Trojans’ Boeck player of week
Friday was the best night of his high school football career, but Ty Boeck may be just getting started.
The Soddy-Daisy senior sustained a broken leg in last February’s Tennessee state wrestling tournament and was sidelined for more than two months. He was limited in the Trojans’ spring drills and was still recovering at the handful of one-day summer camps he attended.
He finally is rounding into form and was the key piece in Soddy-Daisy’s 42-21 upset of perennial local power Ooltewah.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find somebody else on a Friday night that did something like he did,” Trojans coach Justin Barnes said.
A 6-foot-1, 210-poounder, Boeck rushed for 113 yards and two touchdowns, caught a 62-yard pass for another score and then threw a pass for a TD, thus playing an integral part in four of the Trojans’ scores. The Waffle House all-star player of the week was a pivotal piece of Soddy-Daisy’s defense as well — with nine solo tackles including three lost-yardage stops, five assists, a caused fumble and a fumble recovery.
There has been no bigger win for the Trojans, whose two losses this year were each by one point (1514 to Lenoir City and 49-48 to Knoxville Catholic), in the five years Barnes has been their coach.
“At this point in time and with (Ooltewah) being a 6A team and us 5A and the way they’ve dominated in the past, yeah, this is probably the biggest win since I’ve been here,” he said.
Boeck last year had been penciled in as a receiver, linebacker and possible running back but wound up moving to quarterback because of injuries to teammates.
“He has (scholarship) offers from Lindsey Wilson and Tennessee State, but most people saw him at quarterback and a lot of folks want to see more film on him on the defensive side,” Barnes said. “Once he became our quarterback last year he was kind of off limits to the defensive side.
“It hurt him in a lot of ways when it came to recruiting, but if you ask him he’d tell you he wouldn’t go back and change it because he was trying to help the team in any way possible.”
Boeck’s offensive showing against the Owls surprised even Barnes, at least to a point.
“If you had 11 of Ty you’d have a pretty good team,” he said. “But Ty only practices with the offense one day per week.”
The coach knew he should’ve expected it, though, because Ty is the son of a coach: Trojans defensive coordinator Troy Boeck.
“He’s a heck of an athlete and he has that mentality and feel for the game that you often see in coaches’ children,” Barnes said. “He’s got the frame to put on some weight, and he isn’t through growing. Karen (Boeck’s mom) played basketball at UTC and Troy was a defensive lineman there, and Ty wears a size-14 shoe. I think he just turned 17. Whoever gets him in college is getting a steal.”
Contact Ward Gossett at wgossett@timesfree press.com or 423-886-4765. Follow him on Twitter @ wardgossett.