What a game it was. By the end, it felt like mid-November (and we’re not talking about weather).
Don’t tell that to Desert Vista coach Dan Hinds. Insightful, helpful and gracious that he is, he sat in a auxiliary locker room with his head buried in his hands 30 minutes afterward. Part of him was trying to decompress from a frightening turn of events in the final three minutes which almost (but didn’t) ruined the night, and a big part was worried about the health of the best player in the state, Devon Kennard.
Even though an X-ray revealed nothing broken, there’s no word yet on the status of his right knee as of mid-afternoon Saturday (I wonder if the USC staff member on the sideline watching Kennard was still around in the final two minutes), but there were few words of optimism late Friday night.
So we’ll wait and everyone hopes for the best.
Regardless of Kennard’s situation - which will be either one gargantuan exhale or one enormous sucker-punch to the team’s collective gut, Hinds has no reason to waste mental energy and sleepless nights playing the “What if…” game.
It was the right call.
Kennard is a load to bring down with his size and speed, a perfect combination when you’re trying to run out the clock with a narrow lead in the final two minutes. He had more success than any other running back on the night, even in limited action, and it appeared to be a clean-but-unfortunate tackle on the part of Chandler’s defense. Kennard ran for 500 yards last year, and his 16 carries are tied for the team-high, so this is nothing new.
After all that, if you’re still going to complain about why coaches had Kennard was in the game given the situation, you better promise there hasn’t been a single snap in the past 17 games where you wanted the team’s best player to have the ball.
