The Davenport Bulldogs, playing without their starting quarterback, suffered their third defeat of the young football season last week, losing to Regent Prep 46-0.
The Bulldogs, after hosing their first three games, will hit the road for the first time this season as they travel to Yale Friday night. Davenport Coach John Greenfield said kickoff is at 7 p.m.
Greenfield said starting quarterback Chace Buchanan missed the contest with Regent Prep and he’s not sure when he will have him back.
The coach noted that starting defensive corner J.R. Mattheyer may be out for the season after suffering an injury last Friday night. “They are scheduling an MRI sometime in the future,” he stated.
Greenfield said of Regent Prep, “They just pretty well dominated us. They’re one of the top rated teams in the state in our class. They throw the ball really well and their linemen are good size and quick. They’re the best team we’ve played so far and maybe the best team we’ll play this year.”
“We moved the ball here and there but we couldn’t run on them,” he said of the Rams’ defense. “We could throw it a little bit,” he added.
Greenfield thinks Yale, “is not bad. They have good size, their linemen are aggressive and they try to mix it up, but they like mostly to run. Yale played OBA last week tough, even though they lost to them,” he ended.
With Buchanan out again, sophomore and backup Colt Metcalf handled the quarterbacking duties. He completed 11 of 26 pass attempts for 107 yards and was intercepted three times by the Rams defenders.
He rushed for five yards. The Bulldogs were held to a minus 2 yards rushing the ball.
Leading receiver for Davenport was Jackson Lane with 44 yards, followed by Aidan Elmore with 22, Trai Good-Strong with 21 and Riley Ethridge with 20.
Ethridge was the leading tackler with four solo stops and four assists. Aydan Stancell, Lane and Metcalf each had three tackle assists.
Regent Prep scored six touchdowns and had one field goal. The Davenport Bulldogs dropped their second contest of the season at home on Sep. 1, losing to Caddo 60-14.
The Bulldogs opened up a 6-0 lead in the first quarter, but gave up 38 points to Caddo in the second while scoring only eight themselves. They trailed 38-14 at intermission.
They gave up 22 more points in the third quarter while failing to score anymore themselves and the game was over at the end of three periods.
Davenport head coach John Greenfield said this week, “We got a lead after we recovered a fumble. In fact we had the ball most of the first quarter, but had a hard time playing defense.”
The Hall of Fame and veteran head mentor explained, “We put a new offense and defense in for Caddo which we’ll use for the remainder of the season, trying to do something that better matches our personnel. We think we’ll get better,” he noted.
Greenfield said the Bulldogs played pretty well the first half, “but fell apart the second half. We just didn’t cover well at all.”
Starting freshman quarterback Chace Buchanan, who had hurt his back in practice last week, only played until about midway through the first period and then had to leave the game. “He tried but just couldn’t make it,” the coach said.
Greenfield pointed out, “We don’t know the status of Chace for this week.”
Sophomore and backup quarterback Colt Metcalf came in and played the remainder of the game.
“He tried but hadn’t had the number of reps in practice,” he added.
Buchanan passed for 51 yards with 5 completions out of 7 attempts.
Metcalf was good on 12 of 26 passes for 130 yards but had five aerials intercepted.
Buchanan led Davenport rushers with 32 yards and a touchdown and Metcalf ran for 12 and a TD.