The boys
rambled in to Coach Riner's room, backpacks slung against the wall. Chatter filled the room like a fog. Sometimes the noise was hard to walk through,
let alone get through the room as the boys hap hardly found space to sprawl out
on the floor and desk.
Coach Riner
made his way through the maze of feet and elbows. "OK guys, quite
down." The noise decreased only a
little.
Coach Glean
was not in the mood, "Coach asked for you to quite down." He didn't yell it, but delivered it above the
ruckus to make sure his point was made.
The team quieted down. Over the
weekend Coach Glean and Coach Riner went around and around about how to game
plan for the Colts. They were still at
odds about the direction, but Coach Riner finally said that they would follow
his idea. Coach Glean wasn't happy about
it.
"Thank
you, Coach Glean." Coach Glean simply nodded. "As you know the state
reworked the district and we have a new team this year, the Colts. I've been watch film of them for a while and
talking to some of their opponents from last year. They like to air it out. They average over almost 300 yards a
game. They spend most of their time in shotgun. I swear in one game they ran the ball
twice."
The players
were murmuring, shaking their heads in amazement.
"They
are a different type of team then what we normally face. And I think we have to
do something different if we are going to defeat them. Over the weekend Coach Glean and I decided on
a game plan..." Coach Riner was about to tell the team that Coach Glean
didn't agree with him. Coach Riner, at
times, felt like rookie. Especially with against Coach Glean's knowledge of
defense. Sunday night Coach Riner almost
just gave in to Coach Glean's insistence that their base 4 - 4 defense could
stop them. But Coach Riner finally said
no, they were going to go with his idea.
At the end of the day he was the head coach and would take the
blame. He asked Coach Glean to come up
with a few unique blitzes, but they were going to run a 3 -4 -4.
Coach Riner
looked over at Coach Glean and continued, "that is a little
different. I will cover the basics and
Coach Glean has some new blitzes we will need to learn. I'm going to trust that we know our offense
and devote more time to defense."
Coach Riner
turned to the white board and drew up Xs and Os. Setting up the defense in a 3
- 4- 4 look. As he stepped away, the boys
straightened up. Jason raised his hand.
"How
is this going to work coach?"
"Let
me show you." Coach arranged the Os into the Colt's favorite formation, a
spread one back shotgun. "They are stubborn in their approach. I understand why, the quarterback, number 1,
has a great arm. Number 17, is fast,
Jason Wright. He won the state 100 last
year."
"That
guy was fast." Teon said. Teon was
at the state track meet for high jump.
"But
number 87, Garrett Wesson is their best receiver. He never drops a ball, "
Coach Riner continued. "But they
don't run. Even in the semi-finals last
year, they continued to try to pass the ball in the rainstorm. Their best rushing game was 104 yards last
year, with 86 of those yards from number 1.
This approach," Coach Riner slapped his hand on the board, "is
a risk, yes. But we will do our best to take make them run." Coach Riner turned his attention toward Coach
Glean. "You have to trust me."
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