The Shelbyville Central Golden Eagles went on the road and found a way to eke out a nailbiter against the Coffee County Red Raiders, after Stephen Bobo found his brother, William Bobo, down the right sideline for a 64-yard touchdown with 2:17 left to take the lead for good, 32-28, on Thursday night.

“We had to stay the course. In moments like that you have to show grit, you have to show perseverance, you have to show those things that were learned in the offseason as habits, and that is what kept coming,” SCHS Head Coach Jud Dryden said postgame.

Coffee County’s defense came in focused on shutting down Shelbyville’s star running back, Robert Bailey, from the jump with the intent of forcing sophomore quarterback, Stephen Bobo, to have to win the game by throwing the ball. After not throwing for more than 100 yards in either of the Golden Eagles’ first two contests, Bobo delivered when it mattered most, both through the air on offense and on special teams. 

“We knew that coming in, so there were some adjustments in the gameplan that we made, and so we were pretty excited and happy to see it all come out and play the way we wanted it to,” Dryden said about the Red Raiders making it tough to run the football.

The fourth quarter alone saw three lead changes, and neither team held a double-digit lead at any point in the game.

The Golden Eagles started the fourth quarter with an 80-yard TD march, highlighted by an 18-yard picture-perfect fade down the right sideline from Bobo to Labron Ransom to get the visitors to the two-yard line. Bobo ran it in on the QB keeper on the ensuing play to give Shelbyville a 25-21 lead with just under nine minutes left.

Coffee County would not go down without a fight, as Deontae Short got open deep for a 39-yard gain to kick-off the ensuing possession. Sophomore QB Kaysen Lowery found Kane Dixon for 22 more yards to get down to the red zone at the 19-yard line, but then the Shelbyville defense bowed up. On 4th-and-7, William Bobo broke up a pass intended for Short on the left sideline to force the turnover-on-downs with less than five minutes to go.

However, Stephen Bobo followed this up with a third-down interception thrown at Austin Green to give the Raiders new life after the lefty rolled right and tried to throw back across his body in the middle of the field with 4:33 left in the game. 

“Yea, just a sophomore mistake,” Dryden said about Bobo’s INT. “The nice thing is you learn from it, and the mistakes he’s made through game one, game two, and game three, he’s not been repeating. There’s a good chance we never see that mistake from him again, but in order to learn from a mistake you have to make it first, and that’s part of that growth process. We’re going to be okay, and he’s going to be a dang good quarterback for us.”

With the ball 33 yards away from the end zone, Coffee County would find a way to punch it in this time on a 13-yard TD run by Short on a sweet counter play to retake the lead, 28-25, with 2:36 left.

Shelbyville took over at their own 36 to start the next possession, and the Golden Eagles seemed to catch Coffee County by surprise when Bobo took the snap and launched the ball deep to his older brother, William, who was in one-on-one coverage deep down the field. Bobo worked his way back to the football, and after he broke the tackle attempt, he waltzed into the end zone all alone to give the Golden Eagles the lead for good, 32-28, with just over two minutes to go. 

“They would make a great play, then we would make a great play,” Dryden said. “They’d make plays then we’d make plays, and that’s just how this game works. When you have a good football team, a well-coached football team, that is so good on defense, you’ve got to manufacture things, and that’s where the perseverance to continue to fight for it and not give up on it is important.”

Coffee County almost found an immediate response when Short got open deep behind the Golden Eagles’ secondary, but he dropped the first-down pass for a surefire walk-in touchdown. The hosts could not recover to pick up the first down, and Shelbyville forced a turnover-on-downs with 1:29 left and kneeled the clock out.

One of the biggest takeaways from week three is the fact that Shelbyville has weapons on the outside, and as Stephen Bobo gets more reps under his belt in his first year as the starting quarterback, the Golden Eagles will continue to become even more dangerous offensively.

“Obviously people can’t just line up in man across the board on us and stop the run, they’re going to have to be aware of what we have on the outside, and as Stephen [Bobo] gets better at throwing the football, that just opens up everything else,” Dryden concluded. “We are slowly but steadily becoming more than one-dimensional in our playcalling and our gameplanning, so that’s exciting to see too because we’ll have to have that if we’re going to win this region.”

The game seemed to fly by in the first half with the visitors taking the opening kickoff and driving down inside the Coffee County 10-yard line, they had to settle for a 24-yard field goal by Ben Betzelberger. After Coffee County methodically drove down the field, they capped off a nearly 7-minute drive with a 4-yard TD run by Caiden Martin to take the 7-3 lead with 16 seconds left in the first quarter.

On the ensuing kickoff, Stephen Bobo electrified the entire visiting side of the field with a 90+ yard kickoff return for a TD to retake the lead at 9-7 to close the quarter. 

The Red Raiders found themselves facing 3rd-and-18 in Golden Eagle’s territory on their next drive, and after an Eli Prince interception, Robert Bailey found some rare daylight to run. A 21-yard scamper put Shelbyville on the Coffee County 40-yard line, and then a 13-yard run on 3rd-and-4 moved Shelbyville to the 23-yard line. The drive stalled there, but after another Betzleberger field goal, Shelbyville extended their lead to 12-7 with 3:10 left in the opening half.

However, Short would take the ensuing kickoff back for a touchdown of his own to match Bobo’s from earlier to give Coffee County the 14-12 lead they took into the second half. 

The Red Raiders would take their largest lead of the game at 21-12 after their opening drive of the second half, but after another lengthy Bobo return got the Eagles down to the CC 22-yard line, the visitors had to settle for another field goal. After a false start pushed the field goal back to nearly a 50-yard try, the kick glanced off the left upright and give Coffee County the ball back at their own 20-yard line with 5:53 left in the third quarter.

After struggling with the hosts offensive attack for much of the night, the Shelbyville defense seemed to come alive with their team’s back against the wall. They forced an intentional grounding on second down, forcing a 3rd-and-26 at Coffee County’s own 4-yard line. After a high snap over the punter’s head went into the end zone, the Golden Eagles found their shift in momentum when Nate Zimmerman fell on the loose ball in the end zone to cut the lead to 21-18. The Shelbyville defense would get another stop on the very next drive to send the game into the scintillating fourth quarter, leading to the Golden Eagles’ second win of the season.

Coffee County falls to 2-1 on the year.

Shelbyville Central improves to 2-1 on the season, and will open Region play against Columbia Central at the Eagles’ Nest on Friday night, LIVE on WLIJ 98.7 starting at 6:45 p.m.