Football Playoffs, Take Three

What better time of the year is there than football season in the Fall? It's hard not to enjoy the atmosphere, weather, and beautiful surroundings we have during this time of year as Summer is fading away and Winter is creeping up slowly but surely. Football season is awesome, but it gets even better when the playoffs start. In high school, there are 10 weeks in the regular season, and the playoffs (5 weeks long) begin immediately afterward. This Friday kicks off the 2010 Ohio High School Athletic Association (OHSAA) football playoffs, and Triway will be in attendance for the third straight year, a school record for consecutive appearances.

The playoffs are broken into 6 divisions with Division 1 (DI) being the largest and Division 6 (DVI) being the smallest. While Ohio is known for its high level of play in high school football, as was recognized in Rivals.com's annual review, most of the dominant teams are at the DI level. Teams that have set the rich tradition in our state are schools such as Cincinnati Archbishop Moeller, Massillon Washington, St. Edward, Cincinnati Elder, St. Ignatius, Youngstown Cardinal Mooney (DIII), Steubenville (DIII), and many, many others. However, the Triway Titans will take on another tradition-rich school in this Friday's DIV Region 14 regional quarterfinal with whom the Titans are very familiar - the Orrville Red Riders.

Although it may pain many of us diehard Titan fans to admit it, Orrville has proven over the decades to be one of the best and most consistent small school football programs in the state. For more information on that, check out my friend Tim's most recent blog entry. The numbers (and company they are among) are very impressive. As far as I’m concerned, the Red Riders are the Titans’ #1 rival in all sports. It’s always been this way when I was growing up, and my father tells me it was the same way when he was in school, before graduating in 1979. If you ask me for a ranking of rivals, it goes #1 – Orrville, …, …, #2 – West Holmes, #3 – Waynedale, #4 – Fairless (largely due to the robbery that was the 2007 district championship basketball game). As I tried to show as pictorially as possible, there is a big gap between #1 and the rest. Although Orrville is our biggest rival, wins against them have been few and far between over the span of 38 meetings between the two. Every win we get, though, like last year’s 28-14 victory over the star-studded, highly-touted Orrville squad, is cherished.

The part that makes this game tough for us is that we are playing at Orrville Red Rider Stadium, a place where the Triway Titans have only won once, way back in 1975. History (and records, and such) are meant to be broken, and so are streaks, which I would consider in the same category. Just as Clear Fork had never beaten Orrville, they traveled to Orrville in week 9 this year and throttled the red & black 33-0. Weird things happen. Sure, that Clear Fork team may be loaded and a monster to stop in DIV, but the streak was stopped nonetheless. Who’s to say we can’t stop our streak of losses at Orrville Red Rider Stadium?

If you mention anything to an Orrville fan that even resembles the slightest hint of optimism in our team’s chances against the world-beating Red Riders, you’ll be laughed at, ganged up on, and made fun of for as long as they have the opportunity. It’s just the way they are. Orrville fans, when it comes to athletics, have a bad case of a superiority complex. Very bad. Having said that, though, I also must say they have every right to be cocky, arrogant, and, most of all, confident. Their kids grow up wanting to play sports and be an Orrville Red Rider and wear red & black and play under the lights or in the gymnasium. That’s just what Orrville’s about – it’s a true sports town in every sense of the phrase. If I admire anything about this school – and believe me, there aren’t many things – it’s the atmosphere, mentality, and tradition they’ve built around athletics and continuing that legacy set before them many decades ago.

There. I got my praise of Orrville out of the way. Now to the week 11 match-up which will determine who stays alive in the hunt for a championship (however unlikely) and who goes home. This is a rematch of when we met them in week 2 of this season, also at Orrville. We lost 41-19 in a game that got out of hand in the 3rd quarter and saw us try too hard to get back into the game after that and never got close again. In that game, Orrville completed passes of 27, 25, 31, 53, 21, 30, 36, 27, and 17 yards. Some of them were short passes with gains after the catch and others were lobs, jump balls on which an Orrville receiver made a great play. They had a well-rounded offensive attack which I don’t think we anticipated, and it didn’t help that we played West Holmes in week 1, either. Our first drive was a success as we marched right down the field and scored a touchdown, only to fail on the 2-point conversion, when our kicking game was non-existent, and watch as the Riders came right back with a scoring drive of their own. Had we had one more successful drive in the next 1 or 2 drives, it could have and would have been a different game. However, football is a game of momentum, and we never had it after the 10:39 mark of the 1st quarter.

In order for Triway to win this time around, they will need to do a few things.
1) Our offensive line and running back(s) will have to handle the pressure Orrville attempts to put on Carmichael in the backfield, allowing him time to find his receivers. When Carmichael has time, as opposing defenses who have tried to sit back and load the defensive backfield have found, Derek WILL deliver to an open receiver. If he has time, I have confidence that we can methodically work drives down the field, chewing up clock, keeping Orrville’s offense of the field, and hopefully scoring points at the end.
2) Our wide receivers need to get off the line of scrimmage. The last time we met, we were breaking in a few new wide receivers, and they got a rude awakening when they were met with some of the most physical bump-and-run coverages they saw all year. Our Sophomore and Junior wide receivers filling in for a star-studded Senior class of receivers last year, grew up after that game and have produced ever since. If they can get off the ball and get timing in sync with Derek, it will take a load of pressure off the QB who might not have a lot of time to wait for them to get open.
3) Last of all, we need to stop the big play. Last game the big play hurt us big time, especially through the air. Orrville had three runs of 23 yards or more, as well. If we can make them sustain drives, just like they’re going to do to us, we have a chance. But if Orrville is able to stretch the field with the long ball, that will only open up the inside even more for their rushing attack which I think has been underused this season.

Along those lines, a lot of the Orrville fans’ talk has been about the quarterback and either praising or critiquing his play. However, I think it’s their running game is what will make them go. Having two or three very good backs out of the backfield and two or three or four very good receivers going down the field, it’s hard to cover all of it. However, our team has faced better teams and won (not referring to this season).

Will this game be a challenge? Oh golly, yes! Orrville is the big favorite coming in with Drew Pasteur (Fantastic50.net) predicting a 14-victory for the Red Riders and Calpreps predicting an Orrville victory as well. Statistically, Orrville has arguably the #1 toughest schedule in DIV while Triway’s is a mere 80th. With that in mind, Orrville is the popular pick by the prognosticators. However, just like any rivalry, you can throw the records out. You can throw the previous meeting out between the two this season. You can disregard any notion of what might or might not happen; because what happens this Friday night is all that matters. Take, for example, the 2005 Massillon vs McKinley rivalry. In last game of the regular season, 9-0 Canton McKinley hosted 9-0 Massillon Washington and proceeded to take them to the woodshed by a tune of 38-8. However, three weeks later in the regional championship, Massillon got its revenge, whooping the Bulldogs 21-3 in the regional championship and went on to lose in the state championship game to a dominant Cincinnati St. Xavier team.

This just goes to show that anything can happen. Don’t get me wrong, though – I don’t need anyone to work any miracles for us to beat Orrville this Friday. Our kids know what they have to do, and Orrville’s kids know what they have to do. It will come down to intensity, execution, half-time adjustments, and more execution in the second half. That’s it. In a matter of five hours, the tailgating, pregame warm-ups, hype, regulation, celebrations, and aftermath all will have been completed. All our kids need to do is, for 5 hours (actually less), focus on the task at hand and do their job to the best of their ability. We have talented, smart, and competitive kids on this team (as does every team), and our kids know how to win. This is not David vs. Goliath, although some may want to make it sound that way. We don’t need to kill anybody to get a win this Friday. We just need to score more points.

Smile! May God continue to bless you.