AHSAA PLAYOFF PREVIEW: ACA's Hunt driven after mid-season injury

By TIM GAYLE

It’s almost as if Alabama Christian Academy has played two seasons this year, going 3-3 in the first part of the year before emerging from the loss to St. James with a 5-0 slate.

 The “first” Eagles were blown out by Catholic and suffered region losses to Trinity and St. James. The final game was played without senior quarterback Hayes Hunt, who was nursing an ankle sprain from the previous week’s game with Montgomery Academy.

“I don’t know how that game would have gone had he played, but there’s been something different about him since that game,” ACA coach Michael Summers said. “It lit a spark and a drive in him because when something’s taken away from you…

“He knows this is it. He’s had a drive, he’s had a leadership, he’s had a work ethic… which he’s always had, but there’s been a much different purpose, an intentionality to what he does.”

Since the loss to St. James, Hunt has completed 51 of 72 passes (70.8 percent) for 844 yards and 20 touchdowns, including three consecutive games with five touchdown passes. (In the other two, against Prattville Christian and Greensboro, the varsity players didn’t stay in the game long enough for him to throw five touchdown passes).

For the year, Hunt has 1,497 yards and 35 touchdowns, giving him 62 touchdown passes over the last two years despite losing three of his top receivers, D’Andre Snead, Garrett Weathers and tight end Trey Schlemmer, from a year ago.

But coaching logic dictated that ACA’s offensive philosophy should focus on its two senior tailbacks, Corey Landers and Otasowie Dion, while replacing three receivers and two linemen.

“After the first couple of games, we kind of reevaluated,” Summers said. “We’ve got two good running backs that are seniors but at the same time -- we would’ve thrown the ball more last year, but we had trouble with pass protection -- we’re a lot better with pass protection this year.

“Hayes is the smartest person out here and that includes the coaches. He’s extremely intelligent and he’s 6-foot-4, so he can see the field. He’s got a good arm and a little faster than people give him credit for. So after the first couple of games, we decided we needed to throw it more.”

After a 20-14 loss to Trinity, the Eagles slowly transformed to more of a passing attack, although no one would have noticed in a 62-14 win over Sumter Central and the next two games, Montgomery Academy and St. James, because of the injury suffered by Hunt in the second quarter of the Montgomery Academy game.

“I think after the Trinity game, we realized we were going to have to throw the ball more to beat some teams like them,” Hunt said. “Ever since the Sumter Central game, we’ve tried to ‘up’ the pass game and make sure we can throw the ball as well as we can run the ball so we can be hard to stop in both dimensions of the game.”

 Hunt sat out the St. James game, a 35-20 setback that cost his team a shot at the region title.

“It was tough,” he said. “That’s the first game I’ve ever missed, since my freshman year. It was definitely hard watching, knowing I could help, maybe change the outcome of the game. The week after that, I was definitely excited to get back out there. It’s just been fun, seeing what we can do, ever since then.”

Since his return to the lineup, Hunt and the ACA offense has averaged 51.6 points a game. While some of it may have to do with who they were playing, the Eagles look like a different team in the second half of the season.

“We’re the same people, obviously, but our offense has changed a good bit,” Hunt said. “I think we’re a lot more dynamic than when we played (Trinity in the third week of the season). We were very run-heavy at that point in the season and now you see the stats that our receivers are putting up and the amount of points we’re scoring. We’re a lot more efficient in the passing game than we were at the beginning of the season so that’s helped us a lot.

“Our offensive line has done a great job. We’ve always had big goals for this team and we believe that to reach those goals we just had to change some things. And we believed that going more to the passing game is one of those things we had to do to get to where we want to be.”

This week, ACA (8-3) will face a physical challenge from Pike County (8-3), a team that is only a handful of points away from being undefeated after dropping one-point decisions to Straughn (20-19), Opp (28-27) and Houston Academy (21-20). The Eagles, meanwhile, can tie a school record for the most wins by a senior class (32) with a win over Pike County in the second-round playoff game at Faulkner’s John Mark Stallings Field.  

 “Our goal is to get to 1-0 every week,” Hunt said. “(Defensive coordinator) Coach (Greg) Howard says every week our goal is to beat whoever we’re playing on Friday. So you go 1-0 and you add that up each week and we’ll get to where we want to be at the end of the year.”