The 2022 rendition of the annual week 10 Fight for the Blue and White rivalry bout, between the Blue Devils and Generals did not live up to its namesake–save for the colors– with host Anthony Wayne dominating start to finish to close out the regular season, 55-3.
Springfield finished the season 2-8 in Head Coach Jerry Bell’s third year leading the program, and 2-5 in Northern Lakes League play.
It was a disappointing end to a disheartening season, one that showed sparks in several contests and realistically could have featured enough victories to qualify the Blue Devils for a return to the OHSAA state playoffs had key plays been made in critical moments.
This game, as the score indicates, did not feature many of those for the Blue Devils. And Bell and his staff, as they have been at various points throughout the campaign, were left searching for why the team underperformed so much in its final Friday night performance.
“I really don’t have an answer for it,” he said. “I thought we had a good week of preparation. I knew that we would have to play a perfect game to get the win, but I didn’t think that we would come out the way that we came out. So, that was kind of surprising to me for sure. That opening drive, they just went right down and scored and then we kind of struggled.
“I’m not sure if I have an answer and I think that’s kind of how the whole season went.”
Perhaps most frustrating about this game was how well they played just a week prior against the NLL’s best in Perrysburg. While the final score of that game was not close, the Blue Devils fought and clawed to within four points early in the second half, showing that they can compete with playoffbound foes like the Yellow Jackets.
“I thought we prepared them pretty well all week on what they were going to see,” said Bell. “Especially with the confidence that we had coming out of Perrysburg, I thought we were going to be much better than that. Certainly, that didn’t transpire.”
Senior Taylen Miller was the lone semi-bright spot on the final score sheet, rushing for 56 yards on 14 carries. Even that, however, was somewhat deceiving as two of those runs covered 40 yards in the second half.
He and the rest of the Blue Devils offense were stymied much of the night by one of the area’s elite defenses. By night’s end, they fell short of tallying 150 yards of total offense and failed to find the end zone. They also turned the ball over three times.
Things did not fare better on the defensive end, either. The Generals lost their starting quarterback early this season and have largely been a one-dimensional offense as a result.
With that in mind, the Blue Devils defense knew stopping the run would be paramount to any success they hoped to have. But like so many other NLL foes before them, they simply could not contain the Anthony Wayne rushing attack.
“We knew that we needed to buckle down and stop the run game,” Bell said. “We’ve had nine games [of film] on them, their whole season. We were able to break things down and get tendencies and so forth. There were moments that we were there to make a play and didn’t tackle, didn’t finish like we could have. That was extremely frustrating when it came to trying to stop the run.
“We weren’t physical at the point of attack and we definitely weren’t reading our keys.”
The Generals ended up rushing for well over 300 yards, largely dominating the line of scrimmage in the process. That, too, was the secret to their success on the ground according to Bell.
“I think their offensive line is extremely good and I think they’re extremely strong,” he said. “That was the one thing that we noticed early on watching them when they played Whitmer and so forth. When they played Perrysburg, even though they didn’t win the game, it seemed like their offensive and defensive lines were really physical and they were strong and controlling things at the line of scrimmage for the most part. We were definitely concerned about that when it came time for our preparation. We knew that physically they were bigger and stronger than we were.”
Demoralizing as the finish was, the coach saw positives overall when looking back at the season, particularly within the senior class. Many saw their first taste of varsity ball in the disjointed 2020 season amidst an unprecedented pandemic, small crowds and a new coaching staff and system.
Persevering through that and other trials and tribulations, particularly with injuries this year, was a testament to the group’s character.
“Everything at the end of the season was all about our seniors,” said Bell. “My focus is on making sure that we do the right things by our seniors. My message to the group as a whole was yes, it’s disappointing, but we talked about the relationships that we have, that we’ve built with that senior class over the last three years. Them buying into the cultural pieces I brought into the program with their brotherhood and them just trying to be close. Those things are what I discussed with them as a collective group.”
Not surprisingly, it is the journey toward maturation that will stick with Bell when looking back at 2022 and his seniors.
“I feel very close to a lot of them, and I’m going to miss the conversations that we’ve had,” he said. “I’m going to miss their willingness to learn how to lead and to try and get our program heading in the right direction. I think we had several of them who were starting to understand what it takes to be a leader and what it takes to play our sport at a high level. I’m going to miss those guys.”
