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Thursday, Sep. 18, 2008

Airing it all out

Flowers, Cycs believe in high-octane offense

CHESTER -- Fifty passes.

That's how many Chester football coach Maurice Flowers set as the goal for his team's road game against the Northwestern Trojans tonight at 7:30 at District Three Stadium.

Can the Cyclones do it? Probably, because both teams have big-play, strike-quickly offenses built around throwing the ball.

"At Northwestern, they call it the 'Air Raid' attack," Flowers said. "At Chester, we call it the 'Flowers Spread Attack,' and we like to throw it, too."

That's what you'd expect from a coach who was all-state in high school growing up in Charlotte and earned All-America honors tossing the pigskin around at Charlotte's Johnson C. Smith University.

At every high school where he's coached, he's turned quarterbacks into stars. He's hoping to do the same with Chester's Tony McNeal, a 6-1, 175-pound sophomore.

"The offense is different this year because it is based more on throwing from the pocket," McNeal said. "When coach (Victor) Floyd was here, we had Gene McCaskill in when we wanted to pass and C.C. Whitlock in when we wanted to run.

"Coach Flowers played quarterback, and that's why we pass so much. He's always telling me he's the best quarterback in Chester. He's not. I am. The hardest part was learning the plays. I've had to learn two offenses in two years."

Flowers isn't ready to give McNeal an "A," but said he's working toward a solid "B-plus" after four games.

McNeal has passed for 1,114 yards and 16 touchdowns. He has thrown 128 passes, completing 69. The Cyclones have run the ball just 22 times.

In Northwestern, Chester is going up another team that passes first and uses the run as a surprise. Northwestern sophomore Justin Worley has thrown for 835 yards and 11 touchdowns, completing 65 of 112 passes. The Trojans have also called running plays 22 times.

Northwestern has what some people call the best group of wide receivers in the state. That has to mean Chester's are the state's best-kept secret.

Fred Lee, the biggest at 6-2, 180, leads the team with eight touchdown catches and is second with 340 yards.

The other three are in the 5-9 range, but are speedsters. Jeremy Hughes has 21 catches for 460 yards, best on the team, and six TDs. Bobby Kelly has nine catches for 110 yards. Devin Jackson, the Class AAA state champion in the 100 meters and a member of the winning 400-relay team, has nine catches for 109 yards and a TD.

"I hate to use the term possession receiver, but we don't send Fred deep because he's our best route runner," Flowers said. "Jeremy is the most explosive of the four. Bobby is elusive and hard to tackle. Devin is an outstanding deep threat with great speed.

"You're looking at three of this year's 400-relay team in Devin, Jeremy and Bobby."

They call themselves the Fab 4, a nickname put on them by receivers coach Andre White, who still carries the nickname "Highlight" he picked up playing quarterback in high school at Concord, N.C.

"Because of coach White and coach Flowers, I can't wait to get to practice every day," Lee said. "What we do in practice are the same things we do on Friday nights.

"They are great coaches who know how to motivate us. I visited several colleges this summer, and we have a college atmosphere here at Chester. And Tony is doing a good job. He likes to spread the ball around."

Flowers said McNeal's passing percentage is around 55, but the desired number is 60. All of his former quarterbacks upped their percentages as they moved up a grade.

"When I was in Texas, I had Brandon Hassell, who became the starter at TCU and played with LaDainian Tomlinson," Flowers said. "And I coached Marc Clayton, who we moved to receiver his senior season.

"When I came back to Charlotte, I got to coach Antonio Miller, Ben Williams and Darius Thomas, who was the player of the year in North Carolina last season. Now I've got Tony. I believe he's going to be better than all of them."

Lee, a 3.9 student, has a firm offer from Presbyterian. He's getting contact from Wake Forest and Marshall, who are waiting before making an offer. Hughes doesn't have an offer, but the season is far from over.

Hughes pointed out that this year it's pass first and the run is just an afterthought.

"But we might sneak some runs in against Northwestern," Hughes said. "Tony is the right quarterback for this offense. He makes it easy on us because he is accurate, has his timing down and throws strikes.

"His passes are usually on the money, so we don't have to go get them. He has the option to run, but with the way our passing game is working I don't think we'll see much of that this season."