JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – After coming to Raines from its biggest rival, Timothy Cole has embraced the Vikings culture and in turn been embraced by the school’s students and fans and definitely his new teammates.
All that was even before Friday night.
Cole, the ex-Ribault quarterback, was a key component for the Vikings against a more recent rival — Bolles. Cole passed for 339 yards and three touchdowns, while the Raines defense smothered the host Bulldogs during a season-opening 32-23 victory in the Varsity 4 Game of the Week.
What better way to announce an arrival at a new school than to defeat a team that had driven Raines (1-0) out of the postseason the past two years?
“I feel the love here,” said Cole, who also led the team with 54 rushing yards. “It’s great to come out and beat Bolles on their own home turf. It’s been two years out of the playoffs (against the Bulldogs).
“At Raines, they ask for a quarterback who can run, a quarterback who can throw. I felt like I could come over and be the guy to help them win a state championship.”
That will win over the locker room every time. But even when he was on archrival Ribault, many of his current teammates had respect for him. Senior defensive lineman Jyon Simon, a Super 16 recruit who will head to Rutgers after the football season, always has embraced Cole as a Raines guy.
“Ever since he was at Ribault, he was my little brother,” said Simon, who had a sack and a tackle for loss. “When he transferred, he was mine. He deserved to go to school here. He deserves a chance at a university. He’s been a Raines guy since his freshman year, but he didn’t come because he wanted to be loyal to (his family).”
Cole seemed like the perfect Raines guy against Bolles (0-1). He spread the ball around, with four different Raines receivers hauling in 50-plus receiving yards, led by A’dron Walker, who had 100 receiving yards and a pair of touchdowns.
Cole had 252 yards passing and two touchdowns at the half, including spinning out of a sack attempt in the second quarter, having the pass deflected but hauled in the corner of the end zone by Ziyon Butler for a touchdown. That gave the Vikings a 12-7 lead.
Midway through the third quarter, while leading Raines on a scoring drive for a go-ahead touchdown, Cole had a leg cramp that drove him out for more than a series. But Ta’darius Washington, a Trinity transfer, finished the drive with the second of his two touchdown runs for a 26-20 lead.
That gave the Vikings the lead for good against a team that had won four in a row against them, three in the playoffs, since Raines last defeated Bolles in the 2015 postseason.
“This is an amazing feeling,” Simon said. “It took two long years. We got it done. It’s just a great feeling to clear a milestone like that.”
Simon and his defensive teammates get an equal share of the credit, praised by Cole for the field position they handed to him. The Vikings’ 14 drives started, on average, just past their 43-yard line. They only had one drive begin inside the 23, and that one, which began on the 4, didn’t end until an interception in the end zone by Bolles.
But the Bulldogs had trouble doing anything with the ball, aside from an 11-play touchdown drive in the first quarter. Bolles was stopped for a loss or no gain on 12 of its 30 rushes and only gained one or two yards on four more attempts, meaning more than half of the Bulldogs rushing attempts went for two yards or fewer.
Bolles managed only 167 total yards as, in addition to Simon, Troy Butler added two tackles for loss while King Massey and Cameron Washington tacked on sacks.
“The D-line has gotta eat,” Simon said. “The D-line was going to win this game. It was just a matter of executing.”
The result could have been far worse for Bolles if not for a few offensive and special teams miscues. Simeon Caldwell spiked down a field goal attempt, which Jalen Ross scooped up and returned for 76 yards and a touchdown for the Bulldogs. A kick return to the Raines 35 set up another touchdown for Bolles and a high snap that was lost when Cole was out with his leg cramp led to a Bulldogs field goal.
But it didn’t matter. Cole was too much to handle and the Raines defense was almost unbreakable.
That led to a bit of a bitter postgame. A social media post that insulted Raines was on the minds of some of the players and coaches after the game, as Vikings players spilled across the field and let the Bolles faithful know how they felt about that. The teams were separated and there was no handshake line.
But that noise didn’t matter to some of the players.
“People say high school goes by fast, but man it went by fast,” Simon said. “It’s an amazing feeling to see how much I’ve grown. I’m just trying to take it in. I just want to enjoy this all.”
(3) Raines 32, (4) Bolles 23
Raines, 6, 6, 14, 6 — 32
Bolles, 7, 6, 10, 0 — 23
R – A’dron Walker 14 pass from Timothy Cole (kick failed)
B – Corbyn Fordham 4 pass from Ethan Drumm (Langston Florence kick)
R – Ziyon Butler 11 pass from Cole (run failed)
B – Jalen Ross 76 blocked kick return (kick failed)
R – Ta’darius Washington 9 run (Tony Williams run)
B – Naeem Burroughs 29 pass from Drumm (Florence kick)
R – Washington 19 run (run failed)
B – Florence 24 FG
R – Walker 19 pass from Cole (run failed)
Category: R — B
First downs: 23 — 9
Rushes-yards: 33-109 — 30-69
Passing: 339 — 98
Comp-Att-Int: 22-34-2 — 9-21-0
Fumbles-lost: 1-1 2-0
Penalties-Yards: 7-65 — 6-67
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING — R: Cole 9-54, Washington 8-38, Bernard Brown 5-33, Malik Morrison 1-6, Jacari Maddox 1-2, Jamarcus Giscombe 1-1, Curtis Asberry 4-0, Team 4-(-25). B: Emmett Grzebin 21-71, Tyrone Neal 3-3, Xander Edwards 1-(-2), Drumm 5-(3).
PASSING — R: Cole 22-34-2-339. B: Drumm 9-21-0-98.
RECEIVING — R: Walker 8-100, Kaleb Lampkins 2-66, Giscombe 3-58, Butler 5-56, Andreus Cox 1-22, Asberry 1-13, Washington 1-12, Exavior Sherrod 1-12. B: Chase Collier 2-47, Burroughs 3-43, Fordham 2-3, Grzebin 1-3, Neal 1-2.