CHATTANOOGA-The Clay County Bulldogs (13-1) will play in the program’s first-ever State Championship game here at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s Finley Stadium Friday at 2 p.m. CST versus undefeated McKenzie (14-0), with a shot at winning the school’s only football title and just the third in any team sport.

“The first thing we talked about was playing 15 games, and we are here,” Bulldog head coach Bruce Lamb said.  “It is a great opportunity, and it’s not going to be easy—that’s for sure.

“But we have a shot.”

Lamb and his Dawgs are looking to join the 2012 Lady Bulldog and the 2021 Bulldog basketball teams to form a title-winning trio, and he said his team has shifted their focus after advancing to the BlueCross Bowl Class A Championship by surviving a furious second-half rally from Coalfield and winning Clay County’s only football semifinal in history by a score of 40-33.

“48 minutes,” he said.  “As we said Friday night, it’s 48 minutes for the rest of our lives.

“It all comes down to one thing—Friday at 2 o’clock.”

The Dawgs head into the matchup with the 2021 State Runner-up Rebels as the underdog, after the team hailing from northwest Tennessee at the tripoint of Carroll, Henry, and Weakley counties waltzed through the regular season and knocked off odds-on favorite Fayetteville (12-1) in the quarterfinals.

The State Championship loss to South Pittsburg last year by a score of 24-21 is the only blemish on their record since being eliminated by Peabody in the 2020 State Quarterfinals, and when the Pirates beat McKenzie, the Rebels were also 14-0.

“With heart and desire,” Lamb answered when asked how his team could beat the highly-touted Rebels,  “That’s what these kids have got.

“They are good,” he said of McKenzie.  “They are real good, and we are definitely the underdog.  We are undersized compared to them, but we do what we do, and we are good at what we do.

“So we are going to go out and do what we’ve done for 14 weeks to the best of our abilities and that never-give-up attitude that we’ve got goes a long way,” Lamb continued.  “I promise you these kids will fight no matter what until the buzzer goes off, because our kids are prepared, they are battle tested, and they never panic.

“David and Goliath—we believe in it, and we hope we can pull it off again.”

Lamb cited “getting the monkey of our back” by winning the school’s first Region 4-A Championship over Gordonsville, beating the Tigers again in the quarterfinals, and never losing confidence when things were going wrong in the slim victory over Coalfield as positives heading into the matchup with the Rebels.

“We met huge obstacles this year and got over them,” he said, before addressing the Yellow Jacket comeback of last Friday night.  “I think we really needed that to bring us back down to earth a little bit.

“We were up 40-13 and had things happen uncharacteristic of us.  It is good to get it out of our system.  Hopefully it’s gone, and we will come back and have that same grit this Friday.”

Dawgs become

legendary with

semifinal victory

After jumping out 20-0 on Coalfield and going up by four scores in the second half, Clay County’s State Championship berth came down to one play.

Trailing by seven points with 3:04 left in the fourth quarter, the Yellow Jackets had the ball on the Dawg four yard-line for a fourth-and-goal and with a chance to tie or take the lead.

But their last gasp fell to the turf of John Teeples Field, as the Coalfield pass sailed out of the back of the end zone and the 2022 Clay County Bulldogs became legendary.

The turnover on downs, paired with senior Joseph Marcom running out the clock en route to his own place in the record books (see related story), marked the first time in history a Bulldog team had won a State Semifinal and it was only the school’s second-ever Final Four appearance (1985).

“When you looked in their eyes the other night, you knew they were going to make a big play to stop them, and they did,” Lamb said of his senior-led team.  “Our kids never lost confidence and they made plays when they needed to make plays.

“I love the leadership of these nine seniors.  It’s not just their talent—it’s their leadership, and their maturity,” he continued.  “Friday night they never panicked and that is a testament to them.”

If the Dawgs were going to feel any anxiety creep in, it would have come during the 23 minutes and 12 seconds following a 50-yard touchdown run by Marcom on the first play of the third quarter.

The highlight-reel rush—which was part of a 185-yard, three-score night for the senior tailback—surged Clay County ahead by 27 points, but it and the extra point to follow by senior Levi Garrett would serve as the last ones scored by the Dawgs.

Coalfield marched into the end zone with a sustained drive on their ensuing possession, before taking advantage of two Bulldog fumbles with touchdowns through the air, all prior to seniors Hunter Kyle, Ricardo McElroy, and John Hamilton pressuring the Yellow Jacket quarterback into an errant throw on the game-deciding play.

After the defense made their stand, Marcom then put the game on ice with two first-down runs, before senior quarterback Keaton Arms kneeled twice out of victory formation to seal the deal.

Prior to the late-game drama, senior Alec Kerr had himself a first half—rushing for 110 yards and two touchdowns on five carries.

His highlights included a 63-yard rush to paydirt to put Clay County ahead 6-0 early, and a 23-yard touchdown run to follow Coalfield’s initial score.

Arms and Marcom got on the board before Kerr’s final jaunt across the stripe, as the signal-caller’s 11-yarder made it 12-0, and the star of the night’s two-yard rushing score and two-point conversion upped the Bulldog ante to 20-0 with 8:38 to go in the second stanza.

The Yellow Jacket strike (6:33)—answered by Kerr at the 3:24-mark—came next, before Coalfield responded to narrow the margin to 26-13 with just over a minute left in the half.

That’s when Arms engineered one of his signature drives with time ticking away to send Clay County into the break ahead 33-13.

Taking advantage of a good return by sophomore Nate Adams, who also had an interception in the first half, Arms first found senior wideout Jimmy Burchett for the initial first down, and then hit Kerr to set up an 11-yard Marcom touchdown.

The offensive line—led by seniors Stone Lynn and Garrett, juniors Wyatt Browning and Parker Smith, and sophomore Haydyn McGee—returned to field with the same push to open the second half and sprung Marcom for his last score, which ended up serving as the final margin after Coalfield rallied down the stretch.

Bulldog statistics

Thanks to their high-octane first half and Marcom salting away the Yellow Jackets by running out the clock late, Clay County racked up a total of 394 yards on 44 offensive plays, including 339 yards rushing on 32 carries and 55 yards passing.

Arms accounted for all of the yards through the air on six of 12 passing with completions to Kerr (3/30 yds.), Burchett (2/22 yds.), and Marcom (1/3 yds./2PT).

Marcom was the leading rusher (20/185 yds./3TDs), while Kerr (5/110 yds./2TDs) and Arms (7/44 yds./TD) also had carries.

Though he was the offensive star of the night, Marcom also led the Dawg defense with eight tackles (FF), while Burchett (TFL), Kerr (TFL), and sophomore Worm Smith (Sack) all recorded six stops.  McElroy (Sack), Kyle (3TFLs), and Arms all had five tackles each; Adams made three (INT); Hamilton and junior Ben Maxfield (FR) recorded two; and Garrett and juniors Weston Birdwell and Austin Anderson had one apiece.

Audio-only coverage of the State Championship game between the Dawgs and the Rebels begins at 1 p.m. CST with the Horizon Sports Network’s pregame show at www.dalehollowhorizon.com or on the Dale Hollow Horizon Facebook page at www.facebook.com/dalehollowhorizon this Friday.