From The Sidelines: Powell 42, Central 35
The Panthers' and Bobcats' offenses put on a show in a big-time region showdown Friday night.
Powell moved to 5-0 on the season with a 42-35 victory over Central on Friday night in The Jungle. This ball game was a big-time battle between two elite offenses all night long, led by both schools’ stellar quarterback play. Indeed, both Deuce Rodgers of Powell and Kaden Long of Central were dominant both on the ground and through the air all night long. Somebody had to win this ball game, but the Bobcats proved, even in defeat, if they hadn’t already, that they are for real this season.
The name of the game for Long and the Bobcats all night to pull off the upset was scoring with splash plays. Central got the ball first and on their fourth offensive play, the Bobcats converted an inside slant from just around midfield for a big catch-and-run from Long to Torin McAfee that went for six to put Central up 7-0 early. Long accounted for four of the five touchdowns for the Bobcats against the Panthers, as he threw three touchdown passes on the evening and ran for an additional one as well.
Long’s head football coach, Kevin Lane, said of his performance on the night, “He battled his tail off like he does every day, every week, at practice. He works his tail off. He believes in what we’re doing; we all believe in him. He’s just going to continue to fight every week and get better every week. I’ve been watching him now for six in a row do this stuff, and it’s really fun to watch.”
Central has now scored 127 points over the last three weeks. It wasn’t enough to beat Powell on the road Friday night, but their high-powered spread offense was on full display against the undefeated Panthers. Coming into the ball game, Central’s Javaston Badgett was No. 2 in the state in receiving yards at 696. Badgett, along with McAfee and Tnaj Taylor, put all kinds of pressure on opposing defenses and did so against Powell on Friday night. Coach Lane said of his wide receivers, “That’s kind of our heavy game plan because we’re spread out and we use all three, four, or five of those guys. Then we use our running back Jaedyn Harris when we get spots there, and he had a really good game tonight in protection. A couple of huge runs for us as well, but yeah, that’s our game plan every week is to get those guys the ball as fast as we can get it to them.”
Both quarterbacks, Long and Rodgers, combined for 10 total touchdowns in the game, with Rodgers accounting for all six of Powell’s touchdowns, which included four on the ground with his legs. His final 62-yard touchdown down the right side to put the Panthers up 42-28 late in the fourth quarter was the biggest play of his night on a night where he had a lot of them. Rodgers delivered two haymakers in the fourth quarter, one with the aforementioned long quarterback keeper, but on the previous drive, he uncorked a 65-yard touchdown bomb to Zi Jackson. To Long & the Bobcats’ credit, they kept fighting back as they answered every Panther touchdown with three fourth-quarter scores of their own to stay in the game.
Every possession mattered in this football game. With the Bobcats coming up just short, situations like the first drive of the game for Powell loom large. After quickly going up 7-0, Central’s defense forced a quick three-and-out, but on fourth down, when Powell was getting ready to punt the football away, a Bobcat defensive lineman jumped offsides, which gave the Panthers a first down, and the drive continued. Four plays later, Rodgers found Jackson for a 40-yard touchdown reception to tie the game at 7-7 a piece.
With both the home and away stands packed, it all felt right to have a big-time battle between Powell and Central in Knoxville. Powell head football coach Matt Lowe said after the ball game, “That’s what I told Kevin. An unbelievable job. We both talked about it. These two schools are eight, nine miles apart in proximity, and there was way too long that they did not play each other. And so now that we’re in the same region, now that he’s there and I’m here we’ll continue to play this game as long as we can. This is a game that should get played every year for the next fifty years.”
How could you not want that after what folks were treated to tonight between Lowe and Lane’s teams?
Powell escaped with the big-time victory over the rising Bobcats on Friday night to stay perfect over halfway through the 2025 regular season. Their defense may have struggled a lot at times through the air, but that could end up being positive for Powell’s defensive backs moving forward. Lowe spoke glowingly of Central’s wideouts, telling me, “Without a doubt. That’s as talented of a group of four or five guys as we’re going to see the entire year. And so our guys now can learn from this and they’ve got figure out leverage on certain things. That’s a lot of it. It’s not that, you know, there’s a major fix that has to take place. The only thing that needs to take place is we’ve got to make sure we understand leverage, we’ve got to understand where our help is. So that now we can force them back into our help, and we can’t let them out-leverage us and then get on top.”
Lowe and Lane’s teams are forces to be reckoned with this season, and both will be better off after playing in this sort of heavyweight battle halfway through the regular season.
Next Friday night, the Panthers host Campbell County at 7:30 PM EST, and the Bobcats host McMinn County at 7:00 PM EST.