By Derek Taylor
Assistant sports editor
It took him six weeks, but Capital football coach Jon Carpenter said Friday he believes he finally understands how to run the Cougars' offense.
Capital got 189 rushing yards and four touchdowns from junior running back Silas Nazario on Friday, and senior quarterback Tyrhee Pratt threw for 282 yards and a touchdown as Class AAA No. 2 Capital trounced fourth-ranked and previously unbeaten Huntington 51-14 at University of Charleston Stadium.
"It's a damn shame that I'm not smart enough to do that all the time," Carpenter said after the Cougars became the first team to score 50 or more points against Huntington since Parkersburg did so in 2010.
"But it's good. Now it's happening for us and that's what we're going to do the rest of the year.
"The kids are excited," Carpenter said. "If they get excited then I get excited, and we kind of feed off each other."
What Carpenter said took him so long to figure out was to how to best use Nazario and Pratt as offensive focal points following the graduation of 2014 Kennedy Award-winning running back Kashuan Haley. How the Cougars did so was to play an uptempo pace that saw Pratt throw 27 passes - he completed 21 of them although he was intercepted twice - and move the ball to the perimeter as frequently as possible.
The Cougars (5-1) followed the plan on their first drive, and Nazario ran in his first touchdown with 8:22 left in the first.
A quick stop and another drive later, Nazario was back in the end zone with just more than four minutes left in the opening quarter. The Cougars' third drive ended when Pratt scored on a 2-yard run on the second play of the second quarter.
"We look up and it's 21-0 just like that," Huntington coach Billy Seals said. "Jon did a great job on his offensive play calling tonight. That's as aggressive as I've seen him in a long time, to be honest with you."
Capital led 24-7 at halftime before Nazario scored two more touchdowns in the third and put the game far out of reach.
"It's perfect," Nazario said of the gameplan. "If that's clicking, and then the pass game's clicking, what can you stop? It's just outsmarting the other team."
The other eye-opening element of the game - other then the 15 receptions and 180 receiving yards contributed by Capital senior Miguel "Crunchy" Bays, who also had an interception on defense - was the emphatic emergence of Capital senior linebacker Devon Adkins.
Adkins had nine tackles, with six for a loss and two sacks. His play went a long way in Capital holding the Highlanders (5-1) to just 42 rushing yards on 29 attempts.
"We couldn't get [Adkins] blocked all night," Seals said. "I thought that if we got their linebackers blocked we could be able to run the ball. We couldn't get a guy on [Adkins] or [linebacker Dorian Etheridge] all night."
Adkins said that once the Cougars were up 21-0 playing defense got significantly easier Friday.
"Stopping the run set the tone for the game," Adkins said. "Our D-line has been improving, and because of them it keeps our linebackers free and allows us to make tackles and just play."
The Capital defense picked off Huntington quarterback Jaylen Adaway four times, with James Knox returning a pick 45 yards for a touchdown and Capital's final score.
Adkins completed 8 of 21 passes for 175 yards and a touchdown. Jadon Hayes led Huntington with 22 rushing yards on 14 carries.
"Everything went our way and it kind of snowballed on them," Carpenter said. "If we played 10 times that would happen maybe one time."
Huntington returns home next week to play host to top-ranked Cabell Midland (6-0) at 1:30 p.m. Saturday. Capital is off next week, and returns to action Oct. 16 at rival George Washington (4-1).