Here’s how big Aquinas quarterback Jim Franklin sees Friday’s game at Washington-Wilkes (4-3. 1-1) is.
While everyone is circling the Oct. 27 clash with undefeated Greene County as “must-see-TV,” and the make-or-break game on the Fightin’ Irish’s remaining schedule, Franklin says, it won’t matter as much if Aquinas doesn’t take care of business first this week.
“I think everything starts [this week] with Washington-Wilkes,” Franklin said. “They are a great team who we cannot take lightly. Hopefully we can get back to that region championship status, but all it takes is if we win one game at a time.”
In other words, if you’re an Aquinas fan or players who’s looking past the Tigers from Washington to focus on the Tigers from Greensboro, pump your brakes and focus.
And, for what it’s worth, Aquinas head football Coach James Leonard agrees with his quarterback.
“I feel good about where we are right now,” Leonard said. “We have to take things one week at a time at this point, and don’t get ahead of ourselves, because we’ve got a really, really tough Washington-Wilkes team to face this year before we can even talk about anything else. We have to take care of business there first.”
Despite Aquinas’ 6-1 record and its undefeated mark in A D2 Region 8B, nothing really has been easy about the Irish’s path this season.
Let’s start with the injury front. Aquinas lost all-everything linebacker/running back Clark Jackson for the season in the first game of the 2023 campaign. Then linebacker Wes Michaelson went down in game four.
“Losing two preseason all-state-type linebackers like that is pretty insane,” Leonard said.
And it may be a huge reason why all except for two of Aquinas’ seven games have been decided by just one score. Only its season opening 49-20 win against Jefferson County and the 40-6 win at Towns County two weeks ago were run-aways.
But Franklin says he isn’t complaining about that. In fact, he sees major benefit in the tightly contested games, regardless of the outcome.
“We’ve battled through a good amount of our games so far,” Franklin said. “I know that our team has a lot of grit, and we all play to win. I think this team plays together and everyone does their own job which helps us win close games.”
Here’s something, though, that Franklin may not say about himself, but his coach will — much of that grit starts with the guy behind center.
Franklin has battled back from a harsh leg injury during he seventh game of the 2022 season to round himself into arguably the best quarterback in the CSRA. His stats make the case for him. Through seven games, Franklin has completed 70 percent of his passes with 1,402 yards and 14 touchdowns against only two interceptions.
He’s shown a penchant for making plays with his legs as well, as he has become the team’s second leading rusher with 228 yards and five rushing scores on 57 carries.
What makes it even more impressive for Leonard is that Franklin’s been down that injury road before, and where some players may let the psychology of injuring the same leg twice overcome them, it seems to have made Franklin more hungry to thrive.
“He’s done a tremendous job coming back from injury,” Leonard said. “He hurt his knee in middle school where he basically tore everything in it, and last year, he injured that same leg where I think he dinged the knee a little bit and had a fracture. When it comes to something like that, you’ve first gotta get over the mental aspect. Sometimes you may want to shy away from the contact, but anyone who’s watched us play knows that Jim doesn’t mind running the ball and putting that shoulder down to get those extra yards.
“He’s worked hard to come back both physically and mentally. We’re happy how he’s responded.”
Franklin himself acknowledges the road as difficult. But he also says he’s grown immensely from the struggle.
“It was the Lincoln County game last year where I broke my leg in a couple of places which set me back a few months,” Franklin said. “I was definitely discouraged for a good while, but one day a switch flipped, and I was back, ready to work for the upcoming season. Overall, the injury wasn’t fun, but I believe that it gave me more motivation to work harder.”
It may also have set a precedent for Aquinas as a team to always be ready to employ “next-man-up” strategy.
When Franklin went down last year, freshman Jack Rhodes stepped up and helped the offense to not miss much of a beat. He finished the 2022 season with 1,273 passing yards and nine touchdowns while completing passes at a 70-percent clip.
Now with Franklin healthy and in full control of the offense, instead of pining for the chance to play quarterback again, or transferring somewhere else be QB1, Rhodes has shifted to wide receiver where his 488 receiving yards and five touchdown grabs leads the team while his 31 catches is second only to junior Buddyrow Garrer.
“We believe we have the best two quarterbacks in the CSRA, and two of the best in the entire state,” Leonard said. If Jack had to play today, nothing about our offense would change. But now that Jim’s back, Jack’s been a tremendous teammate, and you can’t understate how he’s had a crazy good year at wide receiver. And they’re just leaders. You see them talking about stuff on the sidelines, and by the time I get over to them, they’re already together telling me what they’re seeing out on the field.”
That all-for-the-team approach has paid off again this year with Jackson and Michaelson’s absence. Leonard said guys like TJ Jackson, Frank Anderson, Garrer, Zyaire Douglas and Jaden Wuerth — a 6-foot-2, 232-pound freshman who has 79 tackles, 22 for losses and 10 sacks credited to him — have stepped up in major ways.
As for the injured stars Jackson and Michaelson, Leonard says they continue to lead from the sidelines.
“Clark took it pretty hard. Both of those guys are seniors,” Leonard said. “But we talked him up and we’re still pushing him hard in the recruiting process to find him a home for college. Wes could potentially come back for the playoff run. But those two guys are tremendous. They’re still captains, interacting with those guys all the time. They’re such good leaders to have around. They’re almost a part of the coaching staff now.”
Franklin calls Clark “a fantastic player and a great friend.”
“Even now, I think that he is still the face of Aquinas football,” he said. He also credited his offensive line for giving him “tons of time in the pocket” this season.
With so many key injuries to key players, Leonard says it does nothing to make him think twice about the way he and his staff prepares their team. In fact, he believes their preparation style is what has given players all throughout the depth chart success an opportunity for success no matter the circumstances that cause them to hit the football field.
“We have a young staff,” he said. “I’m 36 years old and I’m the second oldest coach on the staff. But we’re extremely old school. We tell people, we’re gonna lift very heavy, practice very physically. We’re still bringing the guys in on Sundays for a heavy lift and a hard run. We’re big on mental toughness and conditioning. In today’s world, there’s not a lot of toughness out there. We tell our guys, it’s not going to be fun on Sunday through Thursday, but it’ll be real fun on Fridays nights.”
