ESPN / GOOD COUNSEL OPENER - “We wanted to make a statement that we were still Gilman.”

In this BONUS CLIP from BACKSTORY 2 — SOPHOMORE YEAR, Ellison Jordan reflects on opening the season against Good Counsel in an ESPN matchup that tested Gilman immediately.

From rivalry pressure and early adversity to proving the program still belonged on the national stage, this clip captures the intensity of high-level high school football under the lights.

Transcript

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Open up plagues for other people as well. But now playing three technique, I have more opportunity to make more plagues with that. So it was a good time, you know, playing three technique, and I played that spot for the next three years from sophomore to my senior year. So sophomore, junior, senior year, I played three tech, I played the three-technique spot. Going back to the first game we had versus good counsel. That game was on ESPN, like I said, another ESPN game. And it was pretty tough at first because you know, that's a very talent, that's a very talented team. That was a team who was still highly ranked in the country and won the best teams, or at the time, the best team in the state. They were one of the best teams in the state that year. And that was a team we had to go up against. So that game went down to the wire a little bit because you know they were, they had some guys that left. We were both in the same spot. You know, we had guys, we had a lot of seniors that left in my freshman year, or after my freshman year. After that year. So it was kind of like an even matchup. So, you know, that game went back and forth. You know, they scored first, I believe. Then we scored later. I'm trying to look at the box score, excuse me. You know, at first, I remember now thinking about it, they actually went up two touchdowns. Looking back at it now, they actually went up two touchdowns in the first quarter. And then it's like, you know, we were struggling a little bit. You know, this is kind of like Dave Avu when we were playing against Arthur Semuler my freshman year, and we just got blown out. But with this game, we actually turned the tables a little bit, and we actually won that game, and it the score was 20 to 14. You know, they only scored, they only scored in the first quarter. They didn't score it in the rest of the game. They only scored two touchdowns in the first quarter, and they didn't score the rest of the game. So it was actually, I remember the play, it was actually, you know, last play of the game. They were trying to score, and one of our players actually made the game-winning tackle versus the council, and he was a pretty and he was a good player back in the day. So that was a pretty great game, and we started off the season with a with a victory. We started off the season with a win, with a dub. So that was nothing but you know, blessings on top of blessings, you know, making uh impact, making, you know, a statement, start the season that we are still Gilman and we're still here, you know, as a program. And I remember personally, individually, I didn't have no sacks that game, and I didn't really do much that game. I had like a couple tackles, like two or three tackles, maybe four, between two and four tackles. I can't remember. It was around that, it was around that, you know, that amount of tackles, but I didn't do that much that game. So, but I was glad we got the win. You know, I wasn't I wanted to get a stack, and like I've always been like this too. Like I've always like, I want to win as a team, but I want to do well as well. I want to compete to the highest level. I want to, you know, show that I can compete with guys who are bigger than me, etc. And during that game, I was competing. I was competing with guys who were going to who were committing to like other D1 schools and who were bigger than me. I remember competing against a couple guys that I actually played youth football with. Uh there's like two or three guys I played for youth football that I played with in youth football back at KLM who were playing at Good Council. So that was just like, you know, a real estate come to real estate moments like, wow, you know, we used to play with each other, now playing against each other in high school. So that was just a pretty great moment as well. But we took the dub, we won the dub. Not won the dub, but we, you know, we got the dub versus good council, and that was a great moment then. During that season, we thought we were gonna run the table. We thought everything was in our hands, we thought we had all the tools, despite losing a whole bunch of seniors. That year, we thought we had everything. But we we weren't bad. We wasn't, we were never a bad team during my four years. We were never a bad team, but my sophomore year, that was a down year. And it started in the following in the next game versus the Manatee. Many, for you those of you who don't know, I don't know how about them now, but Mansey and either any really any school from Florida, any school from Florida, you know, you're you're a football player from Florida, you know, you're a baller for sure. But high but in terms of high school, Mancy was one of the best teams of the country during the time. They had a whole bunch of you know D1 athletes, and they were just beasters, man. They were just quick. And they actually came up to Maryland to play us at the University of Maryland. So initially, you know, we knew what we were going getting in, we knew what we were getting to, we knew what we were going up against, but we felt like we had the tools and stuff to win. And, you know, we thought this would be a easy, not an easy one, but we thought we could get to win. Mind you, first game or first play, they were so fast, like they ran like a zone. And I actually remember getting the first tackle, the first play of the game. And I actually had a really great game individually. That game for me personally was a pretty good game for me. I had like seven or eight tackles, half of those tackles for losses, and I had two sacks that game. And so that was against a high, highly ranked team, a highly uh ranked team in Manatee, you know, had a great offensive line, great quarterback, great running back. They were all they were great all across the board, and I actually gained respect from those guys from Manatee because they saw what I can do, my stall from a year. But that's just individually. But as a team, we got smoked, we got obliterated. We lost like 44 to 14 to 14. And that was just that was a bad day. I remember the next like the next day of practice. We had to run, we, we, we ran. I remember running like till the wheels fall off, really, until our tongues turned, till our tongues fell off, man, because we just got our butts whooped. We got we just got our butts whoop. I don't want to say the other word, but we got our butts kicked really, really bad by Man Team. And Man team was just, you know, they were the better team that day. They were the better team that day, and they they got to us really bad. Like it would it was a bad, it was a bad day, you know, as a team. But for me personally, I don't want to go off the rails and talk about me as much, even though this is a podcast about me. But just about I know we lost as a team, and that was unfortunate that we lost such a team, but individually, you know.