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CrossTown Showdown: Big Reds understand task at hand vs. Patriots

By Jay W. Bennett 10 min read

PARKERSBURG -- Head coach Matt Kimes fully understands the task at hand for his Parkersburg High football program as the Big Reds head Friday night to the Erickson All-Sports Facility to take on rival Parkersburg South in the 59th all-time meeting.

PHS, which opened the season with losses to defending Class AAAA state champion Morgantown and Spring Valley, knocked off Hurricane last week at Stadium Field to earn win No. 1 of the campaign.

If the red and white are to get back to the .500 plateau they will have to give Kimes his first road win versus PSHS as the Patriots have won the last three meetings on their home field, which included a 55-7 win in 2022 and a 26-17 victory in 2024 with Kimes serving as the head man.

Parkersburg South, which trails the all-time series 40-18, will be preparing for sophomore quarterback Noah Smith, who will be making his first varsity start.

"It's something that we'd been talking about all offseason," Kimes said of making Smith the quarterback as signal-caller Alex Greer has been moved to running back. "Obviously we know Alex has got to be on the field and we know Noah is very capable of throwing the football and gives us a little bit different dynamic there on offense. We didn't want to throw it in first game of the year with Noah as a sophomore going against Morgantown. We didn't think that was the right move.

"I think both kids have bought into it and Alex is excited about still being in there and however he can help the team. We're going to get him lots of touches and make sure he's one of our main skill guys that's making plays for us. We're going to make that move going forward and the nice thing is we know if we got to go with a Wildcat package with Greer at quarterback, if something would happen to Noah, we got a guy that's been there with tons of experience we can lean on."

One guy who has a plethora of experience on defense is PHS senior Mike linebacker Devin Widman, who returned from injury last week and led the Big Reds with 16 tackles while also recording a sack and recovering a fumble in his season debut.

"It was great to have him back," Kimes said of Widman, who led the Big Reds in tackles each of the past two campaigns. "Obviously your emotional leader on defense and he led us in tackles again. That's what he does as a middle linebacker.

"Just getting him back into game shape and then his eyes, what he's looking at because he hasn't had any live practices really. He hasn't had any scrimmages. That was really his first live reps. We're getting him back to speed. He'll improve every week and I really look for him to be much better this week, too."

Currently, Greer leads the Big Reds with 146 yards rushing and a 5.0 ypc average, while Gavin Bowman has averaged 8.3 ypc and has 141 stripes.

After coming in for Greer early in the first half last week, Smith connected on 8 of 15 aerials for 90 yards with one touchdown and a pick.

"We've competed in every game. We've been competitive," Kimes said. "At halftime of our first two games we're a one score game and just didn't play well in the second half of either of our first games, so we knew as a coaching staff what do we got to do to give us a spark and create some more positivity on offense?

"Then defensively just continuing to play assignment ball and everybody doing their job because when we do we're pretty good on defense, but sometimes guys just lose focus for a little bit or try to do something they haven't been coached to do and that's when we've been having some failures. I feel really good about our team. I think we have a ton of potential. We need to continue to grow and build and continue to progress and keep trying to make sure we are playing better week in and week out. Making sure we are improving in some aspect every week."

While the Big Reds are continuing to try and build depth across the roster, Tyreke Glover currently leads PHS with 29 total tackles.

Tyler Cameron, who has a blocked kick along with Javel Chandler, also has forced a pair of fumbles alongside Zach Medina.

"We talked as a staff. We knew we got to play more guys, especially upfront on the offensive and defensive lines," stressed the coach. "We're trying to get a better rotation there and just trying to stay as fresh as we can in those spots. We have not been running the football as efficiently as I would have hoped and thought we were going to going into the season.

"That was kind of a thought process too with going to the quarterback change is maybe getting a couple of guys out of the box, knowing that we got some threats on the perimeter and Noah can stretch the field and try to lighten the box a little bit so to speak to create advantages in the run game for us."

Brady Thorn has been the top threat in the passing game for the Big Reds and has grabbed nine receptions for 119 yards with a trio of six-pointers.

Kimes said the playbook for Smith basically will be the same as it was for Greer, but noted they'll take out some of the designed QB runs.

"Everything else is still in the playbook," said the coach. "The ability to still be able to stretch the field and still be able to run the ball and be a little bit more versatile, I think, is what we were trying to go toward, and using all of our weapons to their full potential with our guys on the perimeter like Brady and Javel and our tight end in (Austin) Craven and Cole Sisk, and those guys who need to have touches. This gives us an ability to maybe spread the field a little bit more and spread out those touches as well.

"We've been OK. We've got to get to where we are sustaining drives on offense and putting drives together, and we had some turnovers last week that really killed any type of momentum. We had the ball up a score twice in the fourth quarter and turned it over both times where you could've maybe stretched that lead out a little bit and get a little space between you, but hats off to Hurricane. They made plays and kept themselves in the game."

Even though Smith will be making first varsity start as a QB, the coaching staff fully believes he can do the job.

"He's a mobile kid. He plays basketball. He's a very skilled kid," Kimes said. "We kind of gave him his first Friday night experience, we played him, we started him at corner against Spring Valley just to kind of throw him in there on a Friday night and see how he did. He's got the ability.

"He's got a really good skill set. He's a talented kid. He's not just a statue back there. He can move and we're not going to ask him to do a whole lot in the run game. We're going to ask him to do a few things and he's very capable to hurt people with his legs if they don't account for him."

PSHS second-year head coach Larry Thompson's Patriots have opened the season at 0-3, but Kimes knows that isn't going to mean much come Friday night.

"They're putting up 50 points against one of the top five programs in the state in University," he said. "That just tells you right there they've got the potential to be explosive on offense and you got to account for a couple of different guys on their offense that are big-play potential, and then you got to get the big running back before he gets started because once he gets started downhill man he's a load.

"You got to kind of get him before he goes and their quarterback is playing well. He's getting the ball in the playmakers hands and doing what he's supposed to do back there. I think defensively they are still kind of searching for what they want to do week in and week out, but against University they were a lot of man pressure and a lot of man coverage and a lot of pressure packages built in. We're preparing for that and if they do something different we'll have to adjust early."

Although this isn't like any other game on the schedule, Kimes is trying to keep his team focused on the task at hand as the Big Reds try to build momentum for the remainder of the season.

"Whatever it takes to go get the win," Kimes added. "We were in a dogfight last week and had to find a way to win in the fourth quarter and we expect a four quarter game again. It's probably going to be a game of big plays and momentum shifts, and you just got to be able to ride that wave and stay even keel and not get too high and not get too low.

"Stay focused on your assignment, play in and play out, and just execution and playing between the whistles. Don't do anything after the whistles to hurt yourself. Like I try to say, play with controlled aggression. You always got to play aggressive. You got to play with physicality, but you got to do it controlled, and I think the team that makes the least amount of mistakes is probably going to be the team that wins."

Another aspect which will be new this season for the Big Reds is heading across the Little Kanawha River and facing their rivals on turf.

"It 's our first time going over there and playing on the new turf as a varsity team, so that will be a cool experience for our guys," Kimes admitted. "It's always been grass over there anytime we've played. (Health-wise) We're as good as we are going to be.

"I don't think we have anybody that's going to be out. We may have a couple guys that are limited, but we should have everybody ready to go. It will be the first time all year we had everybody ready to go, so we're excited about that."

Contact Jay Bennett at jbennett@newsandsentinel.com

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