Rebels claim first state football crown
Spread offense pays off in 46-13 victory over West Windsor-Plainsboro
BY TIM MORRIS Staff Writer
You can trace the roots of Howell High School's state championship football season back to 2005. That's when Rebels coach Cory Davies chucked the option attack for the spread offense.

PHOTOS BY JEFF GRANIT staff Above: Howell football coach Cory Davies celebrates the Rebels' win over West Windsor-Plainsboro South in the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group IV Championship at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway. Left: Howell's David Hayes finds some running room during the game on Nov. 30.

"We wanted to do something different and get away from the option," Davies recalled. "We decided to make the move to the spread offense because we thought we had the kids to do it."

It turned out that Davies thought correctly. Over the past three years, the Rebels have had as potent an offense as any team in the Shore Conference. By throwing the ball on almost every down, the Rebels have not only been a fun team to watch, but a winning one as well.

The change to a new offensive attack culminated in Howell's 46-13 rout of West Windsor- Plainsboro High School South on Nov. 30 at Rutgers Stadium, Piscataway, in the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association Central Jersey Group IV championship game.

The victory over the Pirates gave the Rebels the first football state championship in school history.

In 2005, the first year of the spread offense (which uses as many as five wide receivers on a play), the Rebels (8-3) won a school-record eight games and notched the first NJSIAA playoff win in school history.

In 2006, Howell (7-5) reached a state final for the first time. The Rebels fell to Hunterdon Central in the Central Jersey Group IV championship game.

This year the Rebels (11-1) completed their mission of winning a state football championship.

Howell's offense reached new heights in the state playoffs, scoring 95 points in its last two games, beating Montgomery, 49-20, and West Windsor-Plainsboro, 46-13.

The Rebels were unstoppable with quarterback Tim Lamirande picking apart defenses at will. Lamirande had as perfect a game as a quarterback could have in the Central Jersey Group IV title tilt, completing 16 of 19 passes for 246 yards and four touchdowns.

JEFF GRANIT staff Howell's Jason Amato intercepts a pass for a touchdown in the Rebels' 46-13 win over West Windsor-Plainsboro South in the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group IV Championship at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway on Nov. 30.

The West Windsor-Plainsboro defense had no answer for the Howell offense.

Lamirande's passing was just the start of the nightmare for defenses. Once the Rebels got their hands on the ball, the team's corps of talented receivers - Chance Carrick, Jason Amato, Brian Battaglia and Rob Handy - could all make plays. Any one of them could turn a short pass into a touchdown, breaking tackles and running away from defensive backs, or going deep and catching a long pass from Lamirande.

Defenses have been caught between a rock and a hard place in attempting to defend the Rebels. Would they rush everyone and leave too many receivers for defensive backs to cover, or drop back, try to disrupt the receivers' patterns and make the tackle on the short pass? That approach, however, gives the quarterback time to find an open receiver.

With Howell averaging 40 points per game in the playoffs and more than 30 points per game for the season, no one effectively slowed them down.

Howell has been fortunate to have two great quarterbacks in charge of the offense the last three years.

Each quarterback, Sean O'Reilly and Lamirande brought something different to the table.

O'Reilly, who is now playing for Wagner University, Staten Island, N.Y., was more of an improviser on the field. He could make it up as he went because of his running ability.

Lamirande throws the deep ball and is a very accurate passer. One thing both QBs could do was make sense of what was happening downfield with their receivers.

Either style worked as they both passed for more than 2,000 yards in a single season.

O'Reilly quarterbacked the team in 2005- 06 with Lamirande as the understudy who was more than ready to step in when his time came.

"Tim was always a part of it," Davies said. "He learned a lot from what Sean did."

Davies said a quarterback in his spread offense has to be intelligent, know the offense inside and out, know what patterns the receivers are running and be able to read a defense.

Before the 2007 season began Davies called his receiving corps the best he's ever had at Howell and there is no arguing that. Seniors Carrick, Amato and Battaglia not only were sure-handed and made plays, they understood everyone's role as well. Davies said it was not unusual for any of his receivers to tell him or Lamirande what receiver would be open against a certain defensive set. They added new meaning to getting everyone involved.

What has made the Howell offense so formidable?

"I think it's a combination of things," Davies said. "The system is very good the way we run it and we've had pretty good people running it."

"The idea of our offense is to have six different kids touching the ball," Davies explained. "We had a balance with who touches the ball."

Everyone, it seems, had the magic touch as Davies, the head coach at Howell for 17 years, got his and the program's well-deserved first state championship.