanced offense to Lenoir – and a star quarterback.

Senior Tyler Brosius, who is 6-foot-4 and weighs 239 pounds, has signed with N.C. State. He just cleared 7,000 career passing yards, which includes going 162-of-275 for 2,884 yards this year with six interceptions and 28 TD passes.

"They have Tim Tebow playing quarterback," Cannon said. "He's a pocket passer… he's big and strong and can get the ball there in a hurry.

"I told our kids don't even jump and throw your arms up… he's bigger than any player we have on defense."

But, as the old stereotype goes, mountain teams are traditionally powerful but slow and void of a lot of athleticism. And while Tuscola beat Hickory 17-10 in an opening round postseason game, the Panthers beat the Red Tornadoes 42-6 in the regular season.

Sell that theory somewhere else, Cannon says.

"That is a bunch of dung," Cannon said. "They have a lot of talented kids, not slow by any means.
"Mountain kids are tough but not real athletic? That is a bunch of junk."

Cannon's been there and knows all about how football games are won. When he quarterbacked Hibriten, he was not considered to be excessively quick, he didn't have a Tebow-like arm and he was pretty much tall, lanky, skinny but won games anyway.

As a coach, Cannon's learned there are few time-tested absolutes, especially in the state playoffs.
"We don't know a whole lot about them and they don't know a whole lot about us," Cannon said of Tuscola. "They have some stuff on offense and defense that we haven't seen.

"You just try to game plan as best you can. But you gotta build flexibility. It's never gonna work out where you think it will. I've never been this deep into the playoffs where it goes by script.

"You learn it (that). A few years ago, we played Forest Hills in the third round and I visualized what the game would be like – that it might be 10-7 – and it was 50 something to 20 something.

"You just never know."