‘Play to the standard’: Carver football riding confidence, maturity into state tournament
Carver’s season opener at Harris County featured all the makings of an easy win for the visiting Tigers. Running back Khiari McCoy broke off a 60-plus-yard touchdown run on his first carry, and Harris County starting quarterback Davion Mahone suffered a first-half injury that kept him sidelined for the rest of the game. That’s not how things went down, though.
Harris County’s Cooper Corey torched the Tigers’ defense in the second half and converted a pair of late first-down runs to ice Harris County’s 28-26 win. It was a gut punch for Carver, and a bitter sip of reality that the Tigers were not a finished product.
Yet on Wednesday, as the Tigers worked through various offensive and defensive situations in preparation for its GHSA class 4A playoff opener against Richmond Academy (7:30 p.m. Friday, Kinnett Stadium), the thought of that season-opening loss hardly phases McCoy.
“It kind of was a blessing,” McCoy said. “It made us get better as a team. It made us come together as a team, and we had to see our weak points. It showed us our weak points.”
Those weak points, McCoy said, were “all over.” The team lacked focus. The Tigers, McCoy said, entered the Harris County game thinking they’d cruise, not expecting much of a fight from the home team. They’d beaten Harris County 20-16 the season prior.
The Tigers found themselves at an early-season crossroads. They had the talent to beat most teams in region 4-AAAA: they only lost one regular-season game in 2018, but lost in the first round of the playoffs, at home, to Woodward Academy.
That’s enough for most teams to be happy with. But this is Carver, a team that McCoy said felt like it “let the whole city down” when it lost to Harris County.
“We’re more of a team,” McCoy said. “We’ve bonded more. We’ve been together more. Work harder. And we’re in more shape.”
The playoff loss to Woodward Academy last season served as the team’s motivation over the summer. During the offseason, the Tigers’ slogan was “Play to the Standard”: the “standard” being teams like Cairo. The Tigers yelled “Cairo!” during team sprints over the summer, and broke their post-practice huddles by shouting “Cairo” or “standard.” It’s yielded nothing but positive results.
The Tigers scored 40 or more points in seven games this year. They didn’t lose a region game, and stunned Cairo in double overtime on October 11, a game in which the Tigers overcame a 22-8 second-half deficit and McCoy ran for 299 yards and four touchdowns. When Cairo’s last-ditch pass hit the Kinnett Stadium turf, the Tigers bench stormed the field, aided by the roar of the home crowd. McCoy sprinted toward the end zone and punched a pylon, sending the orange marker flying.
Some Tigers, too exhausted to join in the celebration, simply laid on the turf, taking in the scene. Head coach Corey Joyner received a Gatorade bath.
It was a changing of the guard in region 4-AAAA and a game that provided a real watershed moment for a program that hasn’t won a state championship since now-Georgia Bulldogs running backs coach Dell McGee roamed the sidelines in 2007.
“We worked extremely, extremely hard trying to get to that level, or playing at the level of Cairo,” Joyner said.
This week, the Tigers find themselves facing another team that, on paper, they should beat. Richmond finished its regular season 4-5 and won just one region game.
Should Carver win Friday, it will play the winner of Marist-Cedartown in the state tournament’s “sweet 16” round.
“This team has the potential to (win state),” Joyner said. “It’s a maturity factor. I’ve been telling them since the summer, we’re mentally around the block from a state championship. If we can get ourselves on that level of being mentally focused, and that’s what it was with the Cairo game — we were mentally in-tune. Hopefully, it can carry over to the playoffs.”
