A Winning Attitude

Well, there was about 7 minutes of game clock that weren’t terribly pretty, but the rest of it sure felt good (aside from getting my hand sliced up, pictures on my facebook page). We ran the ball, we passed the ball, we came up with some stops. And we won, finally getting the Jim Hoover Field monkey off of our backs. It’s amazing really that we’ve come close on so many occasions down there (7 of the 12 games we lost were by 1 TD [+- some xpoints as well] or less), but we just haven’t been able to pull it out. For several minutes, I wondered if the trend was continuing. But we did just enough to get us through in the end, and, alas, the Walton field streak is over, and we are atop the division at 4-0.

The win was our 5^th on the year, and that is a magic number because it ensures that we will not suffer a losing season this year. Now obviously no one would be happy if we were to lose 3 in a row and end up 5-4. Still though, it means that we are winners. I got to thinking of some of the things that are making us winners so far…

Ability to win the close ones – sometimes it feels like you are just always on the wrong side of the tight games. 3 losses in a row to Walton by a total of 5 points in 2000-’01 will give you that complex. We’ve certainly turned that trend around in the past 2 seasons though. In our past 14 games (dating to last season), we are 6-0 in games decided by a TD or less. Even more amazing, for 5 of those games we actually scored the same number of TD’s as our opponent, but just beat them in point afters. Last year’s 7-0 win over BG is the only exception to that. I do feel like a couple of the times (notably the past 2 weeks) we missed opportunities to put the game away early, and make it not so close, but still, even those games required us to really perform in the end to ensure the victory – we had to come up with the big 2 point stop, then stop Walton again after the onsides kick; against Seton we needed to stop them in our territory, then we needed some very key first downs at the end. The clutch play has been done by both the offense and the defense, and that is very encouraging.

Passing in pressure situations – just the fact that we’ve already thrown 10 TD passes is encouraging, but when I think about how many of those TD’s and how many first downs came in very high pressure situations, it is even more exciting. The TD pass to O’Connell Saturday was on 4^th down. The first one to Hymers against Seton was on 4^th down. The long one to O’Connell against Sidney was on 3^rd and long from our 3 yard line. And, probably most significant of all, the 2 pointer to Sackett against Oxford was one play for the game. Add in several very key first downs on the pass, and it’s nice to see that we can lean on the passing game both when we need it and when we don’t. The numbers are very nice as well – through 6 games we already have 80%+ more yards than we did through last season’s 10 games. The 20.5 yard average per reception means that DB’s are going to be taking a step back, and the LB’s are going to be a bit more worried as well. That translates to more room to run, and, given a head of steam, Fletcher and Telian are so much harder to bring down. It’s nice to have 2 strong RB’s to spread the defense around a bit, but a good passing game is several times more effective at that in my opinion. Salerno’s ability to scramble is giving defenses that much more of a headache.

Relative lack of mindless mistakes – Dunno, probably the coaching sees things I wouldn’t, and maybe they would agree or disagree with this. From where I sit though, I see a relative lack of turnovers (only 1 INT, we did have some fumbles against Sidney, but only a couple besides that; the onsides kicks did hurt us the past 2 weeks, though those can be partly credited to great kicks as much as mistakes on our part). I also see somewhat of a lack of penalties. Like last year, I think we come out well ahead on the battle of the 5 yarders – those things are invaluable in keeping our drives alive and in killing the opponents’ drives. We’ve given up a couple, but we seem a bit better disciplined in that area.

We do have places we need to improve, and now is the time if there ever was one. We can still work on defense, and in particular our tackling. We still get stuffed at the line a bit more than I’d like. While we’ve come through at the 12^th hour on defense a few times, I’d like to see us finish it better. I’d love to see the stats from Seton and Walton for 3^rd and 4^th down conversions. We did such a good job at times with both teams, but then gave up big stuff when it was time to put them away.

It’s the time now to really come together as a team – to buy into each other, and to buy into the coach. The ability and the intelligence are there to do some very nice things, but it only happens as a tightly knit team.

Two years ago we headed down to Bainbridge, perhaps limping just a bit. After starting the ’08 season 1-3, we did barely manage to pull out a 30-20 home win against a mediocre (at best) Deposit team that was missing some starters. Things were not looking terribly great. Given the 3 game division schedule, the BG game was of utmost importance though, as Delhi and BG were seen as the top of the division. Delhi really turned the season around on that evening, playing one of the most perfect games I’ve seen them play. Fletcher came out of his shell with 256 yards, a replacement TE (Jacob Cipperly) who had never caught a varsity ball had 2 TD receptions, Delhi did not punt, and the defense put together a superb effort in a 41-7 win. The win sprung Delhi to a string of 3 games where we would score over 40 and run up over 400 yards of offense in each. I don’t believe we ever punted in that stretch as well. ‘Twould be nice to have that kind of effort again!

BG this week certainly looks like another of many brutal games for us. They had Walton right up on the ropes before a Walton TD pass with under 20 seconds to play gave the Warriors the win. They’ve got a tremendous 1-2 punch with Vandermark, who has countless long TD runs to his credit, and Holden, who definitely has an ability to pound the ball. They haven’t as of yet done a whole lot passing the ball, going 9 for 32 for 171 yards. That doesn’t mean that they couldn’t come through with a key pass at a most opportune time, however. With Vandermark’s big play ability, I’m going with the first down route this week – run up 15-20 first downs, stay away from punting, and keep BG off the field. It’s time for the O-line to really step up and assert some power. I’d love to see Fletcher with 150 and Telian and Ellis combine for over 100. If we have some 3 and outs, we’re just asking for Vandermark to take one all the way.

For the playoffs, a win either this week or next will give us the top seed on this side. Walton has a good shot at 2^nd, but we’ll see what transpires these next 2 weeks. The west is in a 3 way tie right now with Tioga, Groton, and Candor, each with a loss. There is a good chance it will end that way. END has the best shot of breaking that up, as they play Tioga and Groton the next 2 weeks, and could be capable of an upset. Official tie breaker calculations will come when the games are done, but, if the tie holds, my unofficial calculation puts Tioga in 1^st, and Candor would get 2^nd based on a head to head win over Groton. So, if we win one of our last 2, we may very well end up playing Candor in 2 weeks.

I’m getting pretty decent at this idea of predicting my success rate – I predicted a 17-4 week, and I did just slightly better at 18-3 (0.857, best week yet this year). Maybe I can shoot for staying within one game of my prediction. This week I missed Greene over Oxford, EFA over Maine-Endwell, and Harpursville over Seton…..was a bit surprised by EFA, but the others I saw coming. My running total is now 97-33 (0.746), not sure if 0.800 is in striking distance or not. For this week, my favorites are….Walton over Oxford (would love to keep the IVFINAL in Delaware County), Sidney over Unatego, Vestal over Southside, Norwich over Windsor, Groton over END, Corning over Horseheads (my guess is that Corning has 50 before halftime), Maine-Endwell over Owego (very good game though, and good for a strong Owego team to prep them for the playoffs), Forks will make Greene look like mashed peas, Moravia over Odessa, Ithaca over EFA (another tough one to pick, especially after EFA’s win over ME), Point over SVE, Harpursville over UVE, Seton over Deposit/Hancock, Oneonta over Sus Valley, Trumansburg over Newark Valley, Binghamton over UE, Candor over Edison, Chenango Valley over Waverly, Johnson City over Dryden, and Tioga over Newfield. I’m predicting a nice even 0.800 week with a 16-4 finish….

Bring your poncho, and see you in B-town at 7 Friday night!