Mason football continues ascent under Gary Houghton with program-changing win vs. DeWitt

The ascent of the Mason football program has been steady throughout Gary Houghton’s seven seasons as head coach.

The Bulldogs have become playoff regulars, and occasionally over that span, there have been some victories that gave the program a bump upward.

“When I look at those seven years, there were some key wins,” Houghton said. “You could say, after those wins we started to take it to another level here, here, and here.”

No. 1 on the list was the 20-17 victory over Birmingham Brother Rice in 2021 that gave the Bulldogs their first regional title.

“The Brother Rice game, no question, took our program to another level,” he said. “The expectations have been higher ever since. I look at the Trenton game as another key one.”

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The 2022 Trenton game also came in the regional final and sent Mason into the state semifinals again.

And then there's this year. It was only the second game of the regular season, but Thursday’s 42-23 rout of DeWitt was one of those victories.

“I see this one,” Houghton said, “almost to the level in 2021 when we beat Brother Rice.”

It was a monumental victory, indeed, because DeWitt has won a state championship and is at the level Mason wants to reach.

Mason (2-0) was never better than it was against DeWitt, taking a 20-0 lead in the first quarter and turning it into a 35-7 halftime advantage.

“Our kids came out fast,” Houghton explained. “We put the pedal to the floor from the beginning and never let up. It was impressive.”

Nobody was more impressive than running back/safety AJ Martel, who contributed to the victory in all three facets of the game.

In addition to running for 139 yards and two touchdowns on 22 carries, he put the first nail in the coffin when he returned a punt 94 yards for an early 13-0 lead.

“The punt return,” Houghton said, “that one might have been the one that turned the tide where it was almost insurmountable. That was a huge play.”

“You could see the momentum was swinging so much. It was a huge tide and we were riding it.”

Late in the first half when DeWitt was battling to get back in the game, Martel had a superb interception to kill a drive at the Mason 1-yard line.

“He did a beautiful job reading it and running underneath it,” Houghton said. “He dove and made a heckuva play.”

In all, it was another terrific performance by Martel, whose speed on the track translates well to speed on the field.

“He’s extremely fast and he has game speed, too,” Houghton said. “There’s a lot of track kids that put the pads on and, yeah, they’re fast, but not as fast. AJ’s vision, combined with his speed, and he has one of the highest football IQs of any kid I’ve ever coached.

“There’s many times we’ll be talking about something, and he’ll point out that we’re wrong. You look at the other coaches and, yeah, he’s right.”

Junior quarterback Cason Carswell hurt the DeWitt defense with his arms and his legs. Mason has a balanced attack that may allow them to advance past the semifinal stage of the state playoffs.

Each of the last two seasons ended with semifinal losses to Detroit King and All-American quarterback Dante Moore.

This fall, Moore is at UCLA (where he threw two touchdown passes Saturday night in his first college game).

That means this time around, Moore won't be in Mason's way. It could be an opportunity for Houghton and his players to repay a community that has been there through thick and thin.

“That would be a beautiful thing, no doubt about it,” Houghton said. “This community has been so supportive. I can’t ask for a better community than the one we’re coaching in, living in, right now. It’s been awesome.”

FULL GAME RECAP: Behind dominant first half, Mason football takes down DeWitt in showdown of area powers

Roseville making history

For the second week in a row, Roseville posted one of the biggest victories in school history when it came back to upset Romeo, 33-30.

A week ago the Panthers drilled Brother Rice, 41-0. At 0-2, Rice may be in the rebuild mode while Romeo, also 0-2, should be a contender in the always-tough MAC Red.

Roseville (2-0) plays in the MAC White, which normally struggles mightily against Red teams, so this was a monumental victory.

“I think our aggression and what we do schematically, offensively and defensively, we were able to run the ball, throw the ball,” said Roseville coach Vernard Snowden. “It was just execution the whole night, actually.”

The Panthers' execution was tremendous in the early going, taking leads of 12-0 and 26-10 at the half.

At the time, it looked as though Roseville was going to breeze to victory, but nothing comes easy against Romeo.

The Bulldogs rallied to score 20 consecutive points to take a 30-26 lead. Romeo’s defense forced three turnovers, including a 50-yard pick-six by Jackson Swords with 3:32 left.

Roseville quarterback Jordan Simes had been terrific, but his good game was in peril and he could have fallen apart after the interception.

But instead, Simes led the Panthers on an 85-yard drive that resulted in Desmond Straughton’s 5-yard TD run with 36 seconds left. Simes’ passing attack was supported by Straughton’s 103 yards and two TDs on 17 carries and 89 yards on 15 carries from Bryan Weathersby.

“The biggest thing he did was, he had a couple of interceptions and we went down,” Snowden said. “After the pick-six, he told me he's got me. His leadership and stuff like that was the reason we came back and won.”

Simes finished 17-for-28 for 187 yards and three scores.

“He was young last year, and he made a lot of mistakes,” Snowden said. “This year, his character and the toughness that he had. He showed some real, real character and leadership last night.”

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In five seasons at Roseville, Snowden has built the Panthers into a state playoff team. They were eliminated the last three seasons by Warren De La Salle, which has won the last two D-2 state titles.

That may be part of why Brother Rice showed up so early on Roseville’s schedule.

“We wanted to play Brother Rice Week 1 because Brother Rice was the only team that beat (Warren) De La Salle the last two years,” Snowden said. “Then we had the MAC Red crossover and we knew anybody in the MAC Red was going to be a tough game for us. We are on track and on schedule for the program being to where it’s at.”

Snowden hopes the program is eventually contending for state championships. This is a mighty good start.

“Brother Rice last week and Romeo this week, they’re huge program-wins for what we’ve been building over the last five years,” Snowden said. “It definitely grows more confidence in who we are. We have 17 seniors and all those guys have been here three or four years and they’ve seen the process and our growth as a team and a program. It brings the confidence in the program.”

Cass Tech heads south

Detroit Cass Tech made Michigan High School Athletic Association history Saturday when it became the first school in Michigan to play an opponent not from a connecting state and more than 300 miles away from the school.

Cass was able to play Montvale (New Jersey) St. Joseph Regional because the game was played in Ohio at Youngstown State. The Technicians were pretty much drilled, 49-14.

St. Joseph has won 19 state championships, but the last title came in 2018; it was 6-4 in 2021 and 6-5 last season.

It is good that there is now a vehicle available for teams who feel compelled to test themselves against teams in other parts of the country, if they can pull it off.

Several years ago, Brother Rice was scheduled to play against an Ohio team in the Herbstreit Showcase in Ohio. But in an example of its archaic thinking in those days, the MHSAA ruled Rice could not participate in the event because a team from Alabama was also part of the event, even though it was not playing Brother Rice.

The MHSAA is at least willing to look at some new ideas, and this was a good start.

One of the downsides to the game at Youngstown is that the crowd bore a resemblance to a cellular phone calling plan from the days of yore — friends and family only.

The camera angles on TV appeared to reveal only a few dozen fans in an otherwise empty stadium, giving the game the atmosphere of a preseason scrimmage.

The loss left Cass at 0-2, the same as Detroit King, which lost at Carmel (Ind.), 39-0.

Although King and Cass are both 0-2, the sky is not falling and the sun will rise again in the east. In 2019, both teams were 0-2, yet King advanced to the state finals before losing and Cass made it to the regional finals.

Cass plays at King on Sept. 15 and the winner should run the table heading into Week 9. That is when the Catholic League and Public School League are hoping to pair the champion of each league at Ford Field in something of a revival of the Goodfellow Game, which used to be played at Tiger Stadium.

To update things a bit, how about calling it the Goodfellas Game?

Stay tuned.

Mick McCabe is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1. Order his book, “Mick McCabe’s Golden Yearbook: 50 Great Years of Michigan’s Best High School Players, Teams & Memories,” now at McCabe.PictorialBook.com

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mason football continues ascent with program-changing win vs. DeWitt