Braden River's secondary faces spread offense challenge in playoff opener

EAST MANATEE -- He's just a sophomore, but Tyrone Collins has already experienced the big stage.

This week's Class 7A-Region 3 quarterfinal might raise the stakes with a win-or-go-home outcome on the line for the first-year Braden River varsity football player.

However, Collins seized the atmosphere during the Pirates run to a second district title when he aided a defense that stifled Venice and Palmetto two weeks in a row en route to the first 10-0 season in program history.

Collins is part of a secondary that has registered 20 interceptions in 10 games. Along with Demetrius Lawson (six interceptions), A.J.

Moore (30 tackles, one forced fumble) and FIU-bound JoJo Louis (two interceptions, six pass breakups), Collins rounds out a group within a devastating defense that hurts opponents either with ball-hawking, disruption of the passing game or sheer bone-crunching hits.

"They're physical," Braden River head coach Curt Bradley said. "They'll come up and hit you, and they can make plays on the ball."

Collins, who has 11 pass breakups this year to pair with three interceptions, entered the Pirates' first test this season -- a top-five state-ranked game against district foe Venice -- without the big game experience.

Yet he came up huge with a key pass breakup during Venice's final drive that ended with Paul Wiggins hauling an interception to seal the 30-20 victory.

"I just focus on if the ball is going to come right to me," Collins said. "If it's not, I'm going to just make a good play on it."

For the second straight year, the Pirates begin the playoffs at home. This year, they get a Naples Gulf Coast team that operates a spread offense with quarterback Kaden Frost (1,686 yards, 15 touchdowns, five interceptions).

That challenge is a key matchup this Friday. But the secondary has met each challenge thus far in an unbeaten regular season.

Factors for that include each player having spent time as a wide receiver in the past, so they understand route running -- the group uses hand signals to call out plays the opposing offense is going to run, and the coverage schemes aren't complex.

"Some coaches do man (coverage), they do off-man, they do cover-three, cover-two," Bradley said. "We're pretty consistent in what we do."

Bolstering the group's explosion in the takeaway game is a defensive line that pressures quarterbacks into quick and, often, poor decisions.

"Every defense doesn't stop everything," said Gulf Coast head coach Pete Fominaya, whose team set a program-record with seven wins this year. "Defenses have to be able to take something away, but give something up. So we're going to try to see if we can find some areas where we can get some success and move the ball down the field."

For the Sharks, Fominaya said the key is the first half.

"You have to weather the first half with them," he said. "They've blown most teams out in the first half. I can tell that they've had running clocks and it's tough to score points against them."

That difficulty reads 81 points allowed in 10 games, while tallying 25 takeaways with 20 interceptions.

It's been a key in running out a perfect regular season for the second straight year that's led to a No. 2 ranking in Class 7A and a home game to open the postseason.

"It starts with stopping the run," Bradley said. "Some teams can throw it when they want to, but can they throw it when they don't want to? Like a third-and-eight. That's a credit to our D-Line and our linebackers. And our linebackers do a great job of dropping with depth, and they get into a lot of windows that then force high throws to our DBs."

This story was originally published November 12, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Braden River's secondary faces spread offense challenge in playoff opener ."