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Gulf Football: Some Good, Some Bad, A Tie

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By LEE DIEKEMPER

Tribune correspondent

Published: June 2, 2008

NEW PORT RICHEY - Some questions were answered and other questions developed as a result of Gulf High School's spring football game Friday.

The game was an intrasquad scrimmage with a 20-minute running clock each half.

Any questions on whether Gulf could have an exciting team were laid to rest. Both quarterbacks - Madison Burr, the projected starter and an incoming junior, and Jacob Jackson, the projected backup and an incoming sophomore - looked strong.

The two squads played to a 19-19 tie with kicker D.J. Skelton, who had never been a place-kicker before spring practice, booting a 40-yard field goal to tie the score for the Green Team on the final play of the game.

Skelton actually kicked for both teams.

After a shaky start, with only Cody Kleiner's busted play - a 54-yard touchdown run - being the lone first-half highlight, both offenses, and specifically both quarterbacks flipped the switch in the second half.

Jackson put the White Team up 19-9 in with a pair of touchdowns. On the first he hit Kleiner on a short crossing with Kleiner racing from the left hashmark. He took Jackson's short pass, kept running across the field, then turned upfield and raced in for a 31-yard score.

Later, Jackson connected with Will Burbridge on a 44-yard pass to the right sideline for the White Team's final score with 11:02 left.

"I was doing a good job of reading some plays," Jackson said. "On the first touchdown pass I was looking for Kleiner. I did a fake to the fullback and rolled out and found him open.

"It helped that the defense bit on the fake handoff."

"We missed some stunts on Jackson and he got away," said Gulf coach Jay Fulmer. "He threw a couple in the air and the receivers made some plays. But his composure was amazing for a sophomore."

Jackson threw for 178 yards, completing five of eight attempts. But while he used his pocket presence to give his team the lead, Burr used both his arm and his fleet feet to rally his team when it looked as if the game was over. He ran 15 times for 135 yards but it was his passes on the final drive of the game that brought the Green Team back.

Burr noted how the pressure to score may have motivated both him and his teammates.

"We had to score with a running clock," Burr said. "On the last drive I just tried to get the kicker in range to tie it up."

When Skelton trotted onto the field to kick the game-tying field goal, all the players and coaches on the sidelines made as much noise as they could to best replicate a real game situation.

"Skelton had a lot of composure and he didn't look nervous at all," Fulmer said. "That was amazing to knock in a 40-yarder knowing it was the last play. I was impressed."

Fulmer didn't seem as impressed with Burr only because he thinks so much of Burr that his play was sort of what Fulmer expected.

"He is such a special athlete," Fulmer said of Burr. "He can run and throw and he made some great throws that were dropped. I really believe he will be a Division I quarterback."

But Fulmer was not impressed with the line play. He sort of knew both his offensive and defensive lines would be an area of concern having graduated so many players (only one starter on the offensive line - Jeremy Yankowski - returns). For the Buccaneers to play well this year the line has to improve significantly from now through summer workouts, two-a-days and the weeks leading up to the first game.

"Our offensive and defensive lines need a lot of work," Fulmer said. "We lost a lot of veterans last year. It's a building process. And with a split squad, you don't have your five best together."

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