Mountain Heritage’s Junior Denton (3).
Eight weeks is an eternity with the run-first tradition of Western North Carolina football.
But the area finally has its first 1,000-yard rusher of this season — four of them in fact.
Tuscola senior Caleb Ferguson (1,097 yards), Franklin junior Brock Kloeppel (1,080), Smoky Mountain senior Matthew Ridley (1,045) and Mountain Heritage senior Junior Denton (1,000) achieved the milestone in Friday’s games.
Kloeppel and Ridley were on the same field — Franklin’s Panther Pit — for a 35-14 home win by the Panthers.
“Brock has been very durable for us, and he’s an extremely-hard worker,” Franklin coach Josh Brooks said.
“He’s just now becoming comfortable in that tailback position after playing some fullback for us last year. He makes people miss. Everyone knows what we like to do, and he’s a huge part of our offense and will continue to be.”
Ironically, the Panthers are one of the few remaining I-formation offenses in the mountains. The majority of the area’s teams have gone to some variation of the spread.
Brooks and his staff have resisted the temptation despite the fact that he is a former quarterback. Brooks, who has 99 career wins after Friday, graduated from Smoky Mountain in 1993 and went on to play at Western Carolina University.
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