Dawsonville, GA — “Sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug, and we were the bug tonight,” surmised Gilmer Head Coach Kevin Saunders following their 35-0 loss to the Dawson County Tigers on Friday night.

That was an appropriate way to put it. The Bobcats didn’t have any answers on either side of the ball throughout the night.

Coming off a big Homecoming win over Lumpkin the previous week, Gilmer travelled to Dawson County looking to improve their region record to 2-1. The Tigers of Dawson had a different idea. Coming off a bye week, the Tigers were able to start fast and did not let up until the game was well in hand.

The story of this one was the Dawson defense and the inability of the Gilmer offense to get anything going. Other than a couple penalties, the Cats offense was unable to manage a first down until late in the second quarter. This led to successive three and out possessions. The lone highlight for Gilmer was the stellar punting of Junior Seth Darling.

Seth Darling punts.

Anyone who has read my coverage of the Gilmer team over the last two years knows full well the type of game Gilmer plays on the offensive side of the ball. They’re reliant on long, clock eating drives to keep their defense fresh and unpredictable. It’s also a way to mask a lack of depth for a rebuilding program, which Gilmer still is. As Saunders put it “they’re stronger than we are right now as a program, it was a learning experience.”

Spenser Smith saves a touchdown.

Dawson’s spread attack looked to establish their ability to get outside to the numbers with quick screens and sweeps. It wasn’t a surprise to Saunders, “they did and they were faster than us and they can throw the ball pretty good, we knew that going in and we tried to deal with it, we did what we could.”

Dawson RB Isaiah Grindle lands just short of the goal line.

The ability to get the ball outside effectively allowed Dawson to run the ball inside at will. It also opened up the deep ball, which they took advantage of toward the end of the first half. Quarterback Zach Holtzclaw opened the second half with a long touchdown pass to extend their lead to 35-0. From there it was apparent the game was in hand.

Coach Saunders put it best in his aforementioned comments about program depth. The “eye test” alone suggested the Bobcats would be in trouble. However, we’ve seen them play up to their competition on several occasions the last two years. Every time they’ve done so though, it’s because they’ve been able to sustain drives.

This performance was out of character. The reason might actually be pretty simple. Dawson had two weeks to prepare for the Wing-T offense, which isn’t run by many teams in 2020. Any coach will tell you, especially at the high school level, games are usually won during preparation. When a team runs an offense that teams aren’t used to seeing, it creates trouble when they only have a few days prepare. Thus, my belief in this Gilmer team isn’t shaken. They still have the ability to play their game and get into the playoffs, where nobody has the benefit of a bye week.

Saunders perhaps said it best, “we just have to get back we have plenty of football games left and we just have to keep playing.”

The Bobcats will get back to playing this Friday night when they host North Hall in a big region game.