We Speak High School Football

Three Carries, Three Touchdowns: Tampa Bay Tech’s Kesean Smith Is a Big-Play Machine

Published

4 hours ago

October 22, 2026

Three Carries, Three Touchdowns: Tampa Bay Tech's Kesean Smith Is a Big-Play Machine

Efficiency is not supposed to look like this. On Friday night against Leto, Tampa Bay Tech junior running back Kesean Smith carried the ball three times — and scored three touchdowns, piling up 65 yards in a 57-0 Titans rout.

Smith does not need a heavy workload to change a game, because nearly every touch he gets ends with the band playing. According to MaxPreps, Smith is averaging 101.2 rushing yards per game this season and has scored 18 total touchdowns — the most on a Tampa Bay Tech team that is 8-1 and has outscored its opponents 328-65.

He is not doing it alone, and that is what makes the Titans so hard to defend. Senior receiver Carlos Lemons leads Tech at 73.2 receiving yards per game with nine total touchdowns, junior Jordyn Murray adds 45.1 receiving yards a game, and junior back Emauri Washington chips in 58 rushing yards per game of his own. Load the box to stop Smith, and the Titans simply throw over the top.

The results speak loudly. Tech opened the season with wins at Lake Gibson (27-6) and Sumner (35-10), shut out Jefferson 38-0, stunned Plant 48-0 on the road, beat Gaither 35-28, blanked Bloomingdale 41-0 and rolled Lennard 40-7. The Titans’ only loss all season is a 14-7 heartbreaker against Armwood in a battle of state top-ten teams — a game that was tied deep into the second half.

Even after that loss, High School On SI still ranks Tampa Bay Tech among Florida’s top 20 teams, and the Titans responded to the setback exactly the way championship programs do: by hanging 57 points and a shutout on their next opponent.

With the regular-season finale at Spoto on October 23 and the playoffs right behind it, every defense left on Tech’s schedule has the same problem. Kesean Smith only needs three carries to ruin your night — and he usually gets a few more than that.

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Royal Jones

We Speak High School Football

Miller Grove Wolverines Hunting a Strong Finish After a Season of Fights

Published

4 hours ago

October 22, 2026

Royal Jones

The Miller Grove Wolverines opened their season with a statement, and they have been fighting ever since. A 31-0 shutout of Chamblee in the opener showed what this Lithonia team can be, and the Wolverines have spent the fall proving that night was no fluke.

Miller Grove owns a 35-6 road win at McNair and a 20-8 win at Carver in Atlanta, victories built on defense and toughness. Look at those three wins together and a pattern emerges: Chamblee scored zero, McNair scored six and Carver scored eight. When the Wolverines win, they win with a defense that gives up almost nothing, and that identity travels anywhere. At 3-4, with 131 points scored and 135 allowed, nearly every Wolverines game this season has been a genuine fight, decided by which team made the plays late.

That includes the tough nights. The Wolverines fell 42-10 to a strong Columbia team on October 16 and dropped a 28-21 heartbreaker at M.L. King in an all-DeKalb battle earlier this season. Those are the kinds of games a program learns from.

That defensive identity is worth repeating, because it is rare: across their three wins, the Wolverines have allowed a total of 14 points. Fourteen. In an era of spread offenses and video-game scores, Miller Grove wins the old-fashioned way, with tackling, discipline and a defense that takes points personally. That travels in November, and it gives the Wolverines a real chance in every game left on the schedule.

The closing stretch gives Miller Grove every chance to finish the right way. South Atlanta visits on Friday, October 23, then the Wolverines travel to Cedar Grove on October 30 before closing at home against Redan.

Three games, three chances to turn a season of fights into a winning finish. In Lithonia, the Wolverines and their families have every reason to believe that is exactly what happens next.