ON THE night that Commerce christened recently re-named “Ray Lamb Stadium” in honor of the legendary Tiger coach, it also got back to another tradition — beating Jefferson.
Commerce (1-0) dominated the line of scrimmage and ran wild over the visiting Dragons, thumping Jefferson (0-1) 22-7 Friday to end the Dragons’ five-year stranglehold on this series.
Click here for photos.
“We knew that they were good,” Jefferson coach T. McFerrin said. “We’d seen them and knew their offensive line was really good. They have a good football team. They certainly played well. My hats off to them. They deserved to win the game.”
Tiger senior Jamal Browner ran for 160 yards on 20 carries and scored two touchdowns, and fellow senior Terrick Ramsey ripped off an 81-yard touchdown run as the Tigers won for the first time in this series since 2006.
Commerce now owns a 42-20-5 edge in the rivalry.
The Tigers didn’t complete a pass but finished with 377 rushing yards on the night, including 220 yards in the second half. Commerce also limited Jefferson’s pass-heavy offense to just 215 total yards.
“We played very poorly, and I was very disappointed in that,” McFerrin said. “It wasn’t any one person, it wasn’t any one side of the ball. It was everything.”
The game was tied at seven in the third quarter when Ramsey got loose for his 81-yarder. Browner then punctuated the Tiger win with an eight-yard touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
Jefferson hasn’t lost a season opener since 2007.
“They should have won the game, but we could have won the game,” McFerrin said. “If we had executed and not made the mistakes we made — even though we might not have deserved to win, we could have won the football game.”
The 67th meeting of these two schools — in the series dubbed “The River War” — was highlighted by momentum swings.
Commerce opened with an 80-yard touchdown drive, capped off by a 12-yard touchdown run by Browner to give the Tigers a 7-0 lead.
“I think the way they just ran through us on that first series maybe shell-shocked our guys,” McFerrin said. “We might not have realized how good Commerce was, our players might not have, although we’d been telling them all week long.”
Browner then ripped off a 51-yard run in the second quarter to the Dragon five, but Commerce coughed up the ball on the very next play.
Jefferson responded with a 95-yard touchdown drive, finished off by Shirreffs who scored on a 10-yard run to tie the game at seven.
The Dragons later got the ball back in prime real estate on the Tiger 20 when Commerce botched a punt.
But that’s when the momentum shifted again.
Commerce came up with an interception on the very next play to keep the halftime score 7-7.
Ramsey, who finished with 103 yards on just four carries, broke his 81-yarder with 7:30 left in the third quarter to put the Tigers up 14-7.
Jefferson tried to answer with a drive to the Tiger 10, but a perfectly drawn-up halfback pass off a reverse was dropped in the end zone as the fourth quarter began.
Commerce then delivered the knock-out blow by chewing up over eight minutes of clock and getting Browner’s eight-yard touchdown with 3:28 left.
McFerrin pointed to Jefferson’s numerous missed opportunities on the night — including four trips inside the Tiger 34 that yielded no points.
“I told them yesterday (Monday), when you do that and don’t score a point, you’re not going to win any games against good football teams,” McFerrin said.
