Central is always at its best come playoff time. Now it’s time to finish off a three-peat
Miami Central is not used to being 0-2, so Roland Smith was interested to see how his team would respond after it lost its first two games of the season.
The first game was, frankly, a beatdown, with Central losing by 23 points to St. John Bosco in Bellflower, California. Its second was frustrating, with the Rockets only losing to Las Vegas’ Bishop Gorman when their kicker slipped on the turf as he attempted a game-winning field goal in Naples.
“Our kids was frustrated,” Smith said, “and they went back and they listened to the coaches, and we cleaned up a lot of our mistakes that we made in our first two games. And we’ve been rolling ever since.”
The 11 games since have been what Central (11-2) is used to. The Rockets won 10 of their next 11 games by at least 13 points, played with a running clock in seven of them, and won their four playoff games by an average of 28.8 points. Their only close win came against arch rival Northwestern in October and they came back four weeks later to beat the Bulls by 46 in the inaugural Greater Miami Athletic Conference championship.
Central began the season with national championship aspirations and those vanished quickly. Instead, the Rockets will have to settle for a shot at a third straight state title — and Miami-Dade County record eighth overall — when they face Merritt Island on Friday at 1 p.m. in the Class 5A championship at DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale.
“It’s just playing football,” said star defensive lineman Rueben Bain.
For Central, the state title game has seldom been daunting. The Rockets have played in eight title games, including one vacated for use of an ineligible player in 2011, and won seven, all by double digits. In 2019, Central ended a three-year championship drought by beating Pensacola Escambia by 35 in the Class 6A championship. In 2020, the Rockets won the 6A title again and even more convincingly, routing Lake Minneola by 46.
The Mustangs (13-1) have played much closer games throughout their playoff run and just barely beat Sebring, 12-10, in the 5A semifinals Dec. 3. Central understands the expectation is it will handle Merritt Island because of the way it tends to get better as the season goes on. The Rockets embrace those lofty expectations.
“That’s what we try to do,” Smith said. “Myself and the coaching staff, we do a tremendous job of looking at the details and what we’re doing wrong instead of what we’re doing right because those are the things that’s holding us back. We always evaluate ourselves, and we always go back and look at what our kids did wrong, so when we come out the week after that we can play a lot better.”
Those two season-opening losses were the perfect chance for Smith to get Central to fully buy in.
The Rockets lost quarterback Keyone Jenkins to a finger injury in the opener and rolled with Dyllan Tulloch for most of the season. Their defense knew they had to be close to perfect to make life easy on their backup quarterback and the offensive supporting cast stepped up around Tulloch, too. Central’s only close game — the three-point win against Northwestern in October — was mostly close because of four turnovers and the inherent wackiness of the annual rivalry game.
The Rockets are allowing only 6.6 points per game this season with Bain and star linebacker Wesley Bissainthe, who signed a national letter of intent with the Miami Hurricanes on Wednesday, leading the way.
Bissainthe, a classic three-down linebacker, is the senior leader of the unit, a two-time first-team all-county selection by the Miami Herald already, and the winner of the Warren Henry Award as the best player in Dade County.
Bain, only a junior, is shaping up as one of South Florida’s best players for the Class of 2023 with 27 sacks this season to break the school record.
On Wednesday, Smith took the microphone inside the auditorium at Miami Central Senior High School to talk about his seniors signing their national letters of intent. He mentioned how Bissainthe already has two state titles and how he was “probably going to be a three-time state champion.”
He paused for an applause break.
“That’s what I said,” Smith repeated, “a three-time state champion.”
The Rockets are confident right now. They’ve earned the right to be.
