Bear fans, here we are. Not where we want to be, but the reality we are in. BHP made the trip to Central last Friday and came home with a 45-7 loss to Daniel. That drops the Bears to 0-2 for the first time since 2008. Before anybody starts writing the season's obituary, let me lay out why last Friday, and this season, is not as bad as the record wants you to believe.
I know some of you come to these posts for real football analysis, a few of you come for the professional wrestling mentions, and some of you come back for the reason I do this in the first place. Spotlighting what makes this program special to us and the players who work so hard for this community. That last part is what you are getting today.
The final said 45-7, but the game was closer than the scoreboard for a long stretch. Two windows turned a one or two possession game into a blowout. The first came in the last five minutes of the half. Daniel scored to go up 21-0, then BHP fumbled on the next drive and handed the Lions the ball near the red zone. Daniel punched it in with just over a minute left before the break. From playing 19 strong defensive minutes to walking into the locker room down 28, that swing was a gut punch. The second window was the icing on a cake nobody ordered and nobody wanted a slice of. As the numbers game wore the Bears down, Daniel scored twice more between the eight-minute and three-minute marks of the fourth. Two late scores that made the final feel more lopsided than the night actually was.
Here is the part the box score buries. BHP played terrific defense in the first quarter, holding one of the better offenses in 3A to 80 total yards and just 7 points in the opening frame. Then they came out of halftime and outscored Daniel 7-0 in the third. Those are not the stretches of a team getting run off the field. Those are the stretches that tell you what this group can be and how they want to fight back.
One of the biggest defensive notes of the night was the rushing total. BHP held Daniel to 113 yards on the ground. Put that next to what Daniel did in Week 1, when the Lions ran for 253 yards against Wren and Kingsten Bibb went for more than 175 by himself. BHP held Bibb to 40 yards. That is not a fluke or a soft night for Daniel. That is a defense executing a plan.
That defense is being led by Ty Dubose, who finished with 5 total tackles, 2 quarterback hurries, and 2 sacks. I am going to keep saying this until more outside of the program hear. Ty is doing something special every Friday, and if you enjoy watching linebacker play, get to the Bear Den and watch him work. Right there with him was Charlie Haynie, who added 2 quarterback hurries and a tackle for loss. Put those two alongside Kamarion Glenn and the front seven has a foundation that is going to keep getting nastier as the season goes.
The offense had its bright spots too, starting with the one most of us spent all summer asking about. Freshman quarterback Rylan Crooks. The raw numbers are not going to jump off a stat sheet, but what he is putting on film should check a lot of boxes. He looks through pressure instead of running from it and still lets the ball go down the field. He is comfortable rolling out and throwing on the move. And there is a fearlessness starting to show up in how he plays. Around him, the pass catchers are going to be a problem for BHP opponents. Bohler is the go-to guy, but Judd Lowie has flashed a skill set that could open this whole thing up. He is turning into that reliable possession target who moves the chains, and every young quarterback needs one of those.
None of us wanted to be sitting at 0-2. But we knew the front of this schedule was tough. We knew Daniel is one of the best 3A teams in the state and will be playing deep into November. We knew BHP was young, and young teams take time to come together. Knowing all of that and living it are two different things, though, and living it is hard. This is where we find out what we are made of as Fans. Head down, next play, cheer for these kids through the rough patch. It will pay off. It always does.
Quick rant that I know nobody asked for. No team should be allowed to wear gold numbers. Trying to log stats off Daniel players Friday, with those gold letters on baby blue, was like trying to read a ransom note through a foggy windshield during a solar eclipse. Somebody with authority over jersey design or high school football leadership, please, I am begging you.
Week 3 Preview
The Bears get back to the friendly confines of the Bear Den this Friday as the Patriots of J.L. Mann come to town. Both teams are chasing their first win. Mann opened with a 43-34 loss to Laurens and followed it with a 43-10 loss to Gaffney, so they arrive at 0-2 same as BHP.
The record says one thing, but the film says another. Mann has talented players at a lot of key spots. The one that jumps off the screen is defensive lineman Amare Bowman. He plays with a high motor and seems to live in the backfield, and when he arrives to a ball carrier, the ball carrier knows it. Bowman brings the lumber up front.
Offensively, Mann looks a lot like what BHP saw last week, a one-back spread, but they have no problem being one-dimensional. They want the ball in the air, and that is on the shoulders of junior Gage Watkins, who has already thrown for 560 yards through two games. His main targets are senior receivers Tristian Shell and AJ Bush. Watkins can spin it as well as any quarterback BHP has faced this year, and this offense knows how to hit explosive plays. Even without much of a running game, they stay dangerous throwing to backs out of the backfield. Slowing them down and forcing them to earn long, sustained drives instead of giving up chunk plays is going to be the whole ballgame for the BHP defense.
For BHP, three things stand out as keys to getting in the win column.
First is pass defense. Mann wants to push it vertically and then work crossing routes behind those clear-out patterns. BHP has to get pressure on Watkins to shrink the time those routes need to develop, and then the back end has to tackle. One missed tackle on a deep ball and it is a house call the wrong direction.
Second is finishing drives. BHP built a few promising drives last week that could have ended in points, but a few of these stalled out or got derailed by a turnover or a penalty. The Bears need to stack points early Friday, and finishing what they start is how that happens.
Third is special teams. Mann has had a few kicks blocked already this season and in the preseason. BHP has a history of getting after kicks, and this is the perfect week to cash one or two in. Even when the block does not come, the pressure has forced short kicks, and BHP can turn that into a field-position edge that adds up.
Quick Stats
- BHP has faced JL Mann 3 times in school history, BHP is 2-1 in those games. The last matchup was a 20-13 loss in the first round playoff game in 2006.
- This is the first time these two have played in a regular season game, all other matchups have come in the playoffs.
- The 2026 season is only the 7th time in program history that BHP has started a season 0-2.The last time BHP started 0-2 was 2008.
- BHP has lost by 35 or more points 16 times in school history, a quarter of those have come against Daniel.
- Since 2000 BHP is 21-3 in the 3rd game of the season.
- BHP historically wins more than 91% (353-33) of the time when it reaches 20 points, but only about 26% (74-210-4) when it doesn't.
- Since 2000, when BHP has lost a game while scoring 7 points or fewer, its record in the following game of that same season is 13-2. And the Bears averaged 31.2 points and hold their Opponent to 16.9 average points in those games.
- 83% of BHP's previous 0-2 teams stopped the losing streak within the next two games.
Quick Note:
We do not do this often. As in, never. But I thought Bear Nation needed this one. Marquise Henderson, in my opinion the greatest BHP football player ever, is now playing for the Samford Bulldogs down in Birmingham, Alabama. There has been a lot surrounding Marquise since he graduated BHP, and a lot of people took that opportunity to take shots at him personally. I can say I do not know Marquise beyond what we all saw on Friday nights. But I do know he was a fellow Bear football player, he worked for the same reasons we all did, and he did something for BHP that no one else has and most likely never will. I also know a few of his coaches, and I know how they felt about him. That speaks louder than any 80-yard run he ever broke in a BHP uniform.
I say all that for this. Last weekend Samford took on North Alabama and lost. But in the loss, Marquise Henderson caught 5 passes for 151 yards and a touchdown. The score came on an 86-yard stop-and-go, and from the video, it looked exactly like it did when he had a Bear Paw on his helmet.
I am not sure what made me feel like we needed to see this. What I know for sure is that it made me smile this weekend when it came across Twitter. And I know Coach Ballenger had a huge grin on his face watching it too.
Once a Bear, always a Bear. Tough People Win. And for at least the next few years, Bear fans are Samford Bulldog fans.
Burned the secondary @quisehenderson 🔥#AllForSAMford #SamfordDNA pic.twitter.com/ViAln3ViMN
— Samford Football (@SamfordFootball) August 30, 2026
Wrap Up
Two winless teams walk into the Bear Den Friday, and only one walks out with the weight lifted. That is the plain truth of it. Mann is more dangerous than its record, and if BHP treats this like a get-right game that shows up on its own, the Patriots have the arm and the receivers to make it a long night. This is not a week to coast of feel pity for yourself.
But it is a week that sets up well for the Bears if they do the little things. Get home on the quarterback, tackle in space, finish the drives they start, and lean on a special teams unit that can do special things. A young team does not turn the corner with one perfect night. It turns the corner by stacking good quarters, and BHP has already shown it can play good quarters against a much better opponent. Friday is the night to string four of them together to see it end with a win.
Prediction: BHP 28 - J.L. Mann 17
We want to see every Bear Fan packed into those home stands this Friday to support Them Big Bad Bears. If you can't, stay connected and get instant notifications when our posts drop by following us on Facebook and X. Stay plugged in, because come Friday, we'll be dropping the GameDay Graphic and providing final stats after the game.