Vandegrift vs Round Rock: In-Depth Look at Both Teams

Both Vandegrift and Round Rock come into this matchup, at 7 p.m. on Friday at Dragon Stadium, with winning records. Vandegrift is 6-1 and 5-0 in district play while Round Rock is 6-2 and 4-1 in district play. Both teams have talent who can turn the tide of this game and it is important to look at each aspect of both teams. Firstly, starting at the quarterback position, Vandegrift presents itself as much more of a passing team while Round Rock leans towards its rushing attack. Senior quarterback <strong>Ryan Back</strong> leads the Vipers and has 1,164 passing yards with 16 touchdowns and four interceptions. Last week was not one of Back's best performances, as he was held to 165 passing yards and had just one rushing touchdown against Hutto. However, in the week before that against Westwood, Back threw for 228 yards and three touchdowns, meaning he can always be a big passing threat although there has been a question of consistency in the past few weeks. Still, Back remains a threat, but will have to bring his A-game against a tough opponent in Round Rock. On the flip side, senior quarterback <strong>Seth Ford</strong> leads the Dragons and provides more of a mobile quarterback type of game. This season, he has 767 passing yards and five touchdowns with two interceptions but has rushed for 430 yards and six touchdowns. Ford is a threat both through the air and on the ground and the Vipers have done okay to handle the mobile quarterbacks as the Vandegrift defense held Cedar Park to 21 points, still losing the contest. The question is how effective will be the Vipers' defense against Ford as Vandegrift can not slack against this Round Rock offense. A huge challenge Vandegrift faces in this match is senior running back <strong>Israel Morgan</strong>, who has steamrolled through every opposing team this season. Morgan has 1,191 rushing yards and 17 touchdowns this season and has rushed for over 100 yards in every game this season. Morgan is an elite running back, and Vandegrift will have to do its best to stop him, but while trying to stop Morgan, the Vipers will still have to look for Ford, and this creates possibly the biggest disadvantage for the Vipers in this game. The biggest advantage for Vandegrift is its receiving corps, which boasts receivers such as senior <strong>Taylor Dummar</strong>, senior running back <strong>Bowen Lewis</strong> and junior <strong>Graylan Spring</strong>. Dummar leads in receiving yards for the team with 421, but Lewis leads with five receiving touchdowns. Much like Morgan, Lewis provides the biggest threat to the Dragons as he has also rushed for 453 yards and four touchdowns. Lewis has gotten it done both receiving and rushing and if one aspect of his game is lacking, the other side is usually still successful. Not quite Back's favorite target, Lewis still gets the job done, accounting for 96 yards and two touchdowns against Westwood a couple of weeks ago. Although, the leading rusher for the Vipers is junior <strong>Ryan Sheppard</strong>, who has rushed for 599 yards and four touchdowns. So, Round Rock will have two running backs to account for. Defensively, Vandegrift has a slight advantage when it comes to rushing the passer. Senior defensive lineman <strong>Rickey Sweeney</strong> leads the Vipers with five sacks on the season. Close behind him is junior defensive lineman <strong>Tucker Harrison</strong> with four sacks, senior defensive back <strong>Ty Jordan</strong> with three sacks and senior <strong>Austin Skoglund</strong> with three sacks. Jordan also poses a threat in the secondary, having three interceptions this season and a forced fumble. Skoglund also leads with 65 total tackles, averaging 9.3 tackles per game and nine tackles for a loss. Jordan has 52 total tackles this season and Sweeney has 50, making the Viper defense a disruptive force and up to the challenge of facing Morgan and Ford. On the opposite side for the Dragons, junior defensive lineman <strong>Isaac Urquidi</strong> leads the team with four sacks this season while junior defensive lineman <strong>Travien Brown</strong> has three sacks and senior defensive lineman <strong>Luke Dodds</strong> has two. Round Rock has two disruptive defensive backs in senior <strong>Carson Otworth</strong> and senior <strong>Daveyon Finch</strong>, who both have three interceptions this season. Close behind is sophomore <strong>Jalen Gilbert</strong>, who has two. Both defenses and offenses are stacked in different ways and this makes for Friday's game to be a tough one for both teams to get a win. The key to victory is for these teams to fill in the weaknesses and capitalize on the strengths before the other team does it first.