The Recap
For five weeks, Hanna never had to leave home. There were four games and one open date, and the longest road trip anybody took on a Friday was the drive back from the stadium. Senior night against Laurens closed out that stretch, and the Jackets sent it off with what I’d call their best offensive game of the season. The 57-26 win didn’t look anything like a blowout for three quarters, and it didn’t look like anything else in the fourth. It moved Hanna to 6-1 overall and 2-0 in region play.
It started the way most Hanna nights have started this season, with the defense forcing a quick punt. The offense took over and began to move, but on the fifth play of that opening drive a pass got away and ended up in Raider hands, with the defender headed the other direction. Hanna ran him down before he reached the end zone, which only delayed things. Three plays later, Laurens’ Quentin Watts came down with one of the more impressive catches anybody has made this season, and the Raiders turned the takeaway into a 7-0 lead.
The answer came right away, and it came in the language Hanna speaks best. The Jackets took the ensuing kickoff and went 63 yards in nine plays. They picked up five first downs, held the ball for more than five minutes and leaned on the line of scrimmage until Laurens gave up the tying score. Looking back, that drive was a preview of the fourth quarter. At the time, it was mostly a reminder that Laurens had brought an offense too, because for the rest of the half the Raiders were close to unstoppable through the air.
The teams traded scores from there, and a missed Laurens extra point had Hanna up by a single point with just over two minutes left in the half. Laurens got the ball back with 2:39 on the clock and took eight plays to cover 58 yards, finishing with a 6-yard touchdown pass that put the Raiders ahead 19-14 at halftime. It was the third time this season Hanna has gone to the locker room tied or trailing, and anybody who has watched this team knows what usually comes next.
This time it took a little longer to arrive. The third quarter opened as a straight trade. Hanna marched 56 yards in eight plays, Demarcus Duck finished it with an 11-yard run, and the two-point try put the Jackets back in front 22-19. Laurens needed only three plays to answer, covering 44 yards and scoring on a 27-yard run to go back up 26-22.
That was the last time Laurens scored, and really the last time Laurens came close.
Hanna, meanwhile, scored the next five touchdowns, four of them in a fourth quarter that I’d put up against any quarter this team has played this season on either side of the ball. In that final frame the Jackets gained 177 yards, picked up five first downs and scored 28 points. The same Laurens offense that had moved so easily in the first half barely got a chance to move at all, because Hanna held the ball for more than eight minutes of the quarter. The Jackets never punted all night. They converted all eight of their third downs, which turns out to be a much bigger story than one game (more on that below), and they hung 57 on a region opponent.
A win like that does one practical thing in October, and it isn’t a parade. It keeps Hanna perfect in region play with three games to go and every goal still in sight. The schedule doesn’t get any kinder from here, and next week’s opponent has spent the better part of six decades being one of the hardest Fridays on Hanna’s calendar.
Greenwood Preview
For the first time since September 4, Hanna has to load the buses. The destination is Greenwood, and if any opponent better defines “oldest rival,” it isn’t on this schedule. Friday will be the 64th meeting between the two programs. Hanna has played Greenwood every year, only missing 1968, 2020 and 2021, which makes the Eagles less a rival than a standing appointment. No opponent has appeared in more Hanna seasons. The two schools also played 51 straight seasons from 1969 to 2019, a run that trails only Westside’s active streak of 54.
The history isn’t especially friendly. Hanna is 17-46 all-time in the series and 7-25 when the game is played in Greenwood. Recent meetings have tilted Hanna’s way, though, and last year’s belongs on the short list of the best games this series has produced. Greenwood, led by Triston Lewis, now a South Carolina Gamecock, built a 21-7 halftime lead. Hanna answered with one of its best defensive halves of the season, shut the Eagles out after the break and walked off with a 22-21 win.
As we’ve said around here more than once, history doesn’t suit up for either side, and this Greenwood team is its own story. The Eagles are 3-4 overall and 1-1 in the region. They’ve beaten Riverside 33-7, Midland Valley 43-40 and Easley 42-14. They’ve lost to Spartanburg 21-14, North Augusta 45-13, BHP 23-7 and, last week, Fountain Inn 21-14. Look only at Greenwood’s side of those scores and the pattern jumps off the page. In every win, the Eagles scored at least 33 points. In every loss, they scored 14 or fewer. Hold Greenwood to two scores and Hanna should be in good shape. Let that offense find its rhythm and it can pile up points in a hurry.
The player responsible for finding that rhythm is Zatavion White, a junior quarterback. And yes, I know. You’re tired of reading that Hanna is facing another dynamic quarterback, week after week, in this space. Blame the schedule. White is a different kind of problem from the big-armed, power-running quarterbacks Hanna has seen the last couple of weeks. He could be the fastest player on the field for Greenwood on Friday night, and the Eagles use that speed in every part of their offense.
Behind him, Greenwood rotates a group of running backs led by Tay Hampton, Shamar Sayles and Cassidy Lee, and all three bring the kind of power that balances White’s speed. The part of this offense that stands out most is up front. Larry Rice, Tyler Clinckscales, Jayden Cunningham, Hunter Smith and Jayden Logan make up a line with a kind of size Hanna hasn’t seen since Mauldin and BHP. The Jackets’ defense handled that size in both of those games, but this group, from left to right, could be a different conversation.
On the other side of the ball, Greenwood wants to take the run away first. The base look is four down linemen and three linebackers, and like almost everybody Hanna plays, the Eagles will crowd as many bodies into the box as it takes to slow the Jackets’ ground game. The linebackers set the tone. Divonien Laymon and Bryson Coats lead that group, and both are fast, physical players who make plays from sideline to sideline. What this defense does best, though, is take the ball away. Greenwood forces fumbles and picks off passes, and it can make an offense pay for a single mistake, which matters a great deal for reasons we’ll get to shortly.
The Eagles will also play a good number of players both ways. Their roster lists 45 players, smaller than a typical Greenwood roster, and this may not be the same top-end talent the program has brought into this game in recent years. It’s still a dangerous team, one fighting to stay in the playoff hunt, and it’s still Greenwood, which means Hanna is going to get its best shot.
So here is the shape of Friday. On paper, Hanna is the better team. In the record book, this trip has been one of the hardest on the schedule for as long as there has been a schedule. In between sits a Greenwood team with a fast quarterback behind a big line and a defense that waits for mistakes, an opponent fully capable of making the paper look silly if Hanna gives it an opening.
The Friday Formula
Focus on This Opponent
Greenwood comes in at 3-4 and off a loss to Fountain Inn, a record well below what people in Greenwood are used to. The way the Eagles play, and the way they approach this game every year, hasn’t dipped with it. Hanna can’t treat this as another stop on the way to somewhere else.
That’s the real danger this week, and it has less to do with Greenwood than with human nature. We’ve covered how history favors the Eagles and how they’re better than their record, but people have a way of fixing their eyes on an outcome instead of the process that gets them there. Everyone in Anderson, around the Upstate and across the state seems locked in on the last game of the regular season, the one most people expect to decide the region and possibly produce the top team in South Carolina. That game only means what everybody wants it to mean if Hanna takes care of Greenwood first. And with RPI rankings now deciding playoff seeding, an unfocused Friday could cost the Jackets more than a region title.
Turnovers and Takeaways
Through seven games, Hanna has turned the ball over 11 times and taken it away 11 times. The Jackets have also committed at least one turnover in every game. An even ledger isn’t a crisis, but against a defense built like Greenwood’s, it’s the place where a comfortable night can get uncomfortable fast.
The odd thing about that ledger is what each side has done afterward. Hanna has started in opposing territory after seven of its 11 takeaways (63.6 percent), while opponents have started in Hanna territory after just four of Hanna’s 11 turnovers (36.4 percent). So the Jackets have gotten much better field position out of their takeaways, yet each side has scored exactly four touchdowns following a turnover. Hanna has had more short fields to work with and hasn’t cashed in any more often.
The Jackets have lost the turnover battle twice this season. Against BHP it was 0-1, and Hanna needed a field goal with no time left to win. Against Wren it was 1-2, and the touchdown scored off one of those turnovers was the difference in a seven-point loss. When Hanna is the better team on paper, turnovers are how an opponent evens things out. Lose that battle and let Greenwood turn it into points, and the Jackets could be on the wrong side of the result. Hang on to the football, force a turnover or two, and it could be a big night in Greenwood and a pleasant bus ride home.
Bring the Energy on the Road
We’ve spent plenty of words on what Hanna does after halftime, but the homestand added another trick. Over those four home games, the Jackets scored 39 points in the first quarter, and that fast start has to make the trip down the road. Scoring early, and more than once, forces an opponent into decisions it would rather not make, especially against a team that can shrink a game in the second half the way this one does.
The energy also has to last all four quarters, no matter what the scoreboard says. Coming out of halftime, this team has been close to unfair, outscoring opponents 62-13 in third quarters this season. Turning it up after the break is the closest thing Hanna has to a superpower, and on the road, in this series, it’s going to need every bit of it.
None of this asks Hanna to become something it hasn’t been. The formula for Friday is the same one that has carried the Jackets for seven weeks, with the volume turned up because of where they’re playing and who’s standing on the other sideline. Keep the eyes on the Eagles and off the calendar, protect the football against a defense that hunts it, start fast, and then do what this team has done better than anyone after halftime. If that happens, the 64th meeting can look a lot like the 63rd, minus the halftime scare.
Statistically Speaking
Hanna went 8-for-8 on third down against Laurens, which felt like a fun footnote on senior night. Pull back to the full season, though, and third down starts to look like the engine running quietly underneath this whole team.
Through seven games, the Jackets have converted 41 of 86 third downs (47.7 percent), while opponents have converted 22 of 74 (29.7 percent). Hanna averages 6.76 yards per third-down play to the opponents’ 5.78, and even that gap undersells the difference, because the opponents’ average rests on a handful of big plays. Six of their 74 third-down snaps have gone for 20 or more yards, and those six plays account for 51.2 percent of everything opponents have gained on third down. Take them out and the average drops to 3.1 yards per play. The more revealing number might be how often third down simply goes nowhere. Opponents have gained zero or negative yards on 39 of their 74 third-down plays (52.7 percent), compared with just 21 of 86 (24.4 percent) for Hanna. More than half the time an opponent faces third down against this defense, the play dies at or behind the line.
Most of Hanna’s third-down work happens on the ground. On third-and-3 or shorter, the Jackets have run the ball on all 20 recorded plays and converted 15 of them (75 percent), so there has been no mystery about what’s coming, and so far it hasn’t mattered. Stretch the distance to third-and-4 through third-and-6, and Hanna has converted 12 of 17 rushing attempts (70.6 percent) while averaging 12.18 yards a carry. Seven of those runs went for at least 10 yards and three went for touchdowns. In all, Hanna has scored six touchdowns directly on third-down runs. Oddly enough, opponents have produced more explosive third-down gains of 20-plus yards, six to Hanna’s three. Hanna’s third-down offense is less highlight reel than direct deposit. It just keeps showing up.
Those conversions turn into points. Hanna has scored 104 of its 192 offensive points (54.2 percent) on possessions that included at least one successful third-down conversion. The Jackets have scored on 17 of 35 possessions (48.6 percent) with a conversion, compared with just 6 of 24 (25 percent) when they faced third down and didn’t convert. On the six possessions where they converted two third downs, three ended in touchdowns. At the other end of the spectrum sits the quick strike, because Hanna has also scored on 8 of 18 possessions (44.4 percent) that never reached third down, and those drives averaged just 2.83 plays.
Defensively, the third-down story splits right down the middle of the game. Opponents have converted 42.2 percent of their third downs in the first half and just 18.9 percent after halftime, and they’ve faced longer distances after the break, an average of 10.46 yards to go compared with 8.22 before it. Put that next to the 62-13 third-quarter margin and it reads to me like a defense that figures opponents out at halftime and spends the rest of the night making them pay for it. And once that defense wins a third down, the drive is essentially over. On 39 opponent possessions that included a failed third down without a conversion, only one produced points, six in total, which works out to 0.15 points per drive.
Wrap-Up
Senior night was about the seniors, as it should be, but it may also have been the night this team showed the full version of itself. For a half, Laurens made Hanna uncomfortable, and that’s worth remembering, because the Jackets answered by staying with what they do. They won the line of scrimmage, kept moving the chains and let the clock and the scoreboard handle the rest, and by the end of the night a close game had turned into the most complete performance of the season.
Now the road starts again, at a place and against an opponent that has humbled plenty of Hanna teams over the years. Greenwood’s season hasn’t gone the way Greenwood seasons usually go, but none of that will matter once the ball is kicked off on Friday. If the Jackets bring the patience and the second-half finish they showed at home, the game everybody is already talking about will still be worth talking about. The homestand is over, and the first trip back out goes to the one place that has always made Hanna earn it.
We hope to see every Yellow Jacket fan in those away stands this Friday! If you can't make it, follow along on X and Facebook with game updates, and live play-by-play coverage on Exceeding Stats or listen on 94.9 FM. Check back next week for the next Hanna Between the Hashes.
Special Note
During Friday night’s broadcast, we had the chance to talk with Frank Alexander about his book, The History of Anderson Yellow Jacket Football 1921-2023. We want to give a special thank you to Frank, and we hope you’ll follow the link below to learn more about the book and how to purchase a copy.
The History of Anderson Yellow Jacket Football 1921-2023