Ready to state its case
Rome has built a statetitle mentality ahead of its showdown with Buford.
Rome High’s football team has built a state-title mentality ahead of its showdown with Buford.
Soon after he was named head coach at Rome High School, John Reid showed his players a picture of the state championship trophy.
He told them it could be more than a picture if they bought into what he and his coaching staff were selling, if they committed. The players could accomplish what so many Rome teams had strived for and fell short of in the past.
“He gave us a picture of the state championship trophy, and he said, ‘We going to get one of these in the next two or three years,’” Rome defensive end Ja’Quon Griffin recalled. “The coaching staff put it in our mind that we would not be denied.”
Today, Reid and the Rome Wolves could hold something far heavier than a picture.
As the final Class 5A game in the state of Georgia, Rome will play Buford for the state championship today at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.
It will be the team’s first appearance in a state title game since the merger of East and West Rome in 1992.
The game is scheduled to start at 4:30 p.m., sandwiched among three other state championship games. It will certainly be the largest venue Rome has played in all season, and it takes on a Buford team that has won 11 state titles.
But there has been no change in practice for Rome all season, and that held true this week as it completed its final run-throughs at Barron Stadium.
“We’ve been telling them forever that this is why we practice, and this is why the little things matter and we did the things we did,” Reid said. “It was all done for the playoff run, and this is as far as you can go for the playoff run.”
The game will wrap up a season that has seen the Wolves win their first region title in 10 years and build a current 11-game win streak.
Buford and Rome have far more in common than just the team nickname. Both teams boast run games with 1,000-yard rushers and quarterbacks who can keep defenses honest.
The Buford trio of Anthony Grant, Christian Turner and T.D. Roof has combined for 2,974 rushing yards, and each one has scored at least 10 rushing touchdowns. They go against a Rome rush defense that has not allowed 100 rushing yards in the postseason.
With an injury to Jalynn Sykes keeping him on the sidelines, Rome sophomores Knox Kadum and Jamious Griffin will be tasked with leading the offense again. They go against a powerful Buford defense that has allowed 14.3 points per game.
Reid doesn’t think it’s surprising that both teams play in similar ways. Nearly every team needs a good defense and an efficient run game to have success, and Buford and Rome are two of the best.
“You’ll probably find a good run game and a strong defense in a lot of the teams that have made it this far,” Reid said. “You’ll see that in the NFL and college football. You have to be able to move the football the way you want to move it.”
Rome sold out its allotment of tickets for the game by Thursday afternoon, and even more fans around Georgia will be watching Reid’s team as the game is broadcast on GPTV.
But Rome has had the state championship in its mind since the beginning, when Reid told the players what they could achieve. This is just the final game, the thing every player and coach has practiced for all year long.
“We have treated every game, from day one, like it is going to be our last,” Rome linebacker Malik Davis said. “The coaches have always coached us like we are a state championship team, and we’ve always played like we want to win a state championship.”