ABERDEEN — Watching Aberdeen run offense can be a mind-numbing experience. The Tigers rarely pass. They run and run and run and just when you think they might pass, they run again. They don’t always break long gains, either, opting to move down the field in short increments — keeping opponents off the field for what feels like hours at a time.
“We feel like we have to establish the run,” Aberdeen coach Braden Driscoll said.
So when you want to understand the ending of the Tigers’ second game this season, the way they put the finishing touches on a 18-12 win over perennial powerhouse Declo, that’s all you need to know: They ran the ball.
To be sure, they racked up numbers that back their belief in the run: 44 carries for 296 yards and two touchdowns, which comes out to about six yards per carry. Brody Beck switched from quarterback to running back this season, but he carded 20 carries for 162 yards and a 58-yard score, which makes you wonder why he didn’t make that change sooner. Even quarterback Gage Driscoll, who completed 4 of his 5 passes, posted 58 yards on the ground.
What encouraged everyone in the orange and black laundry after the game, though, was the way they ran when they had to.
Midway through the fourth, when Gage Driscoll hit Nick Medel for a 15-yard touchdown pass, Aberdeen took an 18-6 lead. The Tigers’ defense had stifled the Hornets’ offense almost all night, so if the game felt out of reach, that’s because it mostly was. Except moments later, Declo matched it with its own touchdown pass, drawing within a score with a shade over three minutes to play.
So when Aberdeen returned to the field, two phrases pinged around Beck’s head like ping pong balls: First down, first down, first down. Five-yard gain, five-yard gain, five-yard gain. The Tigers didn’t need to score, not really. They just needed to run out the clock — to run the ball.
So they did. Beck logged a nine-yard carry, good for a first down, good for a win.
“He’s just powerful, and he’s got a good motor,” Driscoll said. “His drive is just incredible.”
Beck has a funny way of running. He’s fast, sure, but when he takes handoffs, he springs forward the way those wind-up cars do. Before you have a chance to check out Beck’s path, what holes he might have or what route he might choose, he’s already zipped upfield for four yards, five yards. It’s remarkable to watch. He doesn’t even appear to be laboring to do it.
Neither do any of the Tigers, which is their secret. They just run. To do that, they rely on a sturdy offensive line, which makes the entire operation possible. The team’s skill players are grateful for them. When he thought about why his group’s ground game worked so well, Beck waited approximately 0.5 seconds to answer.
“The line,” Beck said. “It’s all the line. The holes were huge.”
Which is why Aberdeen seldom needed to pass. Beck and Driscoll assumed many of their team’s running responsibilities, but they also sprinkled in runs for Hiatt Beck and Marshall Elliott, two upperclassmen who traffick more in speed. Hiatt Beck registered six carries for 46 yards and a touchdown and Elliott tallied five carries for 28 yards. They weren’t exactly featured backs, but they helped secure this Aberdeen win.
The weird part is that for as well as the Tigers ran the ball, they didn’t always take care of it. Aberdeen lost three fumbles on the night. The weirder part is that none were because of contact. The hosts just… lost it. One came on an exchange from Driscoll to Brody Beck, the latter of whom also coughed up one on his own, and Hiatt Beck muffed the opening kickoff of the second half.
Aberdeen walked out with a win, though, because it responded. Declo couldn’t turn a single one of those opportunities into points. Instead, when the Tigers returned to the field after a fumble, they looked a little more focused, a little more fired up.
“I take it (personally) because I fumbled that one,” Brody Beck said. “I wanted to do my best to get us the ball back.”
Beck and the Tigers did. In truth, they held the Hornets to their fewest points since last September. All they had to do was run the ball.