–Pigskin Report - Week #5
22 September 2007Mountain offenses starting to pick up steam
by Michael Hughes
When the going is slow, a back-to-basics approach often works best.
Through the month of August it appeared that Swain County and West Henderson had dropped the ball a few times too often.
Both teams were unable to mount much offense and scoring was almost nil—a total of seven points in five combined losses for two of western North Carolina’s best programs in most years.
Part of the Maroon Devils troubles have come from a heaped up schedule that included 1-A power Polk County, 2-A rival Smoky Mountain, and 3-A giant St. Stephens from the Catawba Valley Conference. Three goose eggs were the gloomy result.
The Falcons started with a blank against the region’s top team, T.C. Roberson, and continued their offensive struggles against close rival Hendersonville. Playing without injured tailback Justin Allen, and with gimpy QB Zach Corliss getting few early snaps, West is just starting to become the football team many thought it could be in 2007.
Neither team has changed its offensive schemes or made massive substitutions, yet a better September promises a better fall as conference season arrives.
“We’ve just tried to get some experience under our belts,” said Swain County coach Rod White. “We started out green, and it didn’t seem like we were ever going to make any progress. But the kids stayed with it.”
In similar fashion, West Henderson went back to the fundamentals after a slow start and, despite a slew of injuries, has stuck with its primary wing-bone attack. Last week’s result was a 49-12 romp over improving Mountain Heritage in Burnsville.
“We felt we were in the scheme we needed to be; we just weren’t executing real well,” said Falcons coach Jeff Bailey. “Sometimes people want to get complicated and maybe that’s what we did, so we simplified a little bit.”
Swain County coaches, meanwhile, made only minor offensive adjustments and have come up with other ways for the same players to have more success. The last two weeks still go down in the loss column, but a growing point total and higher yardage figures have come against two contenders from the Mountain Athletic 3-A. Friendly foes from the smaller Smoky Mountain Conference are on tap the rest of the way, and Coach White has no further plans to tweak the system.
“You can’t run before you learn how to walk,” he says of a scheme—the variable veer option—that has been in place for years in Bryson City. “We have to start somewhere and struggle through that,” and hopefully become more creative the rest of the way.
White has always wanted to work with innovative offenses like the Spread, which is gaining in popularity with the successful run of Appalachian State. Sometimes, he admits, an average team can become a little better by teaching them something new.
“It kind of reignites them or excites them,” he says, adding that any new approach needs a foundation first. White wants his team to be on solid footing before it can move into unknown territory. “Sometimes that’s a slower process than what you planned for.”
Tonight’s game with offensive minded Robbinsville will test the developing Devils, who are looking at a fresh start to the ’07 season.
“It’s like a playoff game for us,” says White. “This is why we played some of those crazy teams earlier in the [season].”
Building a schedule sometimes requires playing teams that are more experienced or come from a larger talent pool. That can be rough on any program, White added, but it can also test the character of a team, and hopefully provide something from which to build on when conference season rolls around.
At West Henderson, Allen, a promising runner as a sophomore and a defensive force last season, broke a bone in his foot during the team’s first scrimmage. He could be back in action within two weeks at the earliest. Personnel shifts have been the result, with senior Justin McCarson moving from fullback to wingback and junior Spencer Carnes getting more carries and running fewer routes through the passing lanes. Along with split end James Johnson’s on-and-off wounds, the Falcons have had four positions to re-fill on the offensive end alone. In addition, Corliss has not been 100 percent, which has limited the passing game even more. “He was a little rusty, but he’s coming around,” Bailey said.
While installing nothing new, Coach Bailey and his staff have designed different ways to get his most productive players the ball. Injuries have limited what they can do, but the effort has already borne fruit and should get better in the time ahead.
West travels to explosive R-S Central tonight in a final tune-up before league play begins next week.
R-S has scored at least 49 points three times this year but was shut out at Polk County, and Bailey has the game film. He has also spoken with Wolverines coach Bruce Ollis.
“Polk jumped on R-S Central and got up early,” Bailey said of a best-case scenario for his team tonight. “They were playing catch up” the rest of the way.
West is similar to Polk County defensively and will need a comparable output in the first half to defeat the talented Hilltoppers. It won’t be easy.
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