Football: Permian rolls by Odessa High

The Permian Panthers left no doubt Friday in their annual crosstown battle with the Odessa High Bronchos.

Quarterback Taylor Byrd ran for three touchdowns and passed for three more as the fifth-ranked Panthers overwhelmed OHS 49-13 before an overflow crowd at Ratliff Stadium.

Permian (9-0 overall, 4-0 in District 3-5A) clinched at least a share of the district championship, its first since 1998 when it tied with Midland Lee and Abilene Cooper. The Panthers’ last undisputed district crown was in 1994.

“When you get to this point in this district where you’re 4-0, we can say we claim at least a share of the district title,” Permian coach Darren Allman said. “We’ve got to go win next week (against Midland High) to claim it outright, but we’re pleased with where we are now.

“It’s such a special thing to win a district championship in this district, and it’s special here because we haven’t done that in a while. It’s so special that we don’t want to share it with anybody. We want it for ourself.”

Leading 14-7 late in the first quarter, Permian blew the game open by scoring four touchdowns before halftime.

“You have to give Permian a lot of credit,” OHS coach Ron King said. “They showed why they’re the No. 5 team in the state. They’ve just got so many weapons on offense, and their defense is as good as we’ve seen. They’ve got a lot of talented players and they look like they can go deep (in the playoffs).

Byrd, who was 22-of-31 passing for 284 yards, had a hand in five first-half scores. The senior ran for TDs of 14, 3 and 15 yards and connected on TD passes of 10 yards to Melvis Pride and 29 yards to Joseph Knighten.

Pride also scored on a 9-yard run in the first quarter, while tight end Shai Biggerstaff pulled in a 4-yard TD pass in the third quarter.

The Panthers finished with 515 total yards — 222 rushing and 293 passing — for the third time this season they have gone over the 500-yard mark. But for the fourth consecutive game, it took Permian until its third offensive possession to get on the board.

“We’re trying to go out there and score the very first possession, but it just hasn’t been working our for us,” said Byrd, who notched the sixth-best single-game passing total in Permian history.

“We just have to go out there and keep that same intensity every single play, every single series. Finally, we’ll get in it if we just keep that same pace the whole game. That’s just how it’s been going for us,”

After the first two series, the Panthers produced three touchdowns in their next 10 offensive plays to lead 21-7 at the end of the first quarter. It was 42-7 at halftime.

“The first half was exceptional for us with the exception of the drive where they went down and got points,” Allman said. “We blew a coverage, we jumped offsides and we had bad kickoff coverage to start that drive with.

“Our kids fought through that and ended up having a great first half and we got to play a lot of people in the second half. Those guys gave great effort.”

Odessa High sophomore Derrick Teegarden, who finished 16-of-37 for 160 yards, got the Bronchos (3-6, 1-3) on the board with a 17-yard pass to Miles Torres with 1:42 to go in the first period.

That got the Bronchos within a touchdown after a turnover set up a 15-yard scoring drive for the Panthers, but it was all Permian the rest of the way,

“We didn’t do a good job of stopping the run or the pass,” King said. “If you load up to stop the run, they kill you with the pass. If you drop people back to cover the pass, they can run right over you,

“We gave them a short field with the turnover, then we had some breakdowns on the next one where we failed to pick up the back coming out. After that, their offensive line just started wearing us down.”

The Bronchos finished with 227 total yards, after having just 83 at halftime. The Permian defense held OHS to minus-15 yards rushing in the first half.

“I thought we did a pretty good job of shutting them down,” Permian linebacker Alex Lujan said. “The first series, they got a pretty good leap on us and we had to get our heads in the game. We had to start flying around.”

Despite the loss, Odessa High remains in playoff contention heading into the final week of the season.

The Bronchos are tied with Midland High and Cooper for fourth place in the district, but have to beat No. 9 Abilene High on the road to advance and have Cooper lose to Lee.

“We’ve got to put this one behind us in a hurry,” King said. “It’s never easy to do that with these crosstown games, but we’ve still got a chance and we’ve got to get ready.”