Two of the state's best teams will meet for the 5A state championship on Friday night.
Head coach Tom Knotts leads a dominant Dutch Fork team in a battle against Jeff Herron's TL Hanna squad who has likewise gone through the 2018 season undefeated.
Speaking at the South Carolina High School League press conference this week, coaches and players representing each program were highly complimentary of the other.
Knotts, when asked about his Silver Fox squad's loaded offense, called it the best offense he's had as a coach. That's no small praise, coming from a coach who's fielded offenses that have consistently put up points in bunches.
"It's the most complete with the offensive line, running back, tight end, wide receiver that we’ve ever had," said Knotts. "Our defense often gets overlooked. It makes it easy to play offense when the defense does the great job that they do."
His counterpart on the TL Hanna side, a coaching veteran with multiple state titles to his name, concurred.
"It's probably the best offensive team I've seen," he said.
Herron's own offense has completely revitalized the Yellow Jacket's program, as he transitioned from the spread offense to a wing-T upon his arrival. For his part, Knotts understands the challenge of facing the attack that's triggered by Hanna's Alex Meredith.
"Even going back to the 80s the wing T is the most feared offense that we play against," he said. "The great thing about the wing T is coach throws it when he wants to, not when he has two. Every run has a pass off of it. They kind of lull you to sleep and have a great quarterback that executes his offense perfectly. I think he’s done a magnificent job and don’t be surprised that this young man can throw the ball and they can throw whenever they want to."
Said Dutch Fork Shrine Bowl safety Hugh Ryan: "You’ve got to get them to second and long, third and long. They can throw it deep whenever they want. We’ve really just got to get off the field and get the ball back to our offense."
Knotts added that Dutch Fork will have defensive linemen in the team's tackling drills to simulate the ball-carrying capabilities of Hanna's Zacch Pickens, a five-star prospect committed to play college football at South Carolina.
Hanna will look to spring an upset on Friday night to capture a title, and Herron believes that being in the receiving end of a disappointing playoff loss last season has helped his team.
"It's a huge motivating factor for us. We felt like we had a pretty good team last year and took the second round game against Greenwood for granted," he explained. "We just didn’t handle that weekend well. I certainly think that helped us in the offseason and in the early rounds of the playoffs."
Dutch Fork has hammered opponents all season long, and Knotts broke down what has gone into the team's preparation each game this season as Dutch Fork looks to achieve a perfect record and a title.
"We did a great job of week to week being a game to game team, talking about excellence, striving for the perfect game, knowing that it’s hard to attain that. Every week we start at square one and start on Sunday afternoon, hammering pretty good about what they did wrong and what it takes to achieve real greatness and excellence. I hear people say you can’t say a perfect game. There's nothing wrong with setting a goal as an individual and as a team to play the perfect game. The closer you get to perfection, the closer you get to excellence."
