Trojans, Joseph put rough start behind, focus on playoffs

By Barry Byers - bbyers@heraldonline.com

It was a hot August day, and the clock was heading toward noon.

Northwestern's football players were sweating like race horses at the finish line of the Kentucky Derby as they walked up the hill behind the school after practice to their locker room.

Kyle Richardson, the Trojans' second-year offensive coordinator, pointed at a group of players bunched together and said: “Those guys, No. 86, No. 17, No. 10 and No. 14, those players are our future.” Richardson let it be known that he didn't want to talk about last year's team.

Riding the arm of No. 17 Justin Worley, the Trojans went 13-2 last year and made it to the Class AAAA Division II state championship game in Clemson. Worley is in his junior season. He passed for 3,641 yards and 50 touchdowns last season.

Last spring, the receivers who accounted for 3,404 of those yards and 46 of the touchdowns graduated. The best group of wide receivers in school history. Giants on the field. Hands like glue. Players that soared over opponents and made circus catches.

Their departure opened the door for No. 86 Robert Joseph, No. 10 Stewart Hunt and No. 14 Devin Ray, a senior out for the season after a knee injury in August.

Joseph stood with the group looking like a middle school player wearing a helmet too big for his head. But there was something about him when he talked. He gave soft responses, made no promises but said he knew there were big shoes to fill and let it be known that former Trojans star Johnathan Joseph is his cousin and plays defensive back for the Cincinnati Bengals.

Big cousin might have his hands full covering little cousin, who at 5-foot-6 and 150 pounds is rewriting school and state records this season. In Northwestern's biggest game of the season last Friday, a 30-23 road win over Gaffney for the Region 3-AAAA championship, Joseph set two state records.

Joseph caught 22 passes and broke the record for catches in a game, 20, set by Lamar's Derrick Higgins in 2000. He set the record for most catches in a season, with 108, eclipsing the 103 Byrnes' Jomar Wright pulled down in 2003.

“The bottom line is Robert makes plays,'' Richardson said. “We took our knocks early, but I told our guys to keep at it, that regardless of wins and losses our goal was to get better.

“They finally forgot the past and set their minds to the future. I'm happy with where we are but not satisfied just yet.''

Northwestern started the season 0-4, and questions were swirling in every direction if this was the end of the Trojans as a state power. During those early games, there were two constants. Worley kept throwing. He got off to a slow start yard-wise and threw a slew of interceptions. Some were because of wrong route and passes bouncing off his receivers to the other team; some were good defensive plays by the opposition.

Joseph started slowly but kept catching just about every ball he could get his hands on. Worley said he doesn't have a favorite receiver but tends to look for Joseph when a route breaks down because he always finds a way to get open.

“It's not like I don't throw to anyone else, it's that he's usually open,'' Worley said. “We worked together all summer, and I learned that if I get the ball to him, he's going to catch it. I can probably count on one hand how many passes he's dropped this season.''

“And that's too many,'' Richardson said with a grin on his face.

With more game experience, Joseph became more confident each week. Since that bad start, the Trojans are 6-1 and seeded second in the Class AAAA Division II playoffs. The postseason starts at 7:30 p.m. today for Northwestern with a home game against South Florence.

Richardson brought the “Air Raid'' offense with him last season and worked with Worley, who had never started a varsity game, and his receivers to get it put in before the Trojans' first game. The offense is a throw-first, run-every-now-and-then attack, and each game Richardson put in another wrinkle.