By Jamie Jones
Devin Scott wasted little time introducing himself to the Dalton Catamounts.
The diminutive running back for the Tucker Tigers took the game’s opening kickoff, crept through the middle of Dalton’s return team, then bolted down the sidelines. After Scott’s electrifying 78-yard return, the Tucker offense was at Dalton’s 15. Three plays and an extra point later, Tucker was up 7-0 early in the first quarter.
At the end of the night, Scott had acquainted himself — and his number 5 — with the crowd and opposing players by scoring three rushing touchdowns and racking up 91 yards. Scott scored on runs of 2, 11 and 1 yards. But the opening kickoff may have been the catalyst for Tucker’s 35-13 win over the higher-seeded Catamounts in the first round of the Class 4A state playoffs.
“We wanted to come out and set the tone,” Scott said. “That’s what I do. I saw a hole and I hit it. Anytime you get on the board early, it hurts your opponent. It gets the momentum and hurts their hearts. That’s what we try to do.”
Seven games into the season, Tucker coach Franklin Stephens said the team had lost some of its focus. One of the solutions was getting the ball into Scott’s hands — again and again and again. Coming into the Dalton game, Scott was Tucker’s leading rusher with 722 yards on 106 carries with 12 touchdowns.
“He’s dynamite in a little frame,” Stephens said. “You look at him, he’s about 5-7 and 160-some odd pounds and he’s freaking dynamite. He can make things happen. We’ve got other kids, too, but tonight we tried to get him the ball. I looked at the stats and realized, ‘Hey, we’re not getting this kid the ball enough.’ He’s one of our best players. He’s a kid that wins everything. When we’re running sprints, working in the weight room, he’s trying to win. He’s a competitor. He just doesn’t want to lose.”
Two-loss Tucker, the defending state champion, was in the foreign position of being on the road in the first round and taking a 192-mile round-trip journey from northeast Atlanta.
“It’s a dark side and it’s a light side for us,” Tucker offensive lineman Ramal Davis said. “Dark side is you’ve got everybody on your back. Everybody wants to beat you. The light side is you’re ready for the game, you’re hyped up for it and when the time comes, you’ve gotta play football.”
Tucker players knew they were heading into enemy territory, but they seemed to draw energy from the festive pregame atmosphere. The pumping music. The boisterous crowd. The tailgate party. The fire truck escort to the stadium for the Catamount players.
“We knew it was going to be a hostile environment,” Scott said. “Coach had been telling us that all week. He said they were going to be coming into the stadium with sirens and stuff, and we liked it. It kind of pumped us up.”
