Many unknowns in Top 10, but Norwalk belongs

NORWALK — Darien is the truth. St. Joe’s is the truth. New Canaan may be the truth. The rest is all talk.

Some were in better a frame of mind than others to chat Saturday night, after Week 4 of Connecticut high school football left the remainder of the Top 10 as muddled as the start of this post-COVID season.

Cam Edwards, Norwalk’s dynamic running back, was having the time of his life. And why not? He had just scored the winning touchdown on a 58-yard pass from backup quarterback Ryan Gilchrist on fourth-and-18 with only 3:07 remaining against No. 8 Cheshire.

“Before the season on Max-Preps we were ranked No. 72 in the state,” Edwards said. “Every time we come in the locker room, we say, ‘72!’ It helps build our confidence. We really want to shock the world.”

Mysonne Pollard intercepted a pass by backup quarterback Michael Simeone 14 seconds later for a 26-yard pick-six to seal the 25-15 victory for the Bears.

Cheshire coach Don Drust was not nearly in as eager a mood to talk.

I asked him two questions postgame.

He gave me 11 words. Downright Belichickian.

What did he see on the decisive fourth-and-18 play with Edwards?

“I’ve got to watch it.”

You were without your own dynamic runner in Christian Russo and then your starting quarterback Matt Jeffery went down in the first quarter …

“Not going to talk about injuries, sorry,” Drust interjected.

I was going to finish the question about his team still sticking it out until the end, but the heck with it, said thanks and walked

away. Newspaper columnists are like high school football coaches. Sometimes you just got to take the L and move on.

We warned you when the GameTimeCT preseason poll was released that it should come with a giant stamp saying “for entertainment purposes only.”

Darien was No. 1. St. Joe’s was No. 2. That still stands. Hand was No. 3, Newtown No. 4, Greenwich No. 5, New Canaan No. 6, Southington No. 7 and Xavier No. 8.

Hand lost to Fairfield Prep in Week 1 and New Canaan in Week 2 only to crunch previously unbeaten Masuk on Friday night. Newtown, which started with a number of people thinking the Nighthawks may be the real No. 1, has lost to Darien and Ridgefield back-to-back.

Previously unbeaten Southington, which worked its way up to No. 4, fell to unbeaten Hall. Shelton whipped Greenwich in Week 3 to rocket to No. 7 before promptly losing to Trumbull. Greenwich bounced back to outlast No. 7 Fairfield Prep. Cheshire, which like Shelton had been unranked, moved into No. 8 after crushing Staples — which had beaten Trumbull. Xavier has fallen out of the Top 10 with losses to Ridgefield and St. Joe’s.

All that should leave your head spinning.

So who’s No. 4? Ridgefield? After nearly wiping out a 28-point lead in the fourth quarter in the opener against Greenwich, the Tigers are playing as well as anyone not named Darien or St. Joe’s.

And what’s this? There are four unbeaten teams in the powerful FCIAC. The first three are in the opening paragraph. They are the brand names. The fourth?

The Norwalk Bears are off to a 4-0 start for the first time in a decade under first-year coach Pat Miller.

“It was sad Russo didn’t play today,” Edwards said. “I wanted it to be a battle of the running backs like everyone wanted to see. I wanted to show the state that I’m a better running back. I give all props to Russo. He’s a great back. But I did prove a point today.” Edwards entered with 685 yards and nine touchdowns. He also had a receiving touchdown. He only ran for 60 yards Saturday against a tough Cheshire defense, but still managed 155 yards and three scores from scrimmage because of touchdown receptions of 35 yards (on a screen) and the 58-yarder to go with his 2-yard TD run.

Both teams had run up big scores in previous games. Not Saturday. There were so many plays with little or no gain. This was a meat grinder. GameTimeCT picked it as Game of the Week, but for three quarters it was kind of the snore of the week. The final five minutes made it all worth it.

With Cheshire down 12-7, Kevin D’Errico bulled his way for a 6-yard touchdown and a two-point conversion to put the Rams ahead, 15-12, with 4:40 left.

The story suddenly was a gritty Cheshire team winning despite the losses of Russo and Jeffery.

And — poof — it wasn’t. “I definitely wanted to be out there with my boys … definitely tough mentally,” said Russo, who declined any comment about his injury. “All I’m going to say is our guys played as hard as they could like we always do. We made some mental mistakes and penalty mistakes and that eventually beat us.”

Still, when you’re fourthand-18 on your own 42, down three with five minutes remaining and your backup quarterback is in, those were less than ideal conditions for Norwalk. Then again, Miller came over from 2019 Class S champion Sheehan with a strong reputation as a formidable offensive coordinator.

“We knew this was going to be a tough game,” Miller said. “We have all the respect for Cheshire. On fourth-and-18, we knew we had to do something creative to get the ball in the hands of our best player. The kids did a great job executing.

“Cam can do it all. Tonight, for a kid who had success like he has had early in the season, and when it’s not working the way it usually does, for him to find new ways to make plays was huge.”

We’ll save Coach Drust the trouble of watching too much video. It was a wheel route. Gilchrist, who replaced starter Shawn Brown, started to bootleg one way and let the ball fly the other way.

“It was made for me to get me up the seam to go one-on-one with the dude,” Edwards said. “I broke the tackle (of Tristan Washington) and I just saw all green. So I took it. Yeah, I took it.”

When you watch Edwards it’s impossible not to see his green cleats. They have sparkling gold and all golden soles. It looks like he bought them from a leprechaun.

“I love them,” he said. “They’re Under Armour MC Highlights.”

The rest of the highlight belonged to Gilchrist after Brown went out with what Miller called “an undisclosed injury.” Gilchrist is a starting linebacker, so, Miller said, it’s not like he entered the game totally cold. He also hadn’t thrown a pass since his freshman year.

“We have all the faith in the world in Ryan,” Miller said. “He’s a tough kid who’s so smart. He might not jump off the page with his stats, but he’s like a coach on the field for us. He’s so focused on doing his job. It may as well as been first-and-10.”

Or maybe not. “Honestly, I was terrified,” Gilchrist said. “I was looking over at the sideline waiting for Shawn to come back in. My hand was all slippery.”

The Bears have become one of the fun teams to watch and talk to in the state. After the baseball team won its first state championship in the spring, there is a certain strut back at Norwalk High.

“How tough they were, how gritty they were to pull this out — I’m over the moon.” Miller said. “I love being around this group. They have such a buzz. But we really are trying to take it a game at a time.”

When your battle cry is “72!” you’ve got to take it slow.

“We got to be humble,” Cam Edwards said. “Next up is New Canaan.”

Truths will become evident.