Unheralded Midgett is Lowell’s ‘X-factor’

Font Size

Email

Bookmark

Black Text

White Text

COMMENTARY

LOWELL -- The pass was headed in his direction, and the receiver he was closing on hadn’t turned around yet. So Cody Midgett went after the ball instead of the man — and he slipped on the mudpit at the Inferno affectionately called a football field.

The pass went through his hands, hit him in the chest and bounced harmlessly to his side. Midgett grimaced, punched the air and was about to unleash a scream of anguish— but then he looked up.

“I was pretty upset,” the Lowell senior said. “But then I saw everyone cheering and I looked up at the scoreboard and saw all zeroes. So it wasn’t so bad.”

Wasn’t so bad. Yeah, that’s one way to put it. Lowell had just beaten Griffith in, ho-hum, the latest all-time thriller in a rivalry full of all-time thrillers, 19-13 on a last-minute 36-yard touchdown pass from Kurt Monix to Jacob Belt.

Naturally, the attention afterward came their way. But it was fitting that the last pass, Griffith’s last gasp, was cut off by Midgett. Because while the scoresheet points to Monix and Belt, it was Midgett — the tailback-slash-receiver-slash-cornerback-slash-returner-slash-wedgebuster-slash-whatever else you got — who won this game for the Red Devils.

Almost always seems that way. After all, at this stage of the postseason, at this level of competition, everybody’s got a quality quarterback. Everybody’s got a big-play tailback. Everybody’s got a go-to tackling machine. But not everybody has Cody Midgett. Only Lowell does.

And that’s why, as Kirk Kennedy put it, the Red Devils, despite an uncharacteristically difficult day on offense, “met our objective — to live to fight another day.”

It was Midgett who hauled in a 44-yard touchdown pass early in the second quarter and outran the defense. It was Midgett who looked like Lawrence Taylor in the original Nintendo Tecmo Bowl, racing in untouched to block an extra point two feet after it was kicked to preserve a 13-13 tie at the half. It was Midgett who wisely backed up a teammate who badly muffed a hard-liner punt, pouncing on it just before Griffith could recover.

And, of course, it was Midgett who picked off a Greg Joyce pass with 68 seconds to play at midfield, setting up Lowell’s game-winning drive.

Panthers fans will have nightmares about this kid for years to come. In Lowell’s regular-season victory at the Boneyard, Midgett had three touchdowns, including a game-sealing 95-yard interception return while trying not to puke from a stomach illness. So while Midgett doesn’t have the stats of a Brandon Grubbe or the high profile of a Kurt Monix, he might just be the most important player in black and red.

He’s simply everywhere, always perfectly positioned to make the big play — especially when it’s needed the most.

“He’s the key player on our team,” said Monix, who has been playing alongside Midgett since Pop Warner, when he was an unrivaled one-man juggernaut and human highlight reel, but was routinely told he was too small to ever succeed at any other level. “We have so much confidence in him in every phase of the game.”

It’s always been that way. When he was 10 or 11 years old, Midgett ran around the park pretending to be Kansas City Chiefs returnman Dante Hall. To this day, he still spends much of his time trying — in vain — to tell Bears fans that Devin Hester isn’t half the player Hall was.

“Everyone else wanted to be Randy Moss or guys like that,” Midgett said. “I wanted to be Dante Hall. The X-factor.”

X-factor. That’s the one. There’s no other way to describe him. Ask him what position he plays.

“I never know what to say, I don’t really have a main position,” he said. Ask him what position he prefers. “I don’t really have an answer to that, either,” he said.

He’s not as big a star that way. He’s not as well known that way. But he’s so much more valuable that way. Ask his teammates. Ask his coaches.

Or ask his opponents — the ones grasping at and gasping for air. The ones who can’t keep up on offense, on defense, on special teams. The ones who’ve just been hit with another Cody Midgett dagger.

The ones, invariably, on the losing sideline.

Contact Mark Lazerus at 648-3140 or mlazerus@post-trib.com