FAYETTEVILLE -- Taylor Powell was like many other sophomore high school football players in a lot of ways.
In his own special way, he was in a class by himself.
Taylor Powell
School: Fayetteville
Class: Sophomore
Height: 6-1
Weight: 190
Notable: Passed for a 7A-West Conference best 2,452 yards, with 20 TDs and 8 interceptions. … Completed 170 of 269 passes (63 percent), including 42 of 50 in Fayetteville’s final two games against FS Southside and Bentonville. … Cousin of Volleyball Co-Newcomer of the Year Ella May Powell and Bulldogs pitcher Walker Powell.
Powell brought his big, powerful right arm up from Woodland Junior High and competed right away for the quarterback job at Fayetteville in his first year of high school. But like most who make the move up, the new varsity game wasn't a breeze right away.
"The speed of the game changed a lot," Powell said. "Junior high was a lot slower and at the beginning of the year it was sometimes overwhelming how fast it was. But it seemed like towards to end of the regular season and in the playoffs everything slowed down for me and I was able to play my best ball."
Powell and junior Jack Lindsey split time throughout the nonconference schedule and even shared reps through a good portion of the 7A-West Conference season. Powell, a 6-foot-1, 190-pounder, had led Woodland to a perfect 10-0 junior high season the year before and came to the Bulldogs with plenty of hype. But throwing the ball around the lot for the Purple'Dogs came with some pressure, and at times that pressure wore down on the young sophomore.
Still, Powell performed admirably even when showing signs of sophomore inexperience. While there were some mistakes along the way, coaches knew all Powell needed was a little time, and whole lot of calm.
"As a sophomore, as talented as he was early in the season he made some mistakes," Fayetteville coach Daryl Patton said. "Jack (Lindsey) is another talented young man too and both of those guys were battling for the job and competing. And I remember sitting here after week 1, week 2, 3 and 4 and it was still kind of up in the air who was going to get the job and take it and run with it.
"But the thing I'm real pleased with is Taylor, from the Bentonville game at the end of the regular season to the end of the playoffs, I thought he really grew up. I thought he finally kind of took a breath and quit worrying about making mistakes.
Powell finally hit his stride in the postseason and put together four weeks almost unmatched by any Fayetteville quarterbacks before him. His efforts helped guide the Purple'Dogs (11-3) to the Class 7A finals, and his performance has earned him honors as the NWA Media Newcomer of the Year.
"I think when I started relaxing, it started feeling like backyard football in the neighborhood back in the day," Powell said. "When I relaxed and did what I could do and just played within the system, then good things happened.
"And just having fun. Most of the season I was really tense. But near the end of the season and in the postseason I just relaxed."
Powell completed 57.4 percent of his passes in the regular season with 11 touchdowns and four interceptions. In four postseason games against Cabot, Conway, Fort Smith Southside and Bentonville, those numbers skyrocketed to a 78.4 percent completion rate with nine touchdowns.
Against the Rebels, Powell completed 20 of 22 passes for 219 yards and three touchdowns, in a half.
"That Fort Smith Southside game he was really good," Patton said. "But in the championship game he was also really stinking good. He threw one interception that (Cody) Scroggins got, that was his one bad ball.
"He threw another interception and that was just a play he was trying to make. Other than that he was really good."
Powell sees the key to his success is not putting all the pressure on his own shoulders. Once he did that this season, he took off.
And with Fayetteville expected to bring back a wealth of talent next season, a calm, cool and collected Powell should only get better and better for the Bulldogs in year's to come.
"I know he'll work at and he'll put everything he has into it," Patton said. "And if he improves as much as he did from his ninth grade year to this year, again next year. And then improves as much as that again the following year, he's going to put himself among the best quarterbacks we've ever had here and he'll have numerous colleges come beating on his door."
Sports on 12/21/2014