A date change, a mid-game venue change a handful of broken records all made for a story that sounded like it was "written by a fifth grader," according to Quincy (IL) head football coach Rick Little.
The Oct. 30 IHSA first-round matchup between No. 8 Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy and No. 9 Quincy Senior
had a little bit of everything, and then some. The Blue Devils escaped with an 88-84 win over the Knights in a game that lasted just over four hours."Undeniably the craziest football game I've ever been a part of," Little told USA TODAY Sports. "I've been part of a lot of crazy ones, but this one takes the cake for sure."
"I wouldn't believe them in a million years," Bryson Little told USA TODAY Sports of how he would have reacted if someone told him
the details of the game. "It was a crazy game and a lot of stuff went down."
The fourth-quarter venue change
Initially, the teams were assigned a Saturday slot for the first-round matchup to be played on Chicago's South Side. However, with the Blue Devils off from school on Friday, both coaches agreed to play Friday and kickoff at 3 p.m.
The Blue Devils and Knights went on to combine for 119 points in the first half as Goode took a 60-59 lead into the locker room.
With the amount of scoring — and, in turn, game stoppages — Rick Little's fear of losing daylight while playing on a field with no overhead lights was quickly becoming a reality.
Rick Little admits to being "a little nervous going in," but said he felt confident the teams could get the game in before nightfall.
Come halftime, which both head coaches agreed to reduce in time, it became clear the teams were running out of daylight.
IHSA assistant executive director Sam Knox presented the teams with a handful of options: go home and finish the game the next day or a venue change.
With Quincy being four-and-a-half hours from home, the first option wasn't a feasible one.
Venue change, it was.
Following a Goode touchdown and two-point conversion to cut Quincy's lead to 88-84 with 3:42 left in the fourth quarter, players ran to the locker room, grabbed their gear, and with their cleats and uniforms still fully on, and hopped on the bus for a 20-minute ride.
The stoppage of the game occurred around 5:52 p.m. CT, two hours following kickoff.
As crazy as it all was, Rick Little said he thought it was "seamless."
"I had no idea where we were going," Rick Little said. "Maybe it's just me, but I have to be comfortable in my surroundings. But to literally get (on the bus), not know where we're going, get out, stretch it up and then be like, 'OK, let's get back to work,' that's something I think is underestimated."
The bus ride did little to slow down the momentum. The game restarted again at about 6:52 p.m.
"I think transferring locations gave us more energy when we were getting on the bus," Quincy running back Braxton Williams told USA TODAY Sports. "Everybody was energized. We just wanted to play. We wanted to finish this game out. We wanted to go out there and do what we do best and win."
In a tight game with very little time left on the scoreboard, Rick Little said he had one regret.
"I wish I would have been more present in the moment when we had to get on the bus," he said. "I wish I would have taken more pictures in the moment, because even when we got on the bus, the guys are in full gear like stormtroopers of Star Wars, just ready to go to battle."
The final drive
With the game stopped for about an hour with 3:42 left, Quincy players all had the same thing on their minds: recover the onside kick and then bleed out the clock to advance to the second round.
While the Blue Devils did recover the onside kick, in an 88-84 game, 3:42 felt like a lifetime.
"No question, that was the longest drive of the game," Rick Little said with a chuckle.
But the bus ride over to the new football field did give the Blue Devils some time to regroup and figure out a way to close out the game.
By design, while the first 44-plus minutes of the game were non-stop action and scoring, the final nearly four minutes were pretty anticlimactic.
Bryson Little connected with Cole Burgess for a short screen pass that Burgess fought for a first down to allow the Blue Devils to go into victory formation to drain the rest of the clock.
"On the bus, that's what we talked about," Bryson Little said. "Just trying to get that onside kick recovery and finish the game. That was huge."
Bryson Little's record-breaking game
Entering play on Oct. 30, Quincy had averaged 42.8 points per game through the regular season and IHSA opening round. The Blue Devils scored 41 points in the opening-round victory, and twice scored over 60 points in the regular season.
"The one thing I'll remember is just the points that were scored in that game," Bryson Little said. "Just 172... that doesn't come every day."
They needed every single point on the scoreboard against Goode, which resulted in the combined 172 points — the most ever for a single game in Illinois high school football, besting the previous record of 166 set on Oct. 29, 2021, when Springfield High School defeated Rock Island High School 94-72.
"It was definitely a lot of fun in the moment, just knowing we can score," Bryson Little said. "That's what we've done all year and so just being confident and trusting all the work in the offseason, and doing what we do best, scoring points."
In addition to the combined scoring record, Bryson Little's 656 passing yards broke thestate playoff record, previously held by Tyler Hutchinson (645 on Nov. 12, 2013, and his eight passing touchdowns topped the previous record set by Riverside-Brookfield's Tim Brasic on Nov. 9, 2001.
"I was coming back after we scored our sixth or seventh touchdown, the guys on the sideline were telling me that I was close on some records," Bryson Little said. "Them giving me positive feedback and motivating me ot keep on going out there and scoring was definitely helpful. It was definitely a surreal moment."
Running on adrenaline
While Williams' name is not going to join Bryson Little in the record books, Rick Little threw praise at his star athlete's overall game.
Not only did Williams finish with 10 catches for 194 yards and four scores, while also adding 55 rushing yards on seven attempts and a fifth touchdown, but he also played defense the entire game for the Blue Devils.
Williams rarely left the field in a game that featured 172 points.
"The adrenaline always takes over," Williams said. "Being energized out on that field, there's no feeling like it. I feel that it carries me throughout the game and gives me enough power to finish the game."
Lost in the 88-84 victory is the fact that Quincy did not lead once in the first half and trailed by as many as 17 points early in the second quarter.
However, the Blue Devils fought back to cut the lead to one point at halftime before taking the lead on the first drive of the second half.
"Something I'll remember is our determination, our unwillingness to give up," Williams added. "I felt like we did a very good job of keeping fighting. We were not going to lose that game."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 172 points and a mid-game bus ride: Inside unbelievable Illinois high school football game
