Tumwater averages more than 50 points per game – but defense is the priority

Even a casual observer of Tumwater football sees the offensive explosions that have resulted in an incredible 566 points scored in 11 games. Thousand-yard rusher Dylan Paine leads a deep corps of running backs, junior quarterback Cody Whalen makes it impossible for the Thunderbirds not to occasionally set aside their famed wing-T for a passing formation.

No Class 2A or 3A school has come close to stopping them. Class 4A teams barely slow them down.

All those touchdowns give Tumwater fans plenty of opportunities to sing the fight song. But on the sidelines, in the coaches’ offices, there’s a different starting point: defense.

“It’s been the same philosophy here forever. Defense is the No. 1 priority in this program,” said coach Bill Beattie. “We’re so known for the wing-T, but even when I played here back in the ‘70s, defense was always the key.”

T-Birds opponents have managed just 100 points, an average of barely nine per game. Class 3A Yelm scored a quarter of those in Week 2 during a 54-27 Tumwater win. Timberline, a state 3A quarterfinalist last season, was blanked, 55-0, on opening night. A mid-season showdown with previously undefeated Evergreen Conference rival W.F. West resulted in another shutout, 34-0.

Only one 2A school has scored more than once against Tumwater: Columbia River, which scored all 13 of its points after the T-Birds took a 66-0 lead in the teams’ district playoff game.

Tumwater’s commitment to defense starts with personnel. Though the T-Birds will dress nearly 70 players when everyone is healthy, half a dozen do go both ways. When those guys need rest, they’ll stay off the field when Tumwater has the ball.

“That’s coach Beattie’s department,” said defensive coordinator Tim Otton, son of Tumwater’s famed long-time coach Sid Otton and father of sophomore tight end/defensive lineman Ryan Otton. “But he always says ‘If you need this kid on defense, we’ll find a way to rest him on offense.’”

Just as freshmen arrive at Tumwater already familiar with the wing-T from running it for the local Thurston County Youth Football League teams and in middle school, the T-Bird staff tries to ease the transition on defense as well.

“We give the youth teams a really simplified version of what we do,” said Otton. “You don’t want to give TCYFL coaches rules made in stone. You want them to have fun, come up with their own blitz package or if they feel they have to cover things a certain way, do that. We try to give them a basic verbiage so kids are at least speaking the language once they get here.”

That language has translated into an aggressive varsity defense that has forced 19 turnovers, including four interceptions by junior defensive back Jack Jones, and 83 tackles for losses, 16 by 2A EvCo Most Valuable Player Jacob Schuster and 10 by Ryan Otton.

Junior Cooper Wall joined Schuster and Otton on the EvCo all-league defensive line while junior Turner Allen was named to the backfield. Three seniors were also on the list, DB Jaylen Clay and linebackers Gaven Murphy and Tyler Woods.

While Clay has a significant role in the T-Birds’ offense, scoring seven touchdowns as both a running back and the team’s third-leading receiver, Murphy and Woods are primarily defensive players and like it that way.

The 5-foot-10, 190-pound Murphy migrated toward his current role as his body matured.

“I started off in fourth grade as an offensive lineman,” he said. “I never really thought about playing defense. As I grew up, I became less fat, got more athletic. I didn’t really like to get hit, but I was a hitter. I was a D lineman in middle school. I was doing good, but I didn’t keep growing, so I became a linebacker.”

Though he has carried the ball 11 times for three touchdowns this season, Woods found himself down the depth chart at running back early in his high school career, starting a transformation he says has left him “surely a defensive guy.

“Until seventh grade, I was an offensive guard and defensive end. In middle school, I started running the ball more, but my sophomore year here there was a dude ahead of me at running back so I spent a lot of time on defense and grew to love it.”

Tumwater’s defensive specialists love how potent the T-Bird offense is for a simple reason: it keeps them on the field more.

“Our defense will have a good series, maybe get a three-and-out. We’ll be at the chairs talking and we’ll hear cheering because our offense has scored really quick,” Woods said. “We talk quickly, get out adjustments done. Our defense is always ready to go back on the field because at any moment our offense can score.”

In one EvCo game this season, Tumwater ran just 19 plays from scrimmage but scored 62 points.

“It’s awesome to have such a great offense,” Woods added. “We get to play more of the game. Our defense loves what we do. It must suck for the offensive guys cause they’re not getting as much time out there.”

Conversely, the T-Birds’ defense has done a good job of getting the ball back for the offense. They’ve done it with a unique method of building game plans.

“Our first thought is always to stop the run and make people one dimensional,” said Otton. “On the other hand we’re really intentional about building from the back to the front in terms of our scheme, thinking about how we’ve got to cover things first, then what can we do with the front.

“At the end of the day, if you don’t stop the run, you’re in trouble.”

Undefeated and top-ranked Tumwater’s last two meetings with Saturday’s opponent in a 1 p.m. state quarterfinal at Tumwater District Stadium, eighth-seeded Archbishop Murphy (8-2), have proven that.

In 2016, as Sid Otton, Washington’s all-time winningest high school coach, presided over his final T-Bird game, the Wildcats eliminated host Tumwater in the quarterfinals, 48-10. With current University of Washington cornerback Kyler Gordon running behind an offensive line of 300-pounders that prompted five opponents to forfeit during the league season, the Wildcats couldn’t be stopped.

In 2017, in Beattie’s first season, Tumwater held both Gordon and star running back Ray Pimentel to negative yardage as it advanced to the state finals with a 10-6 triumph at Sparks Stadium in Puyallup.

“That’s as good as we’ve played since this staff has been together,” Tim Otton said. “It was one of those days the stuff you’re calling is working and the kids are playing awesome. Hopefully, we can string together two in a row like that.”

The Wildcats’ line isn’t as terrifying as it was in ‘16, but they do have quality backs in Ryan King and Mason Mathis lined up behind quarterback Victor Gabalis, who has been Murphy’s starter the past three seasons.

Both Beattie and Otton say the Wildcat linemen get off the ball and finish blocks as well as any team they’ve seen this season. Though seeded eighth in the state tournament, the Wildcats are ranked as high as second behind the T-Birds (11-0) by independent computer polls.

“They’re a very well-coached team. They’ve had two pretty distinct seasons,” said Beattie of a Wildcat team that had a coaching change from Jerry Jensen to Mark Leone at the very end of the last school year. “They switched their philosophy up halfway through. They’re running the ball a lot more and they seem to have gelled a little bit. There’s eight teams left, they’re all good.”

T-Bird players cite the efforts of the coaching staff and their scout team in helping them prepare for the challenge.

“In practice, our scout team is giving us great looks, going 100 percent,” said Clay. “We also spend a lot of time together watching film.”

Film study has been streamlined with the addition of former North Thurston head coach Willie Garrow to the staff this fall. Beattie calls Garrow a film and analytics “expert.”

Woods agreed.

“We’ll play a game on Friday night and Coach Garrow will have our film up and all of the scout film all up by Friday late or Saturday morning around 1 a.m.,” he said. “He breaks it down to every formation, every situation. It’s really a big advantage to have that much given to us.”

In the end, though, Murphy says it’s the players’ connections with each other that matter most.

“This defense is strong because of the bond we have,” he said. “We all have each other’s backs. We trust one another. We can rely on each other.”

This story was originally published November 23, 2019 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Tumwater averages more than 50 points per game – but defense is the priority."