By BRIAN WOODSON
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD — Cody Hatfield can’t wait to hit Gray Baker.
Nothing against the Richlands quarterback, but Baker — who was a signal-caller for Graham last season — is playing for the opposition and that is what a safety for the G-Men is supposed to do.
Hatfield and the G-Men (2-0) will face Richlands (2-0) and Baker tonight at Mitchell Stadium.
Baker shared quarterback duties with Spencer Sheets last year at Graham, but he made a summer transfer to Richlands. Baker will start with co-signal-caller Ben Brown out with an injury.
“We aren’t going to hold back on him,” Hatfield said. “Last year when he was here coaches would tell us not to hit the quarterback and stay off the quarterback. This year it is going to be a little different to finally get to hit Gray as part of a different team.
“It is going to be a little weird out on the field, but I am still going to talk to him and I am still going to congratulate him at the end of the game no matter what.”
Hatfield hopes to console Baker after a Graham win. The G-Men last beat Richlands in 2007, breaking what at the time had been a long win streak for the Blues. Richlands is currently riding another streak now, having won 31 straight regular season games.
“We do think about that and we do talk about that, it would be great to break that streak,” Hatfield said. “It would be wonderful, but at the same time we have our own little streak going that we would like to continue, that is a little bit more important to us.”
Graham leads the all-time series 33-23, but the Blue Tornado has won nine of the last 10 and could make it five in a row with a win tonight.
“The past couple of years they have killed us, the score might be 101-12,” said Hatfield, whose G-Men has lost by a combined score of 180-56 over the last four seasons and 94-14 in the last two. “It has been pretty bad lately, but we have been working so hard and we have come so long as a team and a family that we could be the team that knocks Richlands off of their win streak.”
Both teams enter with 2-0 records, which is nothing unusual for the Blues. As for Graham, the G-Men hadn’t been 2-0 since 2005.
“It is great to be 2-0 as of now, last year we started off 1-1, my sophomore year we started 0-2 and my freshmen year we went 0-2,” said Hatfield, whose G-Men lost 38-0 last year at Richlands. “It is a great accomplishment for us as seniors and leaders and the whole team to go 2-0 at this point.”
Being 3-0 would be better.
“We are going to try to use our depth and our speed to beat Richlands, but at the same time Richlands has a very good team and they are always very competitive,” Hatfield said. “We just have to go out there and execute and play fundamentally sound and get a victory and go 3-0.”
While much has been made about the quarterbacks in this game, Hatfield said this is a rivalry game doesn’t need the extra sideshow.
“We feel pretty good, there is a lot of emotions behind it always and just Gray being the quarterback down there doesn’t change anything about the way we feel, it should be a competitive game,” Hatfield said. “Gray, being a friend to all of us, we kind of joke around with Gray and he jokes around with us about the game.”
Hatfield said that Sheets, who leads the G-Men in rushing and passing, has been the leader during Graham’s positive start to the season.
“Spencer has always heard that he wasn’t the biggest, he couldn’t be the quarterback because he was too small, he wasn’t fast enough and he didn’t have a good arm,” Hatfield said. “This year I believe Spencer has proven to everybody that he is a good leader and he can be a quarterback.”
Graham was able to start the season with a win over Bluefield, surviving a late missed field goal attempt to beat the Beavers. They went to Tazewell last Friday to prove a point and did just that.
“We had a couple of mistakes and we were a little slow on defense in the Bluefield game that we could have made it a better game for us,” Hatfield said. “We wanted to prove a point that we didn’t just get a lucky win.”
A 6-foot, 168-pound senior running back and safety, Hatfield had a stellar game against Tazewell, running for 92 yards and a touchdown, caught one pass for 20 yards and was in on 14 tackles, had three pass breakups, forced a fumble and recovered a loose ball.
“Cody’s game last week, I would almost say you had to be there to appreciate it because he had some head-turning hits where he literally took the helmets off the Tazewell kids a couple of times,” Graham head coach Mike Williams said. “You don’t see that in the stat sheet, but if you are there it is jaw-dropping to watch.”
Hatfield wasn’t the only one. Hunter Cook had 15 tackles, while Charlie Benfield had 12 as the G-Men were successful in proving they could play physical football.
“I feel like I was in the right place at the right time to make the hits that I could and Hunter Cook and Jake Tibbs had some amazing hits too,” Hatfield said. “It was just not me. I believe it was a passionate game, we all felt like we had to go out there and prove a point and that is what we did on defense.”
Hatfield loves football, but would like to play a little less of it this season after having to play all 48 minutes of games in the past. In two games, Graham has shown it has depth, with four backs having at least 50 yards against Bluefield and three at Tazewell.
“For once we finally have a deep depth chart where it is not just 11 guys stay in the field at all times and never get a break,” said Hatfield, who has run for 159 yards and two scores. “Now we have 14, 15 or 16 guys that alternate in and out and we can get a break on offense so when we go on defense we are fresh and we can play at 100 percent all the time.”
That depth could help tonight against the bigger and oftentimes deeper Blues. Hatfield also feels the G-Men must contain such Richlands weapons as tailback Colton Staten and talented receivers A.J. Johnson and Todd McGlothlin.
“Defensively we have to be physical and pursue the ball and we have to have 11 men on every possession execute to 100 percent,” Hatfield said. “Offensively, we have to execute, we have to be able to go on no sound and the running backs are going to have to hit their holes right and the line is going to have to block like we know they can and Spencer is going to have to go out there and be our leader like he has been the last two weeks.”
Richlands is the bigger of the two teams, but Hatfield is confident in his offensive line that includes freshman Canaan Looney and converted fullback Channing Mooney, who has replaced an injured Daelan Caffee.
“I think our overall our line is better than it has been in the past,” he said. “I feel like there is more chemistry between them and that helps us.”
Hatfield says the G-Men, who are now in their second season under Williams, have bought into what he has brought to Bluefield.
“I feel like the pressure is off of us and him to actually prove something and I believe everybody on the team looks up to Coach Williams,” he said. “We trust what he says and the plays that he calls in the games.”
Hatfield hopes to play at the next level after this season, but that kind of talk can wait. He’s got a season to play, and a big game tonight with the Blues.
“Right now I am focused on this season and getting to the playoffs for one and getting past Richlands this week,” Hatfield said. “Hopefully we can do our best and end the regular season 9-1 or hopefully 10-0.
“That would be something great for us.”