Oakland senior Donte Cameron didn’t need to see any historical data to know what was at stake.
The Patriots came into the week having not lost back-to-back TSSAA football games in 14 years — since 2012, before coach Kevin Creasy’s tenure began.
“Never in our freakin’ life, or at least in any of our high school careers, have we lost games back-to-back,” Cameron said. “We couldn’t lose.”
Cameron rushed for three touchdowns, Pearl-Cohn missed a 39-yard field goal with nine seconds remaining and Oakland salvaged a 29-28 road win on Sept. 11 to avoid making the wrong kind of history.
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The Patriots (3-1) were bristling from a stunning 22-21 home upset loss to Smyrna a week earlier. Then came a game against the Class 4A power Firebirds (1-3) in what turned out to be an instant classic between two of Middle Tennessee's most proud programs.
“The great thing about having 'the standard' for 12 years is we had former players calling these kids (this week). There’s former players wanting to know, what happened?” Creasy said. “We’d never lost to Smyrna (in that time) and beat them 35-0 in two quarters (of a lightning-shortened game) last year.”
Oakland’s “standard” has been built with win after win. The Patriots own six state titles since 2018. There are younger players in the program who’ve only lost one game in their careers going back to middle school.
Creasy said he has never lost back-to-back games as a coach.
“I was a little mad we lost one in a row,” he said. “I think a lot of (players') feelings got hurt Monday during the film session. But at the same time, (against Smyrna) they hurt a lot of people's feelings who played here before them.”
After giving up an LJ Funk touchdown run that gave Oakland a 29-28 lead with 7:07 left in the fourth quarter, the Patriots denied a Pearl-Cohn two-point conversion. They thwarted another late drive with Terry Ligon’s leaping interception.
Pearl-Cohn led 8-0 in the first quarter and got as close as one point three different times. Down a point in the final minutes, the Firebirds forced an Oakland fumble inside the Pearl-Cohn own 5-yard line and marched almost the length of the field.
The last two weeks have been one loud wake-up call for Class 6A's perennial power.
“We’re not the best team in the state. We lost a game,” Cameron said. “So, we’ve got to work harder to win state.”
Tyler Palmateer covers high school sports for The Tennessean. Have a story idea for Tyler? Reach him at tpalmateer@tennessean.com and on the X platform, @tpalmateer83.
He also contributes to The Tennessean's high school sports newsletter, The Bootleg. Subscribe to The Bootleg here.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How ‘the standard’ pushed Oakland in wild TSSAA football win at Pearl-Cohn
