After late-season benching, Palmetto’s QB bounces back to lead comeback win vs. Edison
All season long, Palmetto has waited for Kevin Smith to play to the potential the Panthers know he has. The senior has been starting at quarterback since he was a sophomore, and his cannon arm and 6-foot-2, 195-pound frame helped him land a scholarship offer from the Arizona State Sun Devils last year. The Panthers honored him as part of their pregame senior-day festivities at Tropical Park and then, for the first time all season, they left him on the bench to start the game.
“I kind of played bad last week, so they kind of sat me,” Smith said, sheepishly. “Coach told me to just keep my head, ‘Don’t get down because we’re going to need you at some point.’”
His time came late in the second quarter after Palmetto went three-and-out on each of its first three drives against Edison and needed to find some sort of spark on offense. He led the Panthers to a couple first downs before halftime and then finally delivered touchdowns in the second half to steer Palmetto to a come-from-behind 14-6 win against the Red Raiders in Miami.
Smith launched an 81-yard touchdown pass to star wide receiver Bobby Golden to give the Panthers (7-2) a 7-3 lead with 6:59 left in the second quarter and they never trailed again. The star quarterback guided one more nine-play, 87-yard touchdown drive in the fourth quarter to push Palmetto’s lead to 14-6 and the Panthers’ defense shut out Edison (6-4) the rest of the way to close out the regular season with a victory.
Smith finished 8 of 14 for 184 yards and one touchdown, which was all Palmetto needed to win a defensive struggle on the final Friday of the regular season.
On defense, star athlete Mike Jackson grabbed three interceptions in the first half, including one in the red zone, and helped keep the Red Raiders out of the end zone entirely by holding star wide receiver Nathaniel Joseph, who’s already orally committed to the Clemson Tigers as a junior, to just six catches for 52 yards.
On offense, Smith helped put together two big plays — the 81-yard touchdown pass to Golden and a 62-yard completion to Jackson in the fourth — and turned both into touchdowns.
“We have explosive potential,” Jackson said.
First, the Panthers just needed to survive the first half.
Edison opened with an eight-play, 54-yard drive to take a 3-0 lead on a short field goal by kicker Derek Fletes. Palmetto went three-and-out.
The Red Raiders’ next drive went just one play, as Jackson hauled in a deflected pass for his first interception. The Panthers went three-and-out.
Once again, Palmetto’s defense held and forced a punt. The Panthers, again, went three-and-out and gave Edison possession at midfield.
It was the Red Raiders’ best chance for a multi-score lead and they got as close as the Panthers’ 8-yard line before a penalty backed them up to the 19. Kevin Wilson went for the end zone and Jackson picked off the Edison quarterback at the 3 for his second interception.
Finally, Palmetto went back to Smith at quarterback and Jackson made one more interception with 2:27 left in the half to keep the Red Raiders’ lead to 3-0 at halftime despite just 17 total yards for the Panthers.
“That was our biggest goal,” Palmetto coach Mike Manasco said, “just staying in the game in the first half.”
After one more three-and-out to start the second half, the Panthers started their second drive of the third quarter at their own 1. A pair of runs pushed them out of their own end zone and Smith delivered the big throw Palmetto knows he’s capable of.
“We’ve been trying to connect on that play the whole entire game, pretty much,” Golden said
Edison, which got three points out of three trips inside the 30 in the first half, again stalled out inside the 10 in the third quarter and settled for another field goal to cut the Panthers’ lead to 7-6, then got into the red zone one more time in the fourth quarter before missing a 43-yard field goal while down 14-6. Palmetto held the Red Raiders to 118 yards in the second half and sacked Edison quarterback Hezekiah “Champ” Harris three times in the Red Raiders’ final six offensive plays to kill two potential game-winning drives.
Palmetto doesn’t need Smith to be a superstar to make another run in the playoffs. It just needs him to do what he did Friday.
“We know if we can put a couple drives together and score some points,” Smith said, “then our defense can take care of the rest.”
Said Manasco: “This is a great time for that second half to pop off the way that it did.”
This story was originally published November 5, 2021 at 9:06 PM.
