EXTRA POINTS: Jefferson Co. 27, Burke Co. 17

BURKE COUNTY EXTRA POINTS

I think Burke coach Eric Parker is living a life that's a little too close to what UGA coach Mark Richt went through last year. He has given up the play calling. He's become more of a CEO of the entire football team.

And he's got a two-headed quarterback monster right now, which some might say means he has no quarterback at all. It seems a lot like the Joe Tereshinski III question that Richt had on his mind around this time last year. He can go with a senior who hasn't played a whole lot that shows a good grasp of the offense or with the talented newcomer who will likely take his lumps.  

He'll likely be trying to figure out the Bobby Burum vs. Tyler Hammett question for a few weeks. Both have their selling points.

Burum is a good kid. Good athlete, too. Solid head on his shoulders. His future is bright in both basketball and football. But I expected the junior to be more productive running the show for the Bears against Jefferson.

He looked like the varsity quarterback in his debut that he was against the Warriors. I expected him to find more creases in the run game. Especially after hearing he ran for more than 100 yards in a scrimmage against the suddenly very imposing Warren County Screaming Devils last month.

Burum had four carries for five yards on a night where every Burke runner found no joy. The Bears barely averaged a yard per carry against Jefferson County.

The other half of the rotation was senior Tyler Hammett. Hammett has a decent arm and an extraordinary head. He's an all-world academic who is one of the very top, if not the top, students in his class.

That sort of thing translates well to football, too. His coaches at Burke County consider him a coach on the field. He can read defenses and adjust his protections. He just didn't play as fast as his mind works last Friday night.

But the knock on him physically is he's slow and coming off a knee injury. He's going to have to really own the pocket. I don't see how he can get to the corner and move against teams that decide they should just come after him.

The main problem is the best thing either of those two young men should do is be a game manager. Protect the football. Protect the right to punt. To give up on a play that's not there and let the other weapons on offense make the plays.

That sounds good, but I don't know if Burke has a lot of weapons right now. There's not really a standout running back on the roster. Maybe Terrell Brigham can be that X-factor at receiver, but he's still very young.   

I compare their situation right now to Travis Murphy at North Augusta. He's making the transition to varsity starter look real easy. The difference is Murphy has weapons all over the place. His receiving corps is probably the best in the area. He has a back that's averaging 165 yards per game on the ground right now. It makes his job real easy.

I hear a voice of reason pinging in the back of my head saying it's a whole new offensive system with an entire new terminology at Burke County. The Bears might have to go through similar growing pains to what North Augusta went through last year with new coach Dan Pippin. But maybe that's an extreme example as the Bears don't play a schedule as tough as the one the Jackets had last year.

The jury is still out on the Bears. It's hard for anyone to start breaking them down since everything is so new. It was just one game. And all the things that seemed like knocks on their squad might simply be because Jefferson's team is very good this year.

There is just not enough on-field data to make really strong case about what's up with this revamped team as of yet.

I'll wait until after the Glenn Hills game to start coming up with concrete thoughts about this team. Screven County will be a good test this week. The Gamecocks found a way to have two 100-yard runners in a loss to Statesboro last week. The Devils only have the top-rated defensive tackle prospect in America on their team. And they still got two backs over the 100-yard mark.

I think it's a toss-up game. Maybe even a slight lean to Screven County. I don't think the notion that Screven County will be playing a level up in classification will be a factor. The Gamecocks are a Class AA team with Class AAA numbers.

JEFFERSON COUNTY EXTRA POINTS

The first thing that comes to my mind whenever I watch the Warriors is this team deserves more support. The stands were not even a quarter full when play began Friday. Rain is no excuse. Show me rain that will keep a football fan away from Friday Night Football and I will show you a dictionary.

That's not the definition of what I call a fan.

Real football fans don't let a steady drizzle keep them away from a season opener after waiting through nine months for a new season. Real fans would get to a game even if they needed a canoe to reach the bleachers. Jefferson County is a real team without real fans. Or maybe one without a lot of real fans.

I don't know if I'm missing something, but I cannot fathom what is more interesting to do on a Friday night anywhere in Jefferson Country rather than watch this team play ball. 

Did they build a rural Disneyland somewhere and forget to put up a billboard? Do 50 Cent and Kanye West have an impromptu concert at a selected hay field every Friday just outside the county line? Does Carrie Underwood decide to play the same local honky tonk every Friday?

This is a good team that deserves better. They've sent more players to Division I-A and I-AA college football than any other area program over the last five years. This was a game last Friday that featured TWO of the top 100 prospects in America on the same field. That team deserves better fans.

Support your team, people. These kids and their coaches work AS HARD as any team in the area. They win. They've won region titles in back-to-back seasons. They've won 18 of their last 21 regular season games. The players on this team are bused home after practice. Their coaches aid in driving the buses. It means most of the top personnel on this team did not get home until at least 9:00 at night. That bus ride is a two-hour round trip for a coach after a long school day and after evening practice. Everyone endures all this to make sure this school has a good team.

Then they go out on their home field every Friday and see more fans in the visiting stands. They see their own stands barely halfway full, at that.

What will it take? Does this team need to win a state title to get support? The one knock is that this program has yet to win a playoff game. But the home playoff crowds are underwhelming, too. That type of wait-and-see attitude is the wrong route to take when it comes to hard-working young people.

I wonder if the folks in Jefferson County know how good they have it. I can call roll among area programs like Aquinas, Butler, Cross Creek, Evans, Glenn Hills, Greenbrier, Harlem, Hephzibah, Josey, Lakeside, Richmond Academy and Westside that would swap rosters with them in a heartbeat. Their fans would love just one season like the ones most Jefferson County locals have chosen to ignore for the last three years.

Enough about that. I really like Barry Bostic at quarterback. He made several big plays in the run game and another on the run in the passing game that very few area quarterbacks can do. He's smart and fast and accurate. I can think of maybe five quarterbacks in the area I'd take over the sophomore passer (5-foot-11, 170 pounds) right now.

But I'll wait until the kid plays a few more games before I put him on my All-Area watch list at the moment. I do not expect that showing to be an abberation but a sign of things to come.

Burke County coach Eric Parker was right when he said this may be one of the best Jefferson County teams he's faced. They've got Bostic. They've got all-everything lineman A.J. Harmon looking more like a road grader than a football player with every passing day. They've got a fine halfback in Lamar Brown and a superb receiver in Marcus Mayo.

The defense will always be tough to run against with Harmon up front and Johndrick Beasely at LB. Throw in Terrance Davis at safety and all three levels of the Jefferson County defense will be tough to crack this fall.

Now if they can only do something about all those penalties and brain freezes in the special teams, then they'd really have something to write about.