Rough start for Tavien last night on a cold, damp, breezy evening. Going into the wind on their first possession, a blitz off the edge pressured him and he was hit while throwing, leading to a pick. On their second possession, he had a man streaking deep, but the ball into the wind ended up being woefully under thrown and the BW safety was able to get over in time to pick it off. He nearly had an interception on the next possession when a defender jumped an out route and broke it up. With the wind at their back in the 2nd quarter, he settled down and had some better throws. A nice 3rd down pass for an easy first down was dropped by a receiver leading to a punt. On another 3rd and long from near midfield, a throw under pressure was broken up by the DB and nearly intercepted by two Eagle defenders. Bellfontaine could not get anything going in the first half, but their defense was stout and held Watterson to two field goals despite the Eagles having excellent field position in the first half.
Watterson got the ball to start the 2nd, drove into Chieftain territory and then a late throw to the sideline was batted, intercepted, and returned for a TD Giving Bellfontaine a 7-6 lead. After another Watterson interception just past midfield, St. Clair Led a quick touchdown drive into the wind. The big play was a nice downfield throw that his receiver made an excellent adjustment on and hauled in deep in Watterson territory. A couple plays later, play action to the wide side of the field opened up the back side slant and he threw strike for an easy touchdown. The XP was blocked, leaving a 13-6 lead.
Watterson’s offense finally showed up at that point, going on a long drive capped by a 30ish yard TD run. The Chieftains got the ball back but were forced to punt and Watterson immediately marched down the field into the wind, culminating with an excellent TD catch by Jake Uhlenhake, son of former Buckeye, Jeff Uhlenhake. The XP was missed, leaving the Chieftians behind 19-13.
Bellefontaine had the wind behind their back and moved to midfield pretty easily. But on 4th and 4, the receiver caught a pass shy of the yard to gain and was tackled immediately, just short of the first down. Watterson got the ball back with a bit less than 5 minutes left and proceeded to grind out the clock, converting several third downs and running out the game.
St. Clair was much better in the 2nd half, but the abject lack of a running game (-5 yards on 12 carries….ouch!) paired with excellent tackling and pursuit by the Eagles kept the offense in check. He ended up 17-25 for 147 yards With 1 TD and 2 interceptions. The majority of those throws were quick passes to the outside, but for the most part, the receivers were not able to make defenders miss and the ability to keep the YAC in check held the Bellefontaine offense in check with it. After the two picks, almost all of his incompletions were deep balls — a couple slightly overthrown with the wind and under thrown into the wind. Although not a gale, it was certainly impactful. He had a couple really nice throws - the deep ball on the TD drive and the TD pass were solid. One that really jumped out me was a deep slant where the receiver came out of his break in the soft spot in the zone and the ball was right on him. As an amateur who doesn’t watch high school football ever, it’s hard to judge arm strength, but it seems to me that he has a pretty strong and accurate arm considering all the long horizontal throws to the sideline. He is an imposing figure in the huddle, towering over his teammates, but did not strike me as particularly athletic. He moved well enough in the pocket, but did not scramble much and did not gain anything on the few designed runs called for him.
That being said, my analysis is worth less than the paper this isn’t printed on and if Ryan Day wants him at OSU, so do I!
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