Rare, effective passes made Byron's run game impossible to stop in title rout

DEKALB — Byron lines up like it's trying to cram a record number of people into a phone booth. Every play looks like a potential quarterback sneak, with eight players standing shoulder-to-shoulder to form a human wall for Byron’s deep stable of running backs.

It resembles a rugby scrum more than a football team lining up for a snap.

“We don’t see that on TV,” Byron coach Jeff Boyer said. “We don’t even really see that a lot in high school football any more.”

When teams do see it, it implies Byron will run the ball down their throat.

“It might be different than other teams, but we are good at what we do, and that’s why we do it,” quarterback Braden Smith said.

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Byron was so good at it that the Tigers ran 61 times Friday to beat Tolono Unity 35-7 in the Class 3A state football title game at NIU.

“If they saw something that worked, they were going to do it over and over again,” Tolono linebacker Grant Albaugh said. “They didn’t need to use their entire playbook. We just got run over because they used their feet more than we did.”

And also because Byron used the pass just enough.

Again.

Smith came in completing just over two passes per game.

“I couldn’t care less about being a star,” Smith said of taking a backseat to a host of running backs, who helped the 14-0 Tigers rush for 4,472 yards this season. “The running backs at Byron have always been known, and they’ve always been good, so they should be known. I just play my best and leave everything out there.”

Playing his best includes not letting rivals know which Byron running back has the ball. A photographer shooting Tolono Unity told a colleague he had 15 great photos of Byron runners without the ball. “I completely bought the fakes,” he said in the press room.

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Playing his best also means throwing for some of Byron’s biggest plays of the season. Smith threw a 10-yard TD pass with nine seconds left to beat Braidwood Reed-Custer 28-24 in the quarterfinals. Smith was also 3-for-3 for 36 yards and a TD in the final four minutes of the semifinals to help Byron rally with two late TDs for a stunning 15-14 victory over No. 1-ranked Elmhurst IC Catholic.

“Those were a little more nerve-wracking than normal, but big plays, big moments make the game more fun,” Smith said.

Friday’s biggest play may have been Smith’s 32-yard TD pass to Ethan Palzkill on Byron’s opening drive.

“A lot of teams think they can play us nine in the box, 10 in the box, and then we pull that out, and it’s almost always open,” Palzkill said. “They get lulled to sleep.”

After that’s happened once, it’s hard to ignore. You can't dismiss it as a fluke, not after Smith rifled a perfect pass 25 yards in the air to hit Palzkill in stride.

“This dude has a cannon,” Palzkill said of Smith, who is a star pitcher for the Tigers during baseball season. “If he was on a spread team, he would be an all-state quarterback.

“We keep him bottled up. Teams keep getting closer and closer to the line with each snap because they think they will stuff us at the line. So the second we (receivers) go out, they get confused. They think he is going to underthrow us, so they are not worried, but then they see him throw it 50 yards. I am sure it’s a shock when a running quarterback can throw a pass like that.”

Smith completed 3 of 5 passes for 64 yards. That was just enough to make the already difficult job of stopping Chandler Binkley (164 yards on 19 carries), Palzkill (78 yards on nine rushes) and Andrew Claunch (75 yards on 20 carries) nearly impossible. With all of them running out of a tightly bunched jumble.

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“In there that tight, you don’t know what’s going to come out of it,” Binkley said. “You’ve got two tight ends, two wingbacks and a fullback. You never know who is going to come out where.”

And while you may think they are going to run, Braden Smith’s strong right arm forces foes to also honor the pass.

“They’ve got great balance,” Tolono coach Scott Hamilton said. “Early on, they made plays that we couldn’t make. And when you fall behind to a team that’s going to grind you out like that, we had to get out of what we wanted to do a little bit.”

And Byron could do whatever it wanted. So much so that the Tigers nearly scored a touchdown every time they had the ball. Except for their final drive, when the Tigers ran the final 3 minutes and 15 seconds off the clock, Byron’s other drives either ended in touchdowns (five times) or were stopped inches short on fourth down (twice), including once at the goal line.

“I totally think we got at least one of those two, if not both,” Smith said.

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If so, Byron could have scored a TD on every single drive in winning its first state title since 1999 and second ever.

“That would have been awesome,” Smith said. “That would have been crazy.”

It was crazy enough as it was.

“Just a storybook postseason for Byron,” coach Boyer said.

Matt Trowbridge: mtrowbridge@rrstar.com; @matttrowbridge

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Long passes complement Byron's 373 yards rushing in state title game