Blue Devils capture first win of the 2021 campaign
A trying 2021 football season finally saw a game end in favor of the Blue Devils– and on no better evening than Homecoming–despite a weather delay of more than an hour as the home team suffocated the visiting Maumee Panthers 14-2.
The victory was the first at Springfield Community Stadium for Head Coach Jerry Bell in his second season at the helm.
“I feel like there’s a little weight lifted off our shoulders,” he said, “but you get 24 hours to enjoy the victory before we’ve got to get ready for the next one.”
Like the weather conditions that delayed kickoff, the win was hardly perfect and early on looked grim.
Springfield forced a Maumee punt on the opening drive but found themselves backed up following a holding penalty on second down of their ensuing drive. Facing a long third down at their own 12, sophomore quarterback William Scott mishandled the shotgun snap and had to retreat to his own end zone to recover it. There he was met by a Panthers defender and sacked for a safety.
It was an ominous start a week after a dismal defeat in which the team could not respond to adversity at Napoleon. That, however, was not something Bell would allow his team to repeat in week eight.
“I thought our energy was really good, and our response was good,” he said. “I was making sure on the sideline that our energy was up, and I wasn’t going to allow them to get their chin in their chest. We kept telling them ‘it’s just two points, you’re fine, it’s early, don’t worry about it.’ So, we were able to overcome that.”
The defense stepped up to the plate first in responding. Maumee began with excellent field position at the Springfield 43 following the free kick, but the Blue Devils ended the threat with a pass breakup by junior defensive back Cruz Martinez on fourth down.
That unit continued their efforts on the next Panther drive thanks to a sack by senior linebacker D.J. Bussell on third down for a quick three-and-out.
While sacks have been hard to come by this season for the Blue Devils’ defense, they became a theme in this contest. Bussell’s was the first of eight sacks, making for a miserable and painful evening for Maumee sophomore quarterback Chase Maulucci.
With the defense well entrenched, Bell only required a small spark from the offense to turn the game around. He and his coaches found the answer with a different offensive set late in the first quarter.
The Blue Devils lined up junior wide receiver Jack Semler at quarterback for their third drive of the game, a wildcat package that has proven successful at times throughout the year.
It was again, and it took little time to explode. Semler kept the ball himself for gains of four and six yards to move the chains. That was followed by a handoff to junior tailback KaRon Logan–filling in for injured senior Brandon Langston– that he took up the middle for 18 yards. With time expiring, Semler again called his own number and slipped through the middle untouched for a 37-yard touchdown and 7-2 lead after 12 minutes.
That same package was used at the end of the first half with similar results as Semler scored from seven yards out with just 23 ticks left on the clock to give the Blue Devils a 14-2 halftime edge.
“I just think that it’s the personnel grouping that we bring in when we do that,” Bell explained. “When Jack is able to hit the hole where it’s actually at, he hits it and then he’s able to read in the second level. We got into that and we got some rhythm, we got some momentum with it and so we just kept with it to get that second touchdown.”
The two-score lead had an already active defense even more energized. At intermission, they had only surrendered 49 yards of offense to the Panthers, much of which came on screen passes. Maumee clearly came in with a gameplan to use that short passing game to get their playmakers the ball in space.
However, it also was clear that the Blue Devils were prepared for such an attack. Rarely did the home team blitz more than four defenders, and despite a few decent gains, they often were quick to swarm the receiver on those passes and come up with stops time and again.
“We practiced that all week about staying home and being able to come off your blocks and being aggressive to it,” said Bell. “I was really happy with what I saw because even when they were able to execute the play, when they tried to get to the next level, we had guys right there which we haven’t had all year. So, we were able to execute that because of the way we practiced all week.
“Again, really happy with the execution of the defense.”
Facing a two-score deficit, the Panthers were forced to mix up their offense and try more traditional pass plays. That played further into the hands of the hungry Blue Devils defense.
They became lethal at timing the snap count, particularly senior inside linebacker Isaiah Rogers. Only 5’6, the undersized senior acted like a bowling ball inside, timing up the snap and blowing plays up with regularity. His efforts earned him only two of the team’s sacks, but Bell credited him with far more than what the stats show.
“Those are things that we practice and we practiced that all week on timing that snap up and he was able to dial it in,” the coach said. “Even when he didn’t–there were a couple of times where he didn’t quite dial it in where the timing was there –he still wreaked havoc. When you have to take care of that, it allowed other guys to get off their blocks and get the sack.
“Hats off to our defense, especially Isaiah and our defensive line.”
When the dust had settled late in the evening, the final line showed only 17 yards of total offense for Maumee, including -32 in the second half as the Blue Devils set up shop in their backfield after halftime. That more than made up for an ugly second half from the Springfield offense, in which they only gained 50 yards.
But in a year that’s been far from perfect, finally seeing a notch in the win column was all that really mattered once the clock hit triple zeroes.
“I’m super proud of the effort of our kids,” Bell said. “The defense picked things up, they were able to bail out our offense when they were struggling and I thought our special teams played fairly well. I’m really, really pleased with that. There were a lot of great things that happened where finally I felt like we were playing together as a team and playing as one.”
