Almost every coach in America loves to play the underdog card, no matter how ridiculous it might seem to everyone else. Lou Holtz used to talk about how his top-ranked Notre Dame teams would have to play the game of their lives to get past lowly Purdue.
For years, Center Grove coach Eric Moore has done the same, casting his squads as the plucky, less talented Cinderellas just trying to stay afloat in one of the best high school football conferences in America. It’s a big reason why he long preferred to have the Trojans wearing their road whites in the postseason.
But this year, not even Moore can pretend that his team isn’t the obvious Goliath.
Clearly anointed as the state’s number one team from the time last season ended, Center Grove has looked every bit the part while vaporizing almost everything in its path on the way to a 13-0 record. When they take the field tonight against second-ranked Westfield in the Class 6A state championship game, the Trojans won’t simply be trying to grab the title that just eluded their grasp a year ago. They’ll also be making a closing argument in their case as perhaps the greatest team in Indiana high school history.
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Moore laughed when that topic of conversation came up this week, saying only that “it’s cool that people have talked about that.” And it’s understandable that he would sidestep the topic when his squad still has one more game to play. But he’s also not completely oblivious to how special this Center Grove team is — which is partially why he’s changed course this year and put the Trojans in their home reds tonight against the Shamrocks.
“In red, we’ve come out and we’ve been harder, faster, quicker, stronger,” Moore said. “It’s just been great when we’ve had our red on.”
Indeed, Center Grove was particularly dominant wearing red at home in 2020, shutting out five of its eight opponents and racking up a cumulative 341-34 scoring margin.
That’s not just great. That’s <em>historically</em> great.
Are this year’s Trojans <em>the</em> <em>greatest</em>, though? Provided they finish out their tour de force with another convincing victory tonight, they’ve got to at least be in the discussion.
Other teams have compiled larger overall margins of victory; the 2006 Warren Central team, for example, outscored its opponents 722-124 (plus-598) over 15 games. But those Warriors — and the dominant Ben Davis and Warren Central teams of 2017 and 2018, respectively — also played before the IHSAA instituted the mercy rule that puts a running clock in place when the margin in any game gets to 35 points.
Center Grove has managed to outscore its foes by 458 points (551 to 93) despite having a running clock in 10 of its 13 games. In four games, the Trojans had the requisite 35-point lead by halftime.
In spite of that, the Center Grove offense ranks third among 6A teams and 11th statewide with 42.38 points per game. The group has been ruthlessly efficient, putting up 74 touchdowns and five field goals while punting just 22 times and committing just seven turnovers.
It’s also been among the most balanced offenses in school history. The run game, as always, has been dominant, racking up 265 yards per game and more than six yards a carry, but the air attack has been just as effective. Junior quarterback Tayven Jackson has completed 63 percent of his passes for 1,635 yards and 15 scores while getting intercepted just three times. When Columbus North stacked the box in the sectional semifinal and dared Jackson to throw, he hit on 15 of 16 for 264 yards.
And when opponents aren’t dealing with a pick-your-poison offense, they’ve got to contend with a defense that has built a strong case as the best in the history of Indiana high school football.
The last unbeaten large-class state champion to allow fewer than 100 points over the course of a season was the 1995 Penn team, which yielded just 84 through its 14 wins en route to the 5A title. But the Kingsmen faced just one Indy-area team during that run, beating Carmel 28-14 in a semistate game; for much of the year, it was able to pad its numbers against largely inferior competition in the South Bend area. This year’s Center Grove team, by comparison, pitched five shutouts in nine games against MIC teams and also had nonconference games against perennial powers Cathedral and Decatur Central.
Through the first six weeks of the season, Center Grove’s starting offense had allowed as many touchdowns as the starting defense — one apiece. Of the 14 touchdowns the Trojans have allowed through their first 13 games, just eight have come against the starting defense.
And those numbers don’t even tell the full story.
Those stats don’t tell you that Carmel and North Central, both ranked among the top five teams in the state when they visited Center Grove in September, got the running-clock treatment. Neither was able to even <em>reach midfield</em>, much less score.
That overwhelming dominance, while largely powered by a wealth of talent — at least 11 Trojans have Division I college scholarship offers in pocket — has also been fueled by a desire to finish off a perfect postseason run after a late rally in last year’s title game fell just short against rival Carmel.
“It just left a bad taste in our mouth,” senior tight end Garrett Keith said. “We should have came out with the win there, and we didn’t, and now we have the chance to do it again. We’ve all been expected to do this, and I think it’s just time that we need to put the nail in the coffin and do it.”
As it has in all of its games this season, Center Grove enters tonight as a solid favorite. But the players aren’t taking anything for granted, especially after facing a surprisingly stiff challenge in the first half of last week’s semistate game at Ben Davis.
The Giants were deadlocked with the Trojans at halftime before the visitors owned the final 24 minutes for a 48-13 triumph.
“We just can’t come out flat,” junior defensive end James Schott said. “We can’t look over these other teams how we did against a couple of other teams like (Lawrence North), Ben Davis last week. We’ve just got to know that they’re there for a reason and they can win the game just as easily as we could.”
Moore had what he called an “intimate” discussion with his team at halftime of that Ben Davis game; the coach has been pretty good, he says, at bringing the players back to earth when needed, and he’s doing everything he can to keep them grounded going into tonight.
At the same time, he recognizes what a rare group it is, and his lone regret about this season is the timing of it — because of the pandemic, the community hasn’t been able to fully embrace the 2020 Trojans as closely as it could have in years past.
With 3,500 tickets available to Center Grove fans this evening, the final act will feel a little more like the real thing.
“They haven’t gotten nearly the attention they deserve,” Moore said, “because usually we have thousands and thousands of people at our games, and the crowds in the high school and the attention you get in the hallway and pep rallies — they haven’t gotten to enjoy any of that for being such a great team, so I do feel bad for them for that. So we’re just on a mission.”
Forty-eight minutes remain before it’s accomplished.
