Lee-Scott decided to defend Reeltown interestingly last Friday.
The Rebels rush, on average, for over 250 rushing yards per game this season with sophomore Traylen Roberts accounting for 111.3 a game himself. However, the Warriors decided to put more emphasis on defending against the pass. Roberts made them pay for that decision, rushing for 223 yards and one touchdown in a massive win earning him the Outlook Player of the Week.
“We knew we wanted to establish the run early and were expecting some things to maybe change throughout the game, but we started with it and it continued to work,” Reeltown coach Matt Johnson said. “Traylen was just so patient with his runs early on in the game. The offense as a whole, just really blocked extremely well, but Traylen was extremely patient. He had great vision. He ran very physical with a purpose and it was just big chunks.”
Roberts averaged eight yards per carry against Lee-Scott with his longest coming on a 62-yard scamper.
He is a massive standout for the Rebels on the offensive side of the ball and only just as a sophomore. Roberts was a breakout candidate for the offense based on his performance last year in the playoffs for the Rebels as a freshman behind standout running back Arthur Woods. Although he was not the lead back, Roberts showcased his ability to be a bellcow back.
“Once we got into the playoffs last year, we're playing some really good opponents and Arthur played both sides of the football and defense. Traylen really had to take on a much bigger role in the playoffs last year,” Johnson said. “Heck, I think he ended up rushing for like, 300-400 yards in the playoffs for us last year, and had some really key runs in the state championship game against Fyffe last year. We knew what we had with Traylen coming back, he had a great offseason, worked extremely hard in the weight room and is really just coming to his own.”
Now as the feature back, Roberts has rushed for 1,113 yards and nine touchdowns in his first season as the true starter. Even though there are other prominent players on Reeltown’s roster, Robert is just one of the few young players that have separated themselves as game-changers for the team.
“We have a lot of veterans in a lot of places but we've got Traylen as a sophomore, Devin Bragg's a junior, Andre Campbell is a junior at full-back and JaMarkius (Smith) is a sophomore,” Johnson said. “There's still a lot of young talent that is going to be around for a while and for them to take on these roles at such a young age and have success doing it is a testament to their work and what it means to them in this program, but it's also a testament to those older guys who are veterans, who have led them and kind of shown them the ropes as well.”
The playoffs start for Reeltown this week against Houston County, Roberts' success on the ground will again be a key for the offense to make a deep postseason run. The offense will need him to continue at the pace he’s at if it wants to make it back to the state championship.