Derrick spreads it around, Conway puts Georgetown away in opener

Peyton Derrick walked off the field after a great start to 2016 and he started kissing babies.

Seriously, the Conway quarterback was kissing babies.

After five touchdown passes to four different receivers propelled the Tigers to a 41-19 win over Georgetown, Derrick and Co. certainly looked like they could be out to run a successful campaign.

“This is a very good example of what we meant by spreading it out,” Derrick said. “These are people who didn’t get a lot of touches with Bryan [Edwards] and Jah’Maine [Martin]. Tyreke Weaver had a big game for us. It really helped on the perimeter and running the ball. I think we can do this week in and week out – just execute our game plan.”

In total, six Conway players caught passes from Derrick. The first four touchdown passes went to four different receivers – Darren Stanley, Malachi Miller, Pooh Brantley and Rakim Bellamy – with Stanley adding a second score to cap of his six-reception, 133-yard night in the fourth quarter.

And while the final on the scoreboard was inflated some because of a late touchdown after a pooch kickoff ended up back in Conway’s hands, it was clear that Chuck Jordan’s team was very much in control from about the midway point of the third quarter on.

Still, Jordan was focused on some of the negatives, which were relatively glaring despite the final score.

“I was very unhappy with our weakness. We are just mentally a very weak team right now,” said Jordan, who become one of 10 coaches in state history to reach 270 victories in his career. “We made some mistakes at some very inopportune times. We rough the punter when we’re supposed to be dropping [into coverage]. We miss an extra point. We jump offside on third-and-1 twice. Those are things that are completely mental.”

What Jordan did say later, however, was that the noticeable problems didn’t prevent Conway from beginning the season much more polished than it did in the 2015 season opener against Georgetown. It was in that game when the Tigers needed a late Edwards catch and run to put it away.

This time, Georgetown was taking shots on the chin nearly throughout, and they were exaggerated by health issues. Coach Ken Cribb said he had 11 players who were injured last week during the team’s scrimmage or practices, and four of those players were ruled out for Friday night.

Losing the football turned out to be a bigger problem for the Bulldogs. Two fumbles and an interception drastically slowed down Georgetown’s offensive momentum, which was doing fine otherwise. The third turnover proved especially painful, when Whit Richardson’s nifty over-the-shoulder pick was returned to the Georgetown 23-yard line. Derrick then threw his third touchdown of the game, this time to Pooh Brantley.

It put the Tigers up 21-7 just before halftime.

“We shot ourselves in the foot,” Cribb said. “We didn’t give ourselves a chance. We turned it over just outside the red zone, getting ready to score.”

In addition to a fumble from the Conway 28, Georgetown’s opening drive stalled on downs at the Tigers’ 32 after back-to-back incomplete passes.

It helped Jordan’s squad get out to a two-touchdown lead before the break and then Derrick and the rest of the offense extended the advantage en route to the season-opening win.

“It keeps us knowing we have a target on our back,” Derrick said. “We knew going into this that people were trying to knock us off our game, ruin what we’ve got going right now.”

This story was originally published August 20, 2016 at 12:09 AM with the headline "Derrick spreads it around, Conway puts Georgetown away in opener."