Freshman QB Harris leads Carl Albert past Ada
Given the way Ben Harris started Friday night’s contest with Ada, it’s no surprise the Carl Albert freshman quarterback was pulled before the fourth quarter began.
Harris, subbing for the injured Carter LaValley, had a stretch of six passes early in which he threw four incompletions, was intercepted once, and completed a pass for a loss of two yards.
In that moment, it would have been hard to predict that Harris would be removed from the game because the Titans were blowing out the Cougars, but that’s what happened as Harris caught fire and led Carl Albert to a 42-20 victory at Jim Harris Stadium.
Late in the first half, nursing a 9-6 lead, the Titans turned to a quick passing game, and Harris executed it to near perfection. He mixed in swing passes with short hitches and the occasional deep ball, engineering an 89-yard drive that culminated in Dadrion Taylor’s 16-yard TD run. After getting the ball back with less than a minute left, Harris ran a flawless two-minute drill (in this case, one minute) capped by his 32-yard touchdown pass to Chris Veals with 11 seconds left on the clock.
In the third quarter, Harris went over the top of the Cougar defense to connect with Zane Alexander on a seam route for a 40-yard TD that effectively put the game away at 30-6. After his slow start, Harris went 9-for-10 for 175 yards, finishing with 196 yards before watching the fourth quarter from the sideline.
Surprisingly, Harris said he was more nervous before the game than he was after getting off to the slow start.
“I’m not gonna lie, I was really, really nervous all week,” he said. “I didn’t panic after the interception because I knew immediately what I did wrong on that play, and I knew I wasn’t gonna make the same mistake again.”
It helped having a man nicknamed “Rabbit” in the backfield. Taylor torched the Cougars for 206 yards and three touchdowns on just 13 carries as Carl Albert improved to 2-0.
Ada (0-2) was led by senior quarterback Jackson McFarlane, who ran for 81 yards, passed for 62 and accounted for all three Cougar touchdowns.