The Game Plan

By Charles Prince

The North Jefferson News



The primer bulb on a lawn mower is a simple mechanism. By pushing it, you put gas into the mower’s carburetor getting the machine ready to start.

Pushing the primer bulb too many times will flood the engine and pushing it too few times will result in not enough gas getting into the engine. Either way, the mower won’t start.

Coaching a football team and getting the club started toward their goals for the season, is a much tougher proposition, than getting a lawn mower going.

The prep coaches who are successful at getting their teams to their goals are a rare few who see their hard work of their club pay off with a trip to a state championship game.

Tabernacle’s Keith Dabbs is a member of that group. He’s taken the Torches to the state title game twice. In coach Dabbs first season as the Torches head coach in 2000, Tabernacle reached the Alabama Christian Education Athletic Association title game, finishing as the runner-up to Trinity Christian.

In 2002, the Torches reached the first Christian Football Association title game, losing by one-point to Tuscalossa Christian.

Dabbs, who had been an assistant to original Torches head coach Mark Johnson when Tabernacle began the 8-man football program in 1997, took the Torches to the state semi-finals last season with a young team. Now this season it appears he’ll guide his third different club to the state title game.

This year’s club has a devesting running attack that has simply overpowered opponents this season.

However, despite the running success, the Torches can move the ball in the air with the best of the 8-man clubs in the state as they return All-State CFA first team quarterback Daniel Whaley and a host of dangerous receivers.

Dabbs has built his team so that the Torches can’t be made a one-dimensional offense by any opposing defense. Take away their running game, something that no club has done so far this season, and the Torches can strike even quicker in the air, with Whaley throwing to speedy receivers like Bradley White and Will Lankford.

Any defense that faces Tabernacle has to pick their poison when they try to slow down a high octane Torches attack.

Dabbs has molded the Torches offense into one of the most versatile attacks you’ll see in high school football.

Not only can the Torches play smash-mouth power-running football, but they can also play