Wadley continues hot start with rout of Talladega County Central

Wadley’s scorching hot start to the 2017 season continued Friday as the Bulldogs plowed Talladega County Central 53-6.

Through three games Wadley is unbeaten and has outscored its opponents 162-13.

There hasn’t been a consistent formula to Wadley’s success, unless you consider something different every week to be a formula in itself.

The team spread the wealth in its season opener against Woodland as seven different players scored touchdowns. Last week against Appalachian Coby Nunn led the way with four rushing touchdowns.

Against TCC it was Trevor Cameron’s turn.

Cameron rushed eight times for 127 yards and four touchdowns, all in the first half, to lead Wadley to a 12.7 yard-per-carry average as a team.

“The real good thing about it is it’s just not going to be one or two or even three carrying the load. We can have multiple people,” said Wadley head coach Ken Fordham. “It sort of gets it spread out and we can get different looks out of people and see how productive they are. Hopefully it can be multiple people that’s different each week. That’s sort of how we’ve done it, and it’s worked pretty good for us.”

That philosophy doesn’t just apply to the running backs, where Nunn finished with 57 yards on four carries and Caden Messer continued his good work with 88 yards on six carries.

The overflow of scoring opportunities has trickled down to players like Chris Hodges. Hodges has been a staple on the line of scrimmage for the Bulldogs on both offense and defense the past two seasons, but now he’s carving a spot for himself as a tight end on the offense. He caught one of Connor Fordham’s two completions Friday for a 35-yard touchdown. It was Hodges’ second catch, and second touchdown, of the season.

“He’s wanted to do it all along,” coach Fordham said. “The only problem was we didn’t have tackles that we could fill in for him that could be as productive as what he was. Now we’ve got a little bit of depth, and we can do it.”

It’s another added dimension to this offense that already has so many ways to score. Wadley scored 53 points in two quarters against TCC, and that was without leading receiver Quae Drake catching a single ball.

Fullback JaMichael Angel had a 3-yard touchdown run on his only carry of the game, and Sebastian Owens returned a fumble recovery 13 yards for a touchdown to round out Wadley’s points production.

It was a solid all-around performance for the Bulldogs.

“We looked pretty good, like a football team, and that’s what you want as a coaching staff to have that atmosphere that everybody’s doing their part, and they’re contributing and they fell good about what they’re doing when they contribute. That’s a big thing,” Fordham said.

Wadley extended its regular season winning streak to 16 games dating back to the halfway point of the 2015 season. The Bulldogs have also won 16 straight region games, going back to 2014.