KENOSHA – There’s a gold bat that is passed down throughout the Franklin football program and each week, a word is added to it.
Franklin star defensive back Dominick Walters’ word for the week prior to a matchup of Southeast Conference unbeatens against Kenosha Bradford was an easy choice: business.
The Sabers handled business and the previously undefeated Red Devils 35-0 to take the outright SEC lead with three weeks to go in the regular season. The South Dakote State recruit again shined bright under the Friday night lights with a pair of interceptions and two scores, one coming off his second pick of the night as the exclamation point of a thorough message sent from the Sabers.
“I think (Walters) is an absolute dog,” Kenosha Bradford coach Steve Morris said. “I have a buddy (Jackrabbits cornerbacks coach and former UW-Whitewater player and defensive coordinator Marcus McLin) that coaches at South Dakota State and he was one of the names that (McLin) brought up. I already knew. I already knew from my research. I put in the time to watch film and one of the first guys that popped out was 32.”
Franklin took the early lead on its opening offensive possession with a 13-yard touchdown run from Rob Beglinger and never looked back. Nolan Hahn added a wide-open 41-yard touchdown catch on the second play of the second quarter and a 1-yard score from Beglinger with three ticks left in the opening half put Bradford in the biggest hole the Red Devils had faced all season.
The home side kept the visitors off the scoreboard in the third with an interception of Keegan Best from Brandon Walton and got a fourth-down stop on a fake field goal, but Walters offered one final big swing with a 4-yard touchdown catch on a play-action fake from Best early in the fourth and then added a pick-six to start the running clock and preserve the second shutout in the last three contests for one of the state’s best programs.
It was business as usual for the Sabers and with the end of the regular season in sight, there appears to be no let-up from the kings of the Southeast Conference as they prepare to depart the conference for the Classic 8 Conference next season.
“Mentally, don’t be satisfied,” Franklin coach Louis Brown said of his team’s approach to the final three contests of the regular season. “We got a lot of good guys on both sides of the ball that push each other in practice. We go ones versus ones at the end of practice and it’s pretty chippy and gets pretty competitive. That’s what it’s all about. It’s fun. We’ve got to continue to push for each other.”
Former Racine Horlick great Steve Morris has the trajectory pointing up in Kenosha
The first loss for first-year Bradford coach Steve Morris hit him and the staff hard. They decompressed outside of the Red Devils locker room long after his players and the facility had been mostly cleared out for the night. The group discussed every aspect of the game, even delving into what the day was like before the kids even put pads on.
It’s not surprising that a former all-state quarterback and a three-time NCAA Division III national champion at UW-Whitewater would be so hungry to look at film of a 35-point blowout and see where his group can improve as the regular season reaches its conclusion in a few weeks.
“I’ve been preaching since I got here that adversity comes to anybody and it’s a part of life,” Morris said. “Character doesn’t show when the air conditioner is blowing, right? It’s when the heat’s on a little bit, and that’s when you kind of see the real character of a man and a team. I just kind of expressed to them, ‘Hey, this is not the end. You guys learned a lesson tonight.’ “
It’s a tough lesson to learn for a Red Devils team that hadn’t won five games in a season since winning the Division 1 state title under former coach Jed Kennedy in 2011. Morris won his first five games at the helm this year, including victories over Appleton North and against Morris’ alma mater in Horlick last week. The excitement was plentiful and continuing to grow, but when it comes to taking that next step against the likes of a Franklin team that looks as dialed in as any team in the state, it’s going to take a bit more time to reach that kind of level as a program.
“Coach Brown is a guy I look up to,” Morris said. “Franklin is always a top team and when you talk about those top teams sitting up there, they’re always in the conversation. It’s one of those things I was saying to him, the trajectory of the program is going up and he agreed with that. For us, it’s a day-to-day thing and we’re trying to be present where our feet are in the moments and take advantage of every opportunity to learn and grow. We just keep the focus on taking another step. These kind of moments right now is where you truly know who you are and with the way the game went tonight, we kind of ran into the woodchipper a little bit (laughs).”
Morris was complimentary of the Sabers, noting that if you’re going to be the best you have to beat the best first.
“It’s all hats off to Franklin,” Morris said. “They’re an absolutely dominant football team. That’s what you look to do. That’s what it’s all about. You got the No. 1 team at home, both 5-0, there’s not a better opportunity than that. That’s what we were preaching all week. We liked the effort from the boys tonight, but this one got away from them. It’s an opportunity to learn from a great program.”
Brown took the time to praise Morris and the other promising coaches within the Southeast Conference, relating to the struggles of building a program from the ground up many years ago.
“I’m really excited for these young coaches,” Brown said. “We’re leaving the conference just as I think some of these programs are really building. Boy, Bradford had some dang good teams. (Racine) Park had some. We had some all over the place. It’s so good to see young coaches energize the community and get kids to want to come play for them. (Morris) came up to me and said, ‘You emulate what we want to be.’ I was there. I’ve been there before. I had to help turn a program around many years ago and they’re heading in the right direction.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Franklin gives Kenosha Bradford a hard lesson in battle of Southeast Conference unbeatens
Reporting by Michael Whitlow, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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