The Aairon Savage era began on a high note as Decatur routed Mae Jemison 54-23 at home on Friday.
Bradin Dupper had a strong start taking over at quarterback after Ellis Dickman graduated last year. Dupper led the Red Raiders (1-0) with six touchdowns, four passing and two rushing.
Decatur’s new head coach had one word to describe Dupper’s performance.
“Phenomenal,” Savage said.
Dupper had four touchdown passes in the first half. The first to Wyatt Smith (15 yards) at the 2:01 mark of the first quarter put the Red Raiders ahead 7-0 after Emmanuel Rosales’ extra point.
He added a 30 yarder to Put Webster with 51 seconds left in the opening period.
He tacked on two more in the second quarter with a 21-yard pass to Trey Greenwell (7:56) and a 26 yarder to Rhys Dorsey, who also had a 55-yard punt return for a score.
“I feel good,” Dupper said. “We had a really great game plan and a lot of supporting factors on the offense that helped me and the whole team succeed.”
Dorsey also had a 30-yard punt return that set up a score.
“We started pretty well,” Dorsey said about the Red Raiders, who scored the first 33 points of the game and led 33-7 at halftime.
Savage discussed his perspective about the team’s season-opening win.
“Winning is hard and these kids played hard,” Savage said. “We’re excited for them. We’re celebrating our kids tonight. They did one heck of a job of coming out and playing a pretty good ball game.”
Decatur will host Austin on Friday for city bragging rights.
“It feels good … to have a little momentum going into the (Austin) game,” Dupper said.