Cartersville QB enjoys historic career

Published 2:09 pm Wednesday, November 1, 2017

By Kevin Eckleberry

kevin.eckleberry@lagrangenews.com

Whether Cartersville’s Trevor Lawrence is the best high-school quarterback in the history of the state is an entirely subjective matter.

If someone was looking to make that argument, though, they’d have some pretty good ammunition.

If a quarterback’s success is measured by championships, then Lawrence has got it there.

He has led the Purple Hurricanes to back-to-back state titles, and they’re the prohibitive favorite to make it three in a row.

If you’re talking wins, Cartersville has won 39 consecutive games with Lawrence at the helm, which is one of the longest winning streaks in state history.

Overall, Lawrence has a 51-2 record, with both of the losses coming during his freshman season when Carters

ville reached the semifinals before losing to Buford.

In the playoffs, Lawrence has a record of 13-1, and he’ll soon be adding to that total.

Then there are the passing numbers.

In Cartersville’s most recent game, Lawrence surpassed Deshaun Watson to become the state’s all-time leader in career passing yards.

It was a typical night for Lawrence, who plans on playing football at Clemson, the same school where Watson won a national title.

Lawrence completed 17-of-23 passes for 283 yards with four touchdowns and no interceptions in the 62-0 win over Chapel Hill, and as has so often been the case over the past few years, he didn’t play much in the second half.

In his four seasons, Lawrence has completed 804-of-1,263 passes for 13,260 yards with 154 touchdowns and just 21 interceptions.

This season, Lawrence is 134-of-183 for 2,648 yards with 34 touchdowns and one interception, and that came in the season opener.

And while what a player does in high school doesn’t necessarily translate to success in college, there is a reason why Lawrence is one of the most heavily-recruited players in the country.

The 6-foot-5 Lawrence is the complete package, and on Friday, he’ll play his final regular-season game when Cartersville takes on Troup at Callaway Stadium.

That Lawrence would break Watson’s yardage record was basically a given heading into the season.

The only real question was when it would happen.

The big moment came in the first half of the win over Chapel Hill, and Lawrence was glad to put the pursuit of the record in his rear-view mirror.

“It was awesome,” Lawrence told the Daily Tribune News in Cartersville. “It was good just to finally reach that and get it over with, just because everybody’s been talking about it. I’ve been trying to not focus on it too much, but everybody’s been talking about it, so I knew it was coming. It was good to get it out of the way, but it was really exciting, just to see coach (Joey) King come out and give me the ball and stuff like that. It was cool.”