New coach notches first win
There was little doubt that the 2023 football campaign would be a difficult track to navigate for new Head Coach LaCharles Smith.
He took over a program that has missed the postseason in each of the last four seasons and is trying to rediscover that upward momentum. They also have the misfortune of playing in the new Buckeye Division of the Northern Lakes League this year and next, making them the smallest of the six schools.
Things looked even drearier following a week one defeat at the hands of former league foe Maumee, a team that had lost its previous 34 contests and left the NLL in large part because they could no longer remain competitive. Despite all those negatives– and several dissuading moments in this game–the Blue Devils found enough fight and resilience to come back and defeat Rogers 30-20 in their August 25 home opener, giving Smith his first career victory as a head coach.
“The atmosphere here, man, it’s not only my first win as a head coach, it’s my first home game so it’s kind of like you don’t know what to expect,” Smith said. “The atmosphere was excellent, I thought the community did a great job of coming out, and the kids did a great job of fighting. This is awesome.”
On top of the ups and downs that this roller coaster of a game featured, it took seemingly forever to cross the finish line–quite literally. The 48-minute contest took three hours and 17 minutes to reach its conclusion with a variety of factors at play.
The one that stood out most was penalties, with both sides sharing blame on that front. Springfield was guilty of 10 infractions on the evening for 75 yards, with seven of those penalties com-Cornerback ing pre-snap. Rogers added another 11 penalties for 103 yards.
Adding to that, on at least a half-dozen occasions the line judges had to send a Rogers wide receiver off the field because of apparent equipment violations, with it oftentimes appearing that they did not have mouthguards.
Throw in those factors with a pass-centric Rams offense, and the game was ripe to be a long one. The Blue Devils did their part in focusing much more on the ground, running the ball 46 times for 290 yards while senior quarterback Will Scott attempted only 10 passes.
For the visiting Rams, it was nearly a polar opposite. They threw the ball 46 times on the evening and dropped back on several more occasions that resulted in sacks or quarterback scrambles. Of those throws, 21 resulted in incompletions with two being intercepted by Springfield.
While the offensive strategy for the Rams was quite apparent early on, whether it would keep them in the game or not seemed questionable. The Blue Devils gifted them 10 free yards from penalties on the opening drive of the game, but clamped down to force a turnover on downs at the Springfield 40.
The offense took little time in wiping away any ill feelings from the week prior as well. Leaning largely on the young legs of sophomore tailback Eli Beal, the Blue Devils needed only five plays to cover the 60 yards in front of them, capped by a 20-yard touchdown run in which Beal displayed great vision in bouncing to the right side to find paydirt.
With an 8-0 lead in hand, the defense looked even more stout, sacking Rogers’ senior quarterback Leon Brown on the first play of the ensuing drive and forcing the Rams to go three-and-out.
They then made their biggest splash on the Rams’ third drive of the night. Reading the quick outs that Rogers deployed with great frequency, junior cornerback Eric Scott jumped the route and took a pick-six 23 yards to push the Blue Devil lead to 16-0 just inside the halfway mark of the first quarter.
That, however, was when the positives ended in the first half. Rogers cleaned up their aerial attack and their receivers became more and more elusive with the ball in their hands. They marched 64 yards on 12 plays, converting twice on fourth downs in the process, to cut the lead in half late in the first quarter.
They also took advantage of Springfield’s first turnover of the game, a costly fumbled exchange between Scott and Beal that followed a promising fumble recovery from the home team just a handful of plays prior. Brown tossed an innocuous looking bubble screen to junior wideout Day’Vion Sanders who cut back to the middle and eluded the Blue Devil defense en route to a 61-yard touchdown that brought the score down to 16-14.
Springfield appeared to stop the bleeding in a big way late in the first half when Beal found daylight in the Rogers secondary, again bouncing right to avoid one final defender to what appeared to be a 40-yard touchdown. However, he ever so slightly stepped out of bounds at the eight-yard line, and one play later was stripped of the football with Rogers pouncing on the recovery.
Four plays later, senior receiver Marcellus Land wiggled free down the far sideline for an 81-yard touchdown reception with just 48 seconds to play in the second quarter.
That 12-point swing appeared quite jarring for the home team going into halftime and they needed to regroup in a big way. Despite the occasional big runs from Beal following the opening drive, the Rams largely contained the Springfield rushing attack, stacking the box with eight or more defenders on nearly every play.
“When you’re facing sixman pressures, you don’t know which way they’re coming and they’re fast guys, too,” Smith explained. “We needed halftime to adjust to that, and once we got to halftime, we just covered their pressure and our run game just took over in the second half.”
Though the adjustments did not immediately result in points, Springfield managed to move the ball well off the jump, missing a field goal try from 40 yards out on their opening drive of the half. On defense, the Blue Devils came up with a pair of big third down sacks to stall the Rams offense, and received a gift when the punter could not corral a high snap, giving the Devils prime field position.
This time, there would be no missed opportunity as senior tailback Amari Griffin, filling in for Beal who left with apparent cramps a series before, darted through a gaping hole up the middle for a 36-yard touchdown to retake the lead at 23-20 with just over a minute remaining in the third quarter.
The third-down sack theme continued as they brought down Brown on the next drive to force a fourth and 13 deep in Springfield territory. Junior linebacker Greg Ptaszynski put an end to that drive with his first interception of the season.
With Beal feeling right again, the Blue Devils continued with their rejuvenated rushing attack, needing only eight plays to go 95 yards and extend their lead. Beal, again, had the honors, redeeming himself from the previous play in which he failed to get a first down on third and one by bouncing the play outside.
Facing fourth and inches, the sophomore this time kept straight ahead, not only finding enough to move the chains but also finding a seam and bursting ahead for a 39yard touchdown run.
“Nick Specht, he’s our running backs coach, he does a really good job of coaching them, both of them did a really good job in the fourth quarter,” said Smith. “Eli, we know there’s going to be some growing pains. It’s his first year playing varsity but he’s responded. He’s like that in practice every single day. He’s a hard-working kid, and he’s going to get better and we know that. The sky’s the limit for that kid and we’re seeing it now.”
Smith continued to dial up the pressure all fourth quarter, and it continued to be effective in putting the game away.
“I thought we had them on their heels and I thought they were kind of tired,” he said. “We just kind of made some adjustments, and I thought [assistant coach] Jason Waters did an excellent job with the defensive staff bringing in some pressure but just with faster guys.”
“I think we did a good job of wearing them down,” the coach added. “I think we’re the better conditioned team. Obviously, our numbers are better than their numbers. But it took some senior leadership, too. I thought our seniors did a really good job of correcting our mistakes. That fourth quarter, we had no penalties at all, and I tell our kids all the time that if we play clean football, we’re good.”
