‘We’re going to be young.’ New faces take Clover football spotlight under proven coach
On Friday, the Clover football team will travel to Gaffney, S.C., to play in a preseason scrimmage against Dorman. The exhibition is a rematch of the nail-biting, heart-thumping, heartbreaking final game for the 2019 Blue Eagles — a group that earned Clover its first region title since 2006, won Clover its first playoff game since 2008 and churned out Clover’s first undefeated regular season record in school history.
It’s true: Many of the Clover players who proved important in that game from almost a year ago are gone now.
But it’s also true that the 2020 team still excites head coach Brian Lane.
“The thing about this bunch,” Lane told The Herald after a scrimmage against Northwestern on Monday, “is we’re going to be young.”
How young? During that Monday scrimmage, Clover started a sophomore with a strong arm named Joe Boyd at quarterback. His favorite target was Chance Sanders, a junior. In the upcoming year, Boyd will also throw to Darius Bowser (a junior), Omari Davis (a sophomore), Hunter Jaime (another sophomore) and other underclassmen.
In fact, all of Clover’s skill position players, besides senior running back BJ Tims who rushed for over 900 yards and six touchdowns as a junior, are set to return next year.
“We just gotta overcome some youth this (season),” Lane said.
The team isn’t all young, though. The offensive line is led by returning seniors Scott Lackey and Trey Brown. Hagan Smith, who’s listed at 6-5, 285 pounds on MaxPreps, is a junior with playing experience.
And on the defense, despite losing several playmakers like linebacker Hayden Johnson and defensive linemen JQ Guinn and Shon Brown, Clover is returning plenty of talent, too: There’s senior Chance Mackey at cornerback. There’s senior Josh Marr at safety, who’s also a talented lacrosse player. And there’s senior Rhyan Cheatham, who has an offer to play football at The Citadel. (There are more young guys expected to step up on defense, too, Lane said.)
Coach Lane enters fourth year at Clover
Lane is going into his fourth season at the helm of the Clover High School football program. He took over in 2017 after three seasons at Byrnes, his alma mater.
And he’s made his mark in Clover.
For one, it’s clear how the program has grown under his leadership: Lane has steadily improved his team’s record over the course of his three years in Clover. After a 3-7 first year, Lane put together a 5-5 season in 2018 and then a 12-1 season in 2019.
Lane has helped fortify Clover football’s high-scoring, up-tempo-offense reputation — something the program (which ran the Wing-T before Lane arrived) didn’t originally have.
And Lane has also proven to be an ambitious leader that the community can get behind. Over 100 kids, grades 10-12, showed up for workouts before school started this summer, and they did so knowing they would play against some of the best teams in South Carolina: In 2020, Clover will open its season against Wren, a non-region opponent that won its first 4A state title in 2019. (Before COVID-19 shortened the upcoming season, the team was supposed to open its year against 5A state runner ups, Dorman, who the Blue Eagles will scrimmage on Friday night.)
“We just gotta get in there, take our lumps right here, and just get better each week,” Lane said.
At the end of Monday’s aforementioned scrimmage, which saw Northwestern take an early first quarter lead that it never relinquished, Coach Lane and Northwestern head coach Page Wofford met at the center of the field. Their teams, due to COVID-19 rules, didn’t shake hands. They couldn’t meet and greet with fans after the game.
In many ways, for all South Carolina teams, Monday marked the beginning of a new season with new rules and new concerns.
And for Clover, perhaps, Monday marked the beginning of a new era.
3 quick notes on Clover football
▪ To say Clover’s new skill position players have big shoes to fill would be an understatement: In 2019, the Blue Eagles’ quarterback, top-three wide receivers and one half of the “thunder and thunder” tandem in the backfield were seniors. The Lane-led offense was only held to under 30 points in one contest last season and averaged 46.2 points per game (breaking the schools’ points scored record in the process). According to a calculation from The Herald, the team is losing over 84% of its offensive output, measured in rushing/passing/receiving yards, in 2020.
▪ On defense, Clover had four Class of 2020 players who signed to play in college: JQ Guinn, Hayden Johnson, Jay Falls and Zay Witherspoon.
▪ Monday was the first bit of action Clover had seen in 2020. Although a few key players didn’t play in the scrimmage, Lane said, the team’s first string, which played in the first half, held its own after a first quarter in which Lane said the team “came out flat.” That said, when asked about the team’s big-play ability, particularly about quarterback Boyd’s arm, Lane smiled: “He can throw it.”
2020 Clover football schedule
Sept. 25: Wren (home)
Oct. 2: Fort Mill (away)
Oct. 9: Boiling Springs (home)
Oct. 16: Gaffney (away)
Oct. 23: Nation Ford (home)
Oct. 30: Chapman (away)
Nov. 6: York (away)
Editor’s note: This story is one of 15 high school football previews The Herald will run prior to the first game of the regular season on Sept. 25. Look out for the next one to appear at heraldonline.com later this week.
This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 2:13 PM.
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