New confidence helped Hough QB Trey Blakeney become Observer football player of the week
Hough High football coach Shawn Baker has developed so much trust in senior quarterback Trey Blakeney that Baker is allowing him to do things he’s never done before.
Blakeney — The Observer’s high school football player of the week — can change plays at the line of scrimmage on his own, for example, and Blakeney gets to pick five of his team’s first 10 offensive plays every week.
“We’ve had some pretty good quarterbacks at Hough, and I had some when I was at Cox Mill,” Baker said, “but I’ve never done this before. But Trey’s attention to detail is so crazy this year, that I’m just trusting him more.”
Blakeney said he and Baker’s relationship really began to improve almost as soon as the 2023 season ended. Baker had finished his first season as head coach, leading the Huskies to an 11-2 record and a third round playoff berth.
Blakeney was ending a junior season where he threw for 1,543 yards and 19 touchdowns.
But the coach, and the player, wanted more.
“We just gravitated towards each other,” Blakeney said, “and we knew we had time to work on it. In the playoffs last year, our offense started picking up. The beginning of the season had been pretty rough. We knew if we just picked it up from there, we would be OK.”
Blakeney and Baker spent a lot of time watching film and talking and learning about each other. Baker was stunned by Blakeney’s attention to detail, his ability to pick up the smallest changes, pointing out things about formations or plays they would watch.
In the spring and early summer, as Hough started to practice, Baker saw the film study, attention to detail and comfort transform his quarterback.
Blakeney, who is 6-foot-2 and 210 pounds, began to play with a new-found confidence. He also committed to Austin Peay, choosing the Division I Atlantic Sun team over N.C. Central.
“He wants to be great,” Baker said. “He doesn’t like to let anybody down, too, so he’ll do every thing is his power to make sure everybody’s ready. If we have a guy who’s lined up wrong, he moves them around. He’s watched so much film that if (the other team) lines up into a defense, he knows exactly what to check into. He doesn’t need to look to me on the sidelines.”
This season, Blakeney has turned what had been a team that was traditionally defensive-minded into an offensive juggernaut.
Hough is averaging 46 points per game, and Blakeney has thrown for 1,704 yards and 23 touchdowns in eight games — already topping his junior season results. He’s led Hough (7-1) to seven straight wins, heading into Friday’s game at Harding (1-7).
Blakeney ranks among the top 25 quarterbacks in North Carolina in passing yards and is No. 1 in the Queen City 3A/4A conference.
Blakeney won a reader’s vote for player of the week after his performance against West Charlotte Oct. 10, when he completed 12 of 22 passes for 178 yards and four touchdowns.
Baker said those kind of performances are becoming commonplace, and Blakeney just wants to keep going.
“It feels great,” Blakeney said, “and especially with me being a four-year player, a senior. (People) have been talking about how we’re just a defensive team, and it’s good to change the narrative that we’re not just a defensive team. I think we can go all the way. We have a lot of seniors and a lot of them have been at Hough all four years. We’ve been through it all together and it’s made us tougher as a unit.”
Previous winners
(Tap link to read the story)
Week 1: Carson Clutter, Charlotte Latin
Week 2: Sean Brady, Hough High School
Week 3: Fernando Zelaya, Olympic High School
Week 4: Cameron Cyr, Hough High School
Week 5: Jayden Jones, Independence
Week 6: Cameron Johnson, Corvian Community School
Week 7: Titus Ivory, Charlotte Latin School
Week 8: Noah Best, Corvian Community School
Week 9: Trey Blakeney, Hough High School
