It was more of a coronation than it was a football game. There is a new king in the Class A private school ranks: Mount Paran Christian of Kennesaw.
The Eagles easily dispatched Eagle’s Landing Christian Academy (7-7), one of the most recent wearers of the crown, 49-7 to win the private school championship, Saturday morning at the Georgia Dome. The win gave Mt. Paran (14-0) its first state title and the first for a school located in Cobb County since Marietta won the Class AAA championship in 1967.
Mt. Paran, which began playing football just seven years ago, had been dominant all season with just one opponent – Region 6 rival Mount Pisgah Christian – coming within 14 points of the Eagles. En route to winning the title, Mt. Paran tossed aside two of the most dominant Class A programs in recent history in Aquinas and ELCA.
The Eagles dominated Aquinas, last year’s private school champion, in the semifinals (34-14), ending the Irish’s 26-game winning streak in front of their fans in Augusta. Aquinas is 43-8 since 2011. ELCA was 48-5 since 2010 coming into this season, and won the private school state title in 2012. But counting Mt. Paran’s 31-14 win over ELCA in the season opener in August, the Eagles have outscored ELCA and Aquinas by a combined score of 114-35 in three games.
“I knew the type of kids we needed talent wise in order to get it done, but I wasn’t sure if we could do it in seven years,” said Mt. Paran head coach, Mitch Jordan, who played at Georgia Tech and built the Eagle program from the ground up. “We had some of those kids walking the halls and we have been able to get them to buy in.”
Jordan has constructed the program around a tough, heady defense -- led up front by ends Jack Crone, a senior, and Allen Cater, a junior, and tackles Patrick Lee, a senior, and Silas Hicks, a junior -- and an old-school, yet explosive offense -- led by quarterback Jake Allen and running backs Dorian Walker and Emoni Williams, all seniors, and junior running back Taylor Trammell.
"It's really the old single wing, with a lot of gap-scheme blocking," Jordan said, "but we call it the shotgun double wing so our kids will think they play in a shotgun offense."
Saturday the Eagles held ELCA to just 182 yards total and eight first downs, only two in the first half, while rolling up 441 yards, 367 of which came on the ground.
"[Offensive line] coach [Kenny] Palmer keeps us motivated and prepared," said 6-9 senior offensive tackle Zach Strong, committed to Cornell. "All of our coaches do a great job of seeing things we can exploit and then preparing us to take advantage of it."
Saturday Mt. Paran, which averaged over 45 points per game this season, flexed its offensive muscles early and often. Two plays into the game the Eagles were up 7-0. Taking possession at their 31-yard line after the kickoff return and following an encroachment penalty on the Chargers before the first snap, senior Emoni Williams ran for 22 yards on the first play and Dorian Walker went 42 yards off tackle on the next play, outrunning the ELCA secondary to the end zone.
On the Charger’s opening possession, junior quarterback D.J. Hammond fumbled on the first play from scrimmage and Mt. Paran recovered at the ELCA 26 yard line. On the fifth play of the ensuing drive, senior quarterback Jake Allen did his best Johnny “Football” Manziel impression when he rolled to his right, stopped and then darted back around the left end for a 3-yard touchdown, which he punctuated with Manziel’s signature “get money” gesture.
“I don’t know why I did it,” Allen said. “I looked up and I was in the end zone and it just happened. Allen scored again on the first play of the third quarter, this time without the money gesture, on an 11-yard run to increase the Eagle lead to 35-0.
“It feels surreal,” Allen said of the win. “We’ve worked so hard. It’s just crazy.”
When asked if he saw some things in the first game that his team would be able to capitalize on in Saturday's rematch, Jordan said "absolutely not. I was scared to death.
"They had improved so much since then and I knew we had caught them early," Jordan said. "But [Saturday] we were able to get going early and the ball bounced our way."
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