Mercer County keeps it simple and keeps it coming: ‘Over and over and over’
Mercer County Coach David Buchanan has a simple philosophy: If it works, keep doing it. If it doesn’t work, keep doing it until it works.
“We’re just going to keep doing the same things over and over and over again,” Buchanan said after a recent win during his team’s 4-1 campaign in Kentucky high school football’s Class 3A. “That’s all we do.”
Buchanan doesn’t have a bare-bones playbook. The calls he credits to former Trinity coaches Jim Kennedy and Roger Gruneisen, a mentor from his days as an assistant at Paris, have evolved over the decades. And he tries to give opposing defenses 40-50 sets to keep up with over a two-game spread, always disguising the true intent.
But really, the Titans don’t run that many different plays. They run a lot of the same plays out of dozens of different looks with constantly changing personnel.
In fact, in their big district win against Christian Academy-Louisville last month, the Titans ran the same play eight consecutive times. The only reason they didn’t run it nine times? They scored.
“What I like about it is we always have four different backs that get it,” said junior quarterback Trosper Buchanan, the coach’s youngest son. “It’s just fun because it’s like you can see the defense’s eyes watching Brayden (Dunn) go off the field and here comes Jalen (Lukitsch) coming out, and it’s like, ‘oh, man, he’s fresh. He’s brand new.’ So yeah, it’s fun seeing the physical wear and the mental wear as well.”
That kind of opportunity doesn’t always present itself. The Titans can go weeks without going to one of their old reliables. But when it’s there, they’re coming.
“We run the same play over and over and over again, but we change the guard, the fullback, and the tailback every play,” Coach Buchanan said of one of his favorites. “But it’s the same play. It’s on quick. And what we do is just like being in a boxing match — if they’re getting tired, we’re just going to keep swinging as hard as we can just to knock them out.”
Mercer had been scheduled for a district game against DeSales on Friday, but the Colts ran into a COVID-19 quarantine and had to cancel. So, this week the Titans will get a break. They’ll play Western Hills next week.
With the threat of the pandemic hanging over the season, the importance of every game is heightened, and those stakes can only help the team, their quarterback said.
“I think that has helped prepare us for the playoffs because we’ve been playing the whole season like it’s now or never,” Trosper Buchanan said.
Coach Buchanan realizes his “stubborn” philosophy can get him in trouble early in the season when things aren’t clicking, yet. In his first year with Mercer back in 2015, they lost their first five games (they won their next six). In 2016, they lost four of their first seven (they finished 8-5 with two playoff wins).
“We sort of go through this every year,” he explained. “We struggle early. Everybody hates everything we do. And then being stubborn, we keep doing what we do, and we get better at it.”
Last year, the Titans went 8-3, their best season yet under Buchanan, averaging more than 31 points and 321 yards per game. They beat neighboring rival Anderson County for only the second time in a decade. They also split their two games with CAL and spent much of the season in the Class 3A top 10.
In Buchanan’s sixth year, the Titans have both familiarity with each other and continuity in the system as they continue on a near 30-point per game clip. In their blowout 49-14 win over Henry County last week, Dunn changed one of his receiving routes just by catching the eye of his quarterback in the middle of the play.
“We both realized what the other was doing,” Dunn said. “We’ve been playing together for so long, the repetition, just always being with each other, just makes it fun and easier.”
Dunn, a junior running back/linebacker, shares rushing duties with at least three other backs on any given night. Together, they’ve combined for more than 1,000 yards with Dunn getting about half that total.
“Last year, I felt like we had a really strong team,” Dunn said. “This year, we’re just building off of that. ... We’re just looking to constantly improve.”
The first game of this season came against Class 4A powerhouse Boyle County, where Mercer took a 51-7 loss on the road. But afterward, the Titans got impressive wins over ranked Taylor County and that CAL team, a Class 3A darling. They’ve followed up by demolishing South Laurel and Henry County.
The Titans rank as Class 3A’s No. 7 team in the latest Associated Press poll and No. 8 in Dave Cantrall’s Rating the State for the Herald-Leader.
“I take my team over anybody,” Trosper Buchanan said. “You can line up whoever you want against us, and if we play our best — I got us.”
