Archbishop Hoban silences the talk and learns lesson in respect in win over Akron East

AKRON, OHIO – Before the Archbishop Hoban Knights took the field on Saturday, they had heard the trash talk from Akron East players over the past week or so. After the 39-0 win over East, Hoban’s players heard about respect from their head coach.

Hoban, ranked No. 6 in the latest SBLive Ohio Power 25, jumped out to a 22-0 halftime lead with three touchdowns in the second quarter, as running back Caleb Jones started the barrage with a 27-yard touchdown, followed by a 13-yard touchdown run by quarterback Tylan Boykin. Then on the final Hoban possession of the first half, Boykin hit wide receiver Payton Cook for a 5-yard touchdown.

The Knights scored twice more on offense in the third quarter as Boykin found Parker Falkenstein for a 5-yard touchdown and freshman Brayton Feister scored on a 4-yard run.

Boykin completed all nine of his passes for 76 yards and two touchdowns, while Jones had 130 yards rushing on 14 carries and only played the first half.

“My coaches told me during the week, get it early,” Jones said. “And so I tried to do that for my team and we did it and the line blocked very well.”

The Hoban defense held East to under 30 yards of total offense in the game after the Dragons moved the ball pretty well on their first possession of the game.

“(East) came out with a great game plan,” Hoban head coach Tim Tyrrell said. “They were running zone read double option stuff and they haven't shown that all year. It took the first two series to kind of settle our kids down and kind of get assignments on it.”

But once the Hoban defense settled in, East found little traction offensively. In the second half, East had just two plays for positive yardage and also gave up a safety when the Hoban defense got three straight tackles for loss, including one on East running back Ziaire Stevens in the end zone.

It was the second week in a row that the Hoban first-team defense didn’t allow a score. Last week, Trinity Episcopal (Virginia) scored with 11 seconds left in the game to ruin the shutout. There was no such score for East on Saturday.

“We always strive for a shutout,” said Hoban defensive lineman Jordan Pritchard-Sewell, who had 1.5 sacks and three tackles for loss against East. 

There was a little extra fire in this game, as the two schools are just two miles apart and the players know one another. So leading up the game – and even during the game – there was plenty of trash talk.

And the Hoban players heard everything the East players said.

“We knew they were going to talk, we were expecting that,” Pritchard-Sewell said. “When we come out on the field, there’s no more time for talking. You have to show what you're actually about and you can't hide behind anything. You got to come out here and play and we just let it all out.”

But once the game was over, Tyrrell told his players to put the trash talk behind them and to show East the respect they deserved for playing the game, the first time the schools had met since 1991.

That respect stems from East head coach Marques Hayes reaching out to Tyrrell once St. Vincent-St. Mary decided they did not want to play Hoban this season, leaving the Knights with an open date to fill. Hayes picked up the phone and asked Tyrrell to consider playing the Akron Public School in Week 4.

“I have nothing but respect for (coach Hayes),” Tyrrell said. “He called me at a time that was tough for us, and wanted to play and he wants to build this into some type of rivalry on the east side and it's a great thing. I respect every single one of their players. We have nothing but love for them. It's a great program.”

And it wasn’t just Hayes that earned the respect of Hoban’s head coach.

“It was just let's play football on the east side of Akron on a Saturday afternoon,” Tyrrell said. “That's a tribute to coach Hayes and his staff and the whole administration over at East because the administration could have said no, they didn't want that.”

That was the message Tyrrell was teaching his players in the postgame huddle after Saturday’s win. He told them multiple times to show East’s coaches and players proper respect because the Dragons didn’t have to play the game and it could have left Hoban with just eight games after another team backed out for later in the schedule.

“They could have said, hey, forget them, let them have eight games,” Tyrrell said. “But they didn't. And I respect them for that.”

The willingness to play the game and the way the Dragons play – and are coached by Hayes and his staff – have made a fan out of Saturday’s opposing coach.

“I'm gonna be their biggest cheerleader for the rest of the year,” Tyrrell said. “Because that says a lot about how he views his program, and where he wants his program to go. And as a coach, I can't do anything else other than respect that. If I can catch a game, I will be in the stands cheering for them just because they didn't have to.”