That’s Just Offensive

I’ll say it once again: I don’t abide by that old saying “Offense may win games, but defense wins championships”. I tend to be a traditionalist in a lot of ways, but this is one I just don’t buy into. Listen carefully, NO CHAMPIONSHIP HAS EVER BEEN WON IN THE HISTORY OF FOOTBALL WITH ZERO POINTS. Can someone prove otherwise?

I’ve gone all through this in previous years I know. I’ve stated that I’m not a 100% offense guy either. You need both to have a successful season. Sorry, but there is no way around it. There are going to be clutch times where the defense needs a stop, and there will be clutch times when the offense needs some points. So far this year, we’ve done pretty well in the former, but we are still lacking a bit in the latter.

I for one am so proud that we have the coach that we do. Last week it would have been so easy to run up 30-40 points and give us a bunch of our confidence back. But instead of pounding our fullbacks down the field, I loved how we put the pressure on the passing game to see what we could do. Now, the results were definitely not what we wanted, but I do think we were about 75% there on those plays, and I think we still have a great shot at converting plays like those in subsequent weeks. We just need to get a bit better yet at pass blocking, and we need to catch the football.

This point really makes me scratch my head, because we’ve had some catches this year that we almost had no business making. I’m talking highlight reel shots that were right in the middle of traffic or that were in awkward positions. Those are the catches that help make championship seasons, if that’s what you want to talk about. Yet we have missed a large number of on-the-numbers passes as well. It’s funny, it’s not one player, it has been a good mix, both for the good and the bad. We’ve chuckled at some of those up to now, as they haven’t really hurt us, but as we come up against teams that are harder to block, we NEED to have those first downs and TD’s.

I do love the fact that Darling had such a great night on Saturday. He looked great, squirting through the holes with great quickness, and showing some good speed and agility. It should be enough to make the scouts think twice about what our offense is really about.

It’s time to start getting some overachievement on offense. Step up the speed a notch, block to the whistle, play as a team, run hard and surge for the extra yard, that kind of stuff. We are in a position to do some great things, we just need to step it up a bit, because now is when it matters most.

We are officially in some ground we haven’t covered in a while – we haven’t been 7-0 since 1995. A win over BG would mean our first back to back division titles since ‘85/’86, 23 years!

I think you’ll see Groton beat Tioga somewhat handily (2-3 TD’s) this weekend. Tioga has been doing well, but I think Groton’s Kyle Reed puts them in another category. I for one would much rather face Groton in the final than in the semi, so I certainly hope we can pull out our game with BG on Saturday.

By the way, my preseason picks for sectional champs are looking quite good. I think that all 8 finalists that I picked are very strong favorites to make it to the dance, though I might swap some of the predicted champs.

My week to week picks continue to roll on, as I was 19-4 (0.826) last week, and 135-29 (0.823) for the season. Please don’t melt down! I’ll run the picks through the IVFINALS, and if I stay past 0.800, you all can get me some kind of prize. For this week…..UE over Vestal, Corning East over Corning West (kick some glass), Groton over Tioga (I think Tioga will be in for a surprise), Ithaca over Owego, END over Trumansburg, Candor over SVE, Newark Valley over Lansing, Greene over Sus Valley, Oxford over Seton, Waverly over Dryden, Forks over UVE, Whitney Point over Sidney, Walton over Unatego, Binghamton over Horseheads, Southside over EFA, Maine-Endwell over Johnson City, Chenango Valley over Norwich, Oneonta over Windsor, Odessa over Edison, Moravia over Newfield, Harpursville over Hancock, Deposit over Onteora, and Southern Springs over Watkins Glen.

That’s it, see you at 1:30 folks, bring the umbrella!!