Thursday, January 14, 2016

Gryphons Lead Football All Conference Team

After sweeping the three major awards in conference voting for coach of the year Jason Battle, Offensive player of the Year Nick Bynum and Defensive player of the year  Sherrod Green it should not come as any surprise that Rocky Mount leads the way with players making the All Conference team.  Ten Gryphons join both of the players of the year on the All Conference team. You don't go through league play undefeated and then sweep through the state 3A playoffs unless you have players who can play.

Three Gryphon lineman high light the offense as  the Gryphons rushed as a team for 4402 yards on the season  which works out to 275 per game.  Then you add another 1692 passing the ball for 106 yards per game.  The 2015 football season Rocky Mount covered ground every Friday night at 380.87 yards per game.  The runners could not get the yardage they got and our quarterbacks could not pass for the yardage gained unless some of the big guys up from were not protecting them. 

Three Gryphon lineman made All Conference. Senior lineman Ja'quez Johnson 6'2" 293 pounds.  He wore # 50 for those of you that don't pay much attention to the line as the backs run through the holes they make.  Senior #60 Niles Pride 6'1"275 and #72 Junior Thomas Battle 6' 275 were the three making all conference.

B J Sanders junior who rushed for 1287 yards which is 7.8 yard per carry and scored 14 touchdowns with a couple coming from kickoff returns and punt returns.  He had  1599 all purpose yards on the season including the opening kick off touchdown in the state championship game.

Tyrell Forbes Senior:  You know you are loaded with running backs when your so call third leading rusher also makes all conference.  Forbes carried the ball 120 time grinding out 832 yards which computes to 6.9 yards every time he touched the football. He scored eight times on the season.

The final offensive player making all conference is quarterback Forest Bell.  Bell passed for 1670 yards or for 104 yards per game.  This season Bell threw only five interceptions while attempting 149 passes.  Every completion got the Gryphons 18.6 yards and he complete 6 out of every 10 attempts.  The Gryphons were mostly a running team but when the Gryphons needed to open up the defense they score 8 touchdowns through  the air off the arm of Bell.  He ran 41 times on the season for only 80 yards.  His longest run on the season was maybe the most important play all season in the State Championsdhip game.  The third and 19 and Forest got 20 in the fourth quarter against South Point.

Moving over to defense four Gryphons make the All Conference team.  The youngest player to make All Conference is Detrell Revis.  The defensive back made 79 tackles assisted on another 27 for 106 for the season.   He picked off 7 passes and ran them back toward our goal line for 207 yards
 including one he took home for a touchdown.  He also had a fumble recovery that he scored off of.

Senior Jac'quel Walker had 31 tackles  and assisted on another 7.  He had four tackle for losses.  He recovered two fumbles during the season.

Alex Henderson Senior accumulated 153 tackles on the season which 94 were solo and assisted on another 59 for a total of 153 which led the team.  He had 8 tackles for losses and four quarterback sacks.

The final all conference player is Junior Artavious Richardson  He recorded 72 solo tackles and assisted on another 35 for 107 tackles on the season.  16 of those tackles resulted in losses and another 6.5 quarterback sacks.