Atkins QB comes up big, sends Jessieville to first loss
JESSIEVILLE — With his arm first and later with his feet, Elijah Roberson stood tall in the shotgun formation, which comes naturally for the 6-foot, 7-inch Atkins senior quarterback.
Roberson passed for five touchdowns, helping the Red Devils lead 42-15 in the third quarter, then scrambled for key yardage that blunted a Jessieville rally. Atkins prevailed 42-29 Friday night on Don Phillips Field at Lion Stadium, spoiling Jessieville’s first 5-0 start since its current coach, T.J. Burk, quarterbacked the Lions to 15-0 and a 2006 state title under Don Phillips.
Roberson completed 20 of 31 passes for 386 yards with scoring tosses of 34, 18, 68, 21 and
77 yards. After just missing a deep ball on the first play from scrimmage, Roberson came back to junior Kreed Stubbs, who went 34 yards on a hitch route with 1:25 off the clock.
Shaking off a first quarter that he started
0-for-4 and was intercepted, Jessieville sophomore Carson Hair kept around left end and, with a downfield block from junior Landon Daley, went 57 yards for an early equalizer. Hair, who started last year as a freshman, passed to senior Joseph Benson for a two
point conversion and 8-8 tie, then sneaked two yards for a go-ahead touchdown with 6:27 left in a busy second quarter.
Jessieville still led, 15-14, after Roberson’s 18-yard strike to sophomore Trenton Casto but blinked during the rest of Atkins’ 34-0 run. The Lions played from behind after Roberson went deep to Casto, open down the sideline, for a
68-yard touchdown, Roberson going over for two points and a
22-15 Atkins halftime lead. “We blew a coverage and [Casto] got behind by one of our kids,” Burk said. “We pretty much lost the game in the last two minutes of the first half and the first five minutes of the second half, that seven-minute stretch. We had a penalty or two that put us behind the chains, and you can’t make mistakes like that against a good team.”
Jessieville reached the Atkins 19 from the second-half kickoff before a false start and senior Rylee Bowden’s blitz-sack off the edge helped the Red Devils take over on downs. Roberson took his team
72 yards in eight plays, hitting Stubbs on a bubble screen for the last 21 yards and a 29-15 edge (the quarterback kicked the PAT) with 7:12 left in the third quarter.
After a three-and-out stop defensively, Atkins dropped the hammer. Roberson connected with Stubbs on a 77-yard strike at 5:44, and Bowden, one play after junior Michael Dunagan’s interception, caught Jessieville’s defense napping on a 34-yard burst at 4:17 that made it 42-15.
Jessieville hadn’t faced a quarterback with such deepball ability as Roberson (“He’s got a cannon,” Burk said), but “their wide receivers are good, too. They’re fast and can make plays.”
After a scary return that left Jessieville junior Charlie Davis shaken, the Lions showed some resilience with a threeplay drive covering 57 yards. Sophomore Matthew Huff got it started with a 14-yard blast, and Hair passed for the last 23 yards on a left-side route that the 6-2 Benson turned upfield.
Atkins relied on Roberson’s scrambling to control the clock in the fourth quarter, the quarterback keeping for nine yards on third and four and later gathering a bobbled snap for 13 on third and nine.
Jessieville could not get past the Atkins 36 on its next two drives, getting the ball back with 1:57 left but turning it over on downs after three incompletions. Roberson, a dominant presence until the end, took a knee twice in the last
1:23 and Atkins was 5-1 overall,
3-0 in Class 3A-5, with Danville coming to town Friday night.
“They’re a playoff team,” Burk said, “and we are, too.”
Although Roberson had superior numbers, collecting a first down on four of his eight carries, Hair ran for 139 yards and passed for 188.
“If you were just coming to this game and didn’t know anything about him, you’d never know he’s a sophomore,” Burk said. “Same for Matthew Huff, a sophomore; he ran the ball hard.”
Burks expects a productive week in practice before Jessieville, 2-1 in conference, goes to Glen Rose on Friday.
“There’s no danger of these kids getting down. They’ve got too much invested in the program,” the coach said. “We just need to clean up some things.”