Springfield was back on the road to open Northern Lakes League play at Southview and, in what again turned into a tale of two halves, was unable to emerge with their first victory of the season, falling 30-14 to the undefeated Cougars.
While the Blue Devils failed to take a lead like they did against Clay a week earlier, they did not look at all overmatched.
They knotted the score 77 late in the first quarter on a 22-yard touchdown pass. Despite the Cougars quick response to end the opening 12 minutes with a 14-7 lead, the Blue Devils didn’t blink. A timely interception in Southview territory led to a one-yard touchdown plunge early in the second quarter, and that 14-14 score held for some time.
That turned midway through the frame when the Cougars picked off junior quarterback Will Scott in their own territory.
Southview then opened up the trickeration, connecting on a halfback pass for a 65yard touchdown with 5:44 to play in the half.
They would not relinquish their lead for the rest of the night.
A big part of what stalled the Blue Devils after halftime was injury yet again, this time to star senior tailback Taylen Miller who was having yet another outstanding game early on.
“I thought we did extremely well in the first half with some things,” said Head Coach Jerry Bell. “We were hitting the gap and getting vertical when we were supposed to. I thought we were hanging onto our blocks a lot better and obviously picking up our assignments the way we’re supposed to. Taylen had a quiet 184 yards in the first half. Taylen got an injury, and that injury bug kind of hit us in the second half.
“We got away from some of the things that were successful because of the injuries that we had in the first half.”
Perhaps even more unfortunate is that his apparent foot injury, while not severe, is something Bell noted could hamper Miller for the remainder of the 2022 campaign.
“I think it’s going to linger for him a little bit,” he said. “It’s something that we’re managing during the week. We’re limiting his reps. He’ll be ready for the game, but it will probably be a nagging injury for him maybe through the end of the season.”
To say his absence left an impact would be quite the understatement, as by night’s end the Blue Devils amassed 220 yards rushing as a team and only 289 overall. The lack of effectiveness in the passing game was particularly disappointing given how much they seemed to take a step forward the week prior.
“Will has to let the game come to him,” Bell said. “I felt that he, in the second half, pressed extremely hard and tried to make plays where there weren’t plays to be made. He didn’t sit in the pocket. His eyes were on the pocket and the rush instead of looking downfield and seeing the receivers and throwing to the open receivers like he’s supposed to. The week before against Clay, he played extremely well because he let the game come to him. He was relaxed, he didn’t put the pressure on himself to make plays.
“I felt we went back to where we were against Sandusky in week one with him trying to make plays where he didn’t need to make those. If he would just sit in the pocket and make the read and throw the ball, he’d be in good shape.”
Another area of continued concern was on defense, particularly in the big play department. The Cougars either scored on, or were set up for scores, on several big plays throughout the night.
Those plays, save for the aforementioned trick play, happened in part because the Blue Devils tackling remained subpar with several players failing to bring down the ball carrier thanks to poor angles or over pursuit.
“For the most part what happened is we lost containment, and then we had poor angles like you saw and poor tackling,” said Bell. “So, we worked really hard this week in our individual drills on tackling. When we run our team sessions, we only have certain periods where we work tackling to the ground and we did that more this week in practices than we have been doing.”
“We worked a lot of individual drills this week on taking the proper angle,” he added. “If you’re coming from the inside, we want you attacking that kid at his outside shoulder. That way if he turns into you, you’re golden. What’s happening is our guys are taking poor angles and attacking backside and that guy gets by him because they’re flat on their angle and they’re aiming point is not where it needs to be.”
Those aside, the 30-point output was the lowest the Blue Devils have allowed to date, and two of those points came on a safety and were not attributable to the defense. Bell noted that in many respects the unit looked more comfortable in the scheme and flashed much better execution of it than they had during nonconference play.
“Last week I thought we were leaving gaps open and I thought this week we were much better at our gap assignments,” he explained. “We still have some work to do because some guys, like we were talking about with the angles, when you’re blitzing off the edge, you need to have a tighter angle than what we were doing. We were leaving too wide of a gap off the edge and were getting up field.
“But I thought we were much better with our fits when it came to our gap schemes and our kids doing what they were supposed to do. But then the tackling became the issue obviously. Our pursuit was much better and our scheme and our kids reacting to what they were supposed to was much better.”
That discipline will be more necessary than ever as they hit the midpoint of the season in week five against Bowling Green. Though the Bobcats do not run as much triple-option as they had in years past, they still employ a lot of misdirection to help offset some disadvantages they still have from a depth standpoint.
“I’m going to tell you it doesn’t get any easier,” Bell said. “When you watch BG, their numbers are increasing. Their new head coach, they’ve got his demeanor. He’s a fiery guy, a good guy, and you can see that on the sideline. Their kids, they’re opportunistic so when you make mistakes, they take advantage of that and then they grab the momentum. A lot of that happens through their coach.
“But when you get up on them or you can have success, then that momentum piece for them, they struggle a little bit. Our guys, what we talked about this week were–you’ve got to play fast, and you’ve got to play physical. We need to have a fast start and we need to play physical the entire night.”
