No. 1 FPD start playoff journey this week in quest to win back-to-back titles

Brett Collier turned 36 on Monday and kept things low key. 

He gave a school and team report at the Macon Touchdown Club and had dinner there with his wife, several players and assistant coaches.

And that was about it. His wife got him a pair of shorts.

Otherwise, it was a normal Monday of school and then football practice, but with a little more to practice than usual.     

The defending GIAA Class 4A champs started getting ready in full for their first playoff game, Friday against visiting Strong Rock.

The two played last year after Strong Rock eliminated Stratford 21-12 preceding the dismissal of head coach Chance Jones. FPD won 23-13 before taking out Tattnall 33-27, then winning the state title 44-24 over Brookstone.

The teams have four common opponents (Tattnall, St. Anne-Pacelli, Westfield, and Brookstone), which went 4-0 against Strong Rock and 1-3 against FPD.

Strong Rock earned a shot at redemption with a solid 34-13 win over George Walton, while FPD had Friday off.

That gave Collier and some assistants a chance to see Strong Rock live, although they already had an idea what they were going to get.

“There’s a little carryover between both of them, so we got a little head start, and came out (Monday) and we had a good day,” Collier said. “Last week was a little weird because we didn’t know who we would play.”

Strong Rock has a little momentum, winning two of its last three games after a four-game losing streak in which it lost by 10, 35, 22, and 21.

That final loss was 28-7 to Westfield, the top seed in 3A.

“I think that was one score from being pretty close,” Collier said. “One play from being close. Our Westfield game could have gone either way.”

The Patriots then lost to third seed Brookstone 15-13 to end the regular season.

“I think that just shows that Strong Rock is sound,” Collier said. “They play really hard on defense.”

The Vikings have had momentum for a while, winning seven straight since falling 18-6 to St. Anne-Pacelli, still alive at 5-5 after beating Mount de Sales 31-13 in a play-in game.

There’s a little extra spring in the step, even with a week off, thanks to the Vikings overcoming a 20-0 first-half deficit to top Tattnall 27-20 in overtime for the District 6 championship to clinch the top seed.

The Patriots haven’t found much consistency this season, but Collier knows they’re capable of providing quite the test.

“They do a little bit of everything,” he said. “Their base is Wing-T and they have a little spread package that they can run, and then they have a little I formation unbalanced package that they’ll run.

“The way they have it set up is there’s a lot of carryover in the blocking schemes between all those. That makes them a little more multiple.”

Sophomore running back Jake Johnson has 1,181 yards and 14 touchdowns on 197 carries, with Landon Stancil and Dawson Webb teaming for another 523 yards and five scores.

Quarterback Andrew Reid is a bit of a running threat, with five touchdowns on 39 carries. The senior has completed 50% of his passes for 1,245 yards and 12 touchdowns to only four interceptions.

Stancil, who Collier said “can fly”, is Reid’s main target with 966 yards and 10 scores on 45 catches.

“They’ve got a good play-action game,” Collier said. “They know who their best players are and they try to get them the ball.

“You’ve got to have base rules on how you line up (defensively). We’re gonna have to game-plan some things in there. After that, it becomes players, not plays.”

Kingston Stevens gets 7.3 tackles a game and has 16 tackles for loss to lead the Strong Rock defense, with Cade Hankinson adding 6.1 tackles and Blake Hahn adding six.

Six players have teamed for nine interceptions, but they have only seven sacks.

“They’re bigger than us on the front,” Collier said. “They’ve got some really good-sized kids, and their coaches have done a great job in the weight room. Their kids look built right.”

The Vikings may not be physically imposing or flashy, but their consistency in all three phases is why they are where they are, favored to repeat.

Only three times has a Viking rushed for 100 yards — Major Simmons against Pinewood Christian and Westfield, and Bennett Lake against Pinewood — but they’ve been able to sustain drives with Simmons and Brady McHugh as well as a short and medium passing game with Simmons.

The gutty two-way player has almost quietly cruised past 1,000 yards passing, sitting at 1,345, completing 71% of his passes with 17 touchdowns and only three interceptions.

Benjamin McElreath, another key two-way starter, has had a big season with 43 catches for 786 yards and seven touchdowns, six in the last four games. He put on a clinic against Tattnall with 11 catches for 220 yards.

McHugh and Simmons are third and fourth in tackles per game with around six a game, McHugh leading the unit in interceptions, just ahead of McElreath and Heisman Alvarez. Peyton Howard has a team-high seven sacks as the No. 5 tackler.

Brady Lincoln, who sat out the Tattnall game, is the defense’s top playmaker.

Collier has watched for more than a week a team in practice that isn’t bored or overconfident.

“I thought to myself how it would be miserable to come out here and have to get them going,” he said. “We didn’t have to do that. You shouldn’t have to in the playoffs. If you’ve got a good playoff team, they should be ready to go, regardless.

“They were.”