Each week we’ll go around the coverage area and give you a football player and/or coach quotes following the games. Here are newspaper quotes from Week #5 action.
St. Augustine coach Joey Wiles following the Yellow Jackets’ 24-17 overtime win against Bartram Trail (St. Johns)
“What an unbelievable game. It felt like two heavyweights, like Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali just trading punches. Two great programs that do things the right way, just awesome to watch.” – Florida Times-Union
First Coast (Jacksonville) coach Marty Lee on the Bucs’ 1-3 start
“There’s only a few ballgames we need to win, that’s our district games. Apopka last year was 6-4 [in the regular season] and comes back and wins the state championship. I’m not saying we’re Apopka, I’m just saying you win the ones you need to. We’ve got to come back and just get better and better.” – Florida Times-Union
Bolles (Jacksonville) DB Ahman Ross following the Bulldogs’ 33-15 win at 8A Deerfield Beach
“We’re not driving five hours for no reason. We came down here, executed, did what we did and played some Bolles football.” – Florida Times-Union
Forest (Ocala) coach Skip Austin following the Wildcats first win against Eastside (Gainesville) since 1988
“We haven’t been 4-1 in a while. It feels good.” Ocala Star-Banner
Dunnellon coach Price Harris following the unbeaten Tigers (5-0) win against South Lake (Groveland)
“I liked how we grinded it out and ate up the clock late. When you do that, you show toughness and heart, and it shows your offensive line can get things done. The explosive plays are great, but when it gets down to it, if you can control the ball when you need to, that is huge.” – Ocala Star-Banner
Buchholz (Gainesville) coach Mark Whittemore following the Bobcats 33-32 last-minute win against Vanguard (Ocala)
“There were big plays by both teams, us in the first quarter and they storm back in the second quarter, then it kind of evens out. They had some big strikes down the field. We weathered the storm. There at the end with some big turnovers, that was massive. Jay Godwin (defensive coordinator) has been preaching if we give up a score, let’s come after the ball. They did a great job emphasizing that. That was the tale of the tape right there.” Gainesville Sun
P.K. Yonge (Gainesville) coach Kent Johnson on his former player, Cornelius Ingram, who is now the head coach at Hawthorne. The Blue Wave blocked an extra point to win, 21-20, at home
“I could hear him hollering at his guys about making mistakes. We made a lot of mistakes. We made plays, they made plays. We just happened to make one more at the right time.” – Gainesville Sun
Trenton coach Andrew Thomas after the Tigers routed Dixie County (Cross City), 54-10, and allowed just four rushing yards in the game
“Our starting defense really dominated again. We’re just trying to get better every week and this was the first step in making a statement to our district about what we plan to do this year.” – Gainesville Sun
