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# Bedford football tried to disguise coverage to slow Nashua South's passing offense
- URL: https://www.nh-highschoolsports.com/bedford-football-tried-to-disguise-coverage-to-slow-nashua-souths-passing-offense/
- Published: 2025-11-25T21:30:48.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-25T21:30:48.000Z
- Description: BEDFORD - On the third play of Friday night's Division I semifinal, the Nashua High School South football team was already behind the sticks. It was third-and-12 and Panthers quarterback Cody Jackson was looking to make a big play.
- Author: Joe Marchilena
- Tags: Division I, Bedford, football, Nashua South, NH High School Sports Insider, playoffs, slider, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-18 04:44

BEDFORD - On the third play of Friday night's Division I semifinal, the Nashua High School South football team was already behind the sticks.

It was third-and-12 and Panthers quarterback Cody Jackson was looking to make a big play.

The senior went into the game averaging just a tick under 16 yards per completion on the season, and on this down, it looked like fellow senior Josh Tripp was breaking open about 30 yards down field as he headed toward the sideline.

Jackson scrambled to his right and let go of the pass while Tripp slowed to make sure he stayed in bounds. But the ball never got to him, as at the last second, Bedford's Connor Sturgis made a diving effort to knock the pass away.

It was the first of a handful of big plays top-seeded Bedford's defensive secondary would make in a 35-21 win over No. 4 South, and when the Bulldogs defensive backs weren't getting their hands on passes, the front seven was putting pressure on Jackson and the Panthers passing attack.

"We played a cover three and dropped three people back and didn’t let them get the deep ball," said Bedford senior Bennett Matthews, who had one of his team's three interceptions of Jackson. "They have a good receiver in Tripp. Our linebackers were flying around, our defensive line was getting to the quarterback really quick, so I felt like that really helped us shake him up."

The Bulldogs tried to keep Jackson off balance from the start of every play.

"Cody does a really good job with a lot of his pre-snap reads," Bedford coach Zach Matthews, Bennett's father, said. "We tried to close a lot of those windows pre-snap and made him have to process coverage post-snap. Take away the pre-snap read where he can look out and say ‘this guy is going to be wide open,’ and make him have to catch the ball while the rush is coming and figure out where the ball is going to go.

"He does such a good job getting the ball out quickly, that we wanted to make him have to hold it a little more to try to find the open guy. We covered well, but then sometimes he went out and made plays, and we didn’t do the best job getting him to the ground. That’s what great players do."

Jackson completed 13 of 26 passes for 124 yards, but only two of those completions went for more yards than his season average. South's longest pass play of the game was a 39-yard completion to Tripp that set up the Panthers' first touchdown.

All three South scores came on short-yardage runs and Jackson did have 119 yards rushing.

But with the big pass play gone from the Panthers' offensive arsenal, South had to be more methodical moving the ball down the field. Tough to do when the other team gets out to a 21-0 lead.

"At the beginning, we were staying on them, and staying disciplined all around on defense no matter where we were," Bedford senior Landon Ellsmore said. "Taking that away I thought played a big factor. I feel like we have the best defensive line in the state, and our linebackers, too, and they take away the run game any time they want."

Ellsmore also had an interception of Jackson, coming in the fourth quarter to help wrap up the win for the Bulldogs. Brody Helton had the first one of the game, returning his interception 39 yards for a touchdown that gave the Bulldogs a 14-0 lead just 2:29 into the game.

"Brody made an amazing play early on getting that pick-6," Bennett Matthews said. "People know about him as a running back, but he’s one of the best linebackers in the state. I feel like we dialed in on that early. We had three picks, and I think multiple of them were just (Jackson) scrambling around, so our defensive line making him have to move and decide on the run was vital."