By Steve Williams
South-Doyle’s Benson Brang is more than a quarterback on the field. He’s like a coach, and if he can stay away from the injury bug, he’s sure to play in college someday – maybe even at the Ivy League level.
“We all call him Benny, affectionately,” said his head coach, Zack Gibson, after last week’s 41-19 victory at Austin-East. “He’s so mature for his age. He’s like having a coach out there and this is the fourth offensive system that he’s played in and he’s absorbing it like a sponge. He knows all the checks, all the motions, all the audibles. He’s fantastic out there.”
Brang also knew exactly the number of seconds that were left in the fourth quarter against A-E and waved to his team to come off the field, as 20 or so seconds were still ticking off.
“He’s got a huge football IQ,” added Gibson. “This will be his third year as a starter in high school. He’s played a lot of football games and I’m excited to see what he does his senior year with his senior teammates.”
Coach Gibson also noted Brang has had an injury in every one of his high school years. He sat out two games with an ankle injury his sophomore season. As a junior, he was sidelined the last four games with a knee injury, which curtailed what might have been a trip to the playoffs.
“But he’s worked really hard to come back and be healthy,” said Gibson. “He’s gotten stronger, bigger and faster. He’s had a great off-season in the weight room, had a great spring, a great summer, a great fall camp. He’s ready to roll. We’re excited.”
At last Wednesday’s practice prior to the Karns game, Brang said being a coach is a long way down the road after his college days and “I just want to see where the Lord’s path takes me.”
Currently, Benson has one college offer from Mount Saint Joseph. Others on his list include University of Pikeville, Maryville College, UT-Martin and Rhodes College.
“I got a couple of invites from Ivy League schools too,” he said. “U-Penn and Harvard also reached out.”
Coach Gibson said Benson had a 4.3 to 4.4 GPA and All-Honor and All-AP awards in the classroom.
Physically, Brang is 6-2, 215. “Not bad at all,” Gibson pointed out. “He does a great job taking care of his body.”
Benson is the youngest of three boys in his family, which includes Mason and Nolan, who also were quarterbacks for the Cherokees.
The two older Brang brothers continued in college athletics after high school. Mason played football and graduated from Carson-Newman and is now an accountant at TVA. He and his wife now have a six-month-old baby.
Nolan is now a manager for the UT men’s basketball team. He will be going into his third season in that role under head coach Rick Barnes.
“Nolan says Coach Barnes is a great Christian man,” said Benson. “He believes strongly in the Lord and that his faith is one of the biggest things that he preaches to his kids.”
As for the rest of the football season, Benson was asked what he was shooting for.
“I’m shooting for one at a time,” he answered. “I don’t care about personal stats. I care about my team winning. I care about my team being healthy and I just want to go week by week with this. We know that we can be very good and we know what we’re capable of, and we know the coaches that we have are leading us in the right way. So we’re going week by week. We’re going to keep our heads down and work as hard as we can.
“We are in a very tough region. We definitely have some tough opponents.”
