Friday, September 26, 2008
One week after allowing 231 yards rushing to Hopkinsville, the Madisonville-North Hopkins football team knows its defensive weakness, and it’s no secret Henderson County will bring a strong running attack into today’s 7:30 p.m. matchup.
Thus far, Henderson has rushed for nearly 1,100 yards in three games, but North coach Will Weaver has a plan to disrupt the Colonels’ offensive scheme.
“We’re going to make them throw it to beat us,” he said. “They’re going to run the football probably 90-95 percent of the time, but the times they do pass they want to be home run balls because they try to lull you to sleep with all the run stuff and then hit you with a big pass.”
Almondo Theus leads the Colonels’ running corps with 582 rushing yards and four touchdowns. In Henderson’s week three 36-33 overtime loss to Daviess County, Theus collected 44 carries for 351 yards and two touchdowns.
Maroons’ senior safety Jesse Donahue said Theus’ success and speed begins with his dedication away from football.
“Off-season, because Almondo Theus does a pretty good job in the weightlifting room,” he said. “He does track sometimes. That’s what makes him pretty hard to take down.”
In addition to Theus, Henderson will employ backs Kolby Odaniel and Javaris Lewis, both of which rushed for more than 100 yards in the overtime loss as well while the Colonels amassed 639 yards of rushing offense.
Despite the slew of running options, Donahue said the Maroons understand how to be successful against such an offense.
“We’ve just been working on keeping the outside contained,
making their running back cut it back to the linebackers in order so that every one from the backside can get to the pursuit angles,” he said.
North also knows Henderson’s offense will be quite one-dimensional because Colonel quarterback Jeremiah Coursey has completed just 8-of-25 passes for 111 net yards and one touchdown on the season.
Therefore, the Maroons will load the box with eight men, but the defense must also be wary of the occasional pass.
“We just have to keep those corners (back), that’s the only thing that scares me,” Weaver said. “We do fly to the football pretty well and I know they’re going to come with some counters and they’re going to come with some play-action pass.
“They’re as a good an offensive line as we’ve faced all year. What we got to do is we got to get them in third down-and-long situations to where they have to throw the football, which is what they don’t want to do.”
Offensively, the Maroons will look to avoid those same long third-downs. North experienced success in that department last week by focusing on short passes and getting each first down as it came.
“We moved the chains,” Weaver said. “This week, (Wednesday), we did situations where we would do coming out from the 2-yard line. We had a goal line session, we had a third-and-long session to where if we didn’t get it, we bring the punt team out to punt and just let the kids know it’s a reality. If we don’t convert third downs, we’re going to punt.”
Weaver continued to say that North will employ a mix of run and pass plays, but will favor the throwing game, led by senior quarterback Matt Levin.
“That’s one of the things we do best,” he said. “Our lineman are pass blocking better than they have in a long time and our receivers are running good routes and Matt’s making good reads and decisions, so we’re going to continue airing it out.”
Through four games, Levin has completed 63 percent of his passes, 81-of-128, for 829 yards.
Levin will look to exploit Henderson’s vulnerability to the passing attack; the Colonels have allowed 1,000 yards through the air, including 486 to Daviess County.
“Their corners play pretty deep, but they play with two safeties, so we can get them all with our short stuff, let our receivers catch it and run with it,” Levin said. “We’ll set them up with some up with some short passes and go over the top every once in a while.”
Accompanying the offense this week will be running back Chris Scisney, who missed last week’s game due to injury.
Scisney embodies the Maroons’ leading rusher and best opportunity at maintaining a balanced offense.
“He’s about 95 percent,” Weaver said. “He will be back this week. He’s had a great week of practice.
“Chris wants the football. The one thing he said the other day is, ‘Coach, when I come back, feed me the football.’
Both North (3-1) and Henderson (2-1) enter tonight’s game just a few votes shy of cracking the Associated Press Kentucky Class 6A Top 10 Poll. Henderson ranks 13th while North sits at 17th.
Tonight’s district game with Henderson represents an important step for North if it expects to contend for this season’s title.
“If we plan on finishing first or second in district, this is definitely one we have to have,” Weaver said. “We want to win the district championship, and if we’re going to get that done, we can’t afford to have another loss in the district.”
No comments:
Post a Comment