I'm Glad You Asked

This, friends, was an ugly, ugly game.

I don't mean it was dirty (though the referees certainly seemed to think so: we were flagged over and over and over by the same two refs, the umpire and the linesman on the Beverly Hills side) or that there was taunting or anything.

I mean it was sloppy.

Our defense continues to play very good football, and although Beverly Hills scored 9 points, none of them came from their offense. So from that perspective, it was a shutout. But our offense was horribly inconsistent and sputtering. Our tailback, Sullano, was a bright spot, as was our flanker, Guzman, but otherwise, we have little to be proud of offensively. Bertuch caught a few and managed to complete our trick play to Eichten, but we remain dangerous to ourselves on offense. It was so bad that eventually I started calling our Jumbo group out and we ran our short-yardage offense over and over. It was safe and it ate time: two things we needed.

Our defense, as I said before, played very well. We weren't on defense too much, since we were trying to win the time of possession game, but even so, the Normans weren't able to do anything of note. They drove down deep and were very, very close to our goal line, but we stood firm and stopped them.

A word on what happened next to those spectators who didn't understand.

We got the ball with a few minutes left in the 4th, up 14-7. After an unsuccessful series (and some MORE penalties) we found ourselves in a 4th and very long on our own 5 yard line. I sent in the punt team with instructions for Eichten, the punter, to take the snap and run around in the end zone for as long as he could, then either take a knee or step out the back of the end zone and voluntarily take the safety.

If you don't know, a safety is worth two points to the opposing team, and in addition, the team that surrendered the safety must kick to their opponent from their own 20 yard line.

With the safety, we were ahead 14-9, with just over a minute to play. But we had set up our weapon. Brady "The Leg" Stuart.

We knew he could kick the ball far. So we were not surprised when he booted the ball from our own 20 all the way to the Beverly Hills 15, where it rolled almost into the end zone. A Norman return man scooped it up and managed to get beyond his 20 before we pinned him down. Beverly Hills now had to go about 75 yards in under a minute. Their drive was ended when Gutierrez intercepted a pass and ran it back to the Beverly Hills 5 with 10 seconds left to play.

We told the kids after the game that this offensive performance would simply not do. It might have been strange for them to hear us so angry and disappointed after a victory, but the truth was, we did not win the game: we simply finished with more points than Beverly Hills.

So mark this one as a W, but make it a sloppy, ugly one, won't you?

Next Week: Glendora!

A pretty thorough loss to the Knights on Friday capped a week of lackluster and imprecise practice for the JV squad and brought us to 1-1 on the year.

On the bright side, despite the score, we mostly played good defense (our offense usually gave the Knights a short field to start with) and had more than a few openings on offense. We also kicked a field goal that was around 30 yards and had some good runs.

The problem was how imprecise we were. Our quarterback was not "on" that day, and it showed with I think four interceptions, the first one of which was returned over sixty yards for a touchdown. Interceptions stopped any drive we attempted to mount, and while we had some degree of success from time to time, we shot ourselves in the foot so much we could barely walk.

We spent the postgame talk proving to the team that a poor week of practice led to this loss. We had best learn this lesson for our next opponent and for the season. It's hard to be philosophical in such a loss, but we need to find the positive here, and we believe that we can teach the kids that preparation and hard work matters.

Next week: Beverly Hills (at WRHS).

In a solid, well-balanced performance to open the season, your West Ranch Wildcats defeated the Lancaster Eagles 28-13 on Friday, September 12th.

The game did not start well for us. We turned the ball over three times in the first quarter alone, once after a substantial gain in the air to our tight end, once on a carry up the middle, and once on a punt that put the ball on our own one-yard line for Lancaster to punch it in. We went behind 7-0 on points we simply HANDED to Lancaster.

But, after that shakedown quarter, we went into overdrive. We got back the score and added another via a combination of runs from Christian Sullano and Trevon Manuel and passes to Josh Guzman and Max Newlin. I don't have my stats with me, but Connor Eichten might have been around 10-for-15 on the day (Sorry, Connor, if it was more than that) and probably had over 100 yards. True, much of that was yards after catch, but we connected often and well.

Defensively, we had two drive-ending interceptions, one by Matt Bruns and the other by Michael Remy. We had some breakdowns in open-field tackling, but we can work on that and improve. We did a fair job of containing the Lancaster run game, with only a few breakdowns there. Overall, we did well stopping the big play and stopping drives.

Aside from the atrocious punt debacle, special teams were outstanding. We kicked off five times, and I believe three of them went into or through the end zone. One of the two returns did not make it past the 25. We made all four conversions and had some excellent kickoff returns.

So, a solid win. Lancaster was not the best team we will face, but they were decent enough. We will need to improve, however, across the board if we wish to defeat our next opponent.

Next week: Notre Dame!

Hello, readers, and welcome back to I'm Glad You Asked. As you can see, it has been quite some time since I last posted here: the 2008 West Ranch Junior Varsity football season is about to begin, so you should find regular game reports and comments from me here.

First, some overall comments on the fall:

As those of you who live in the area know, we have had some blisteringly hot days here. We are regularly in the 100's (and on a black rubber-cushioned synthetic field, the heat is even more intense) and our players have been subjected to withering conditions. We have also had a rash of injuries that we are only now beginning to recover from. The adversity we have faced already is considerable, but our players have responded to it well.

The first official contest of the season will be on Friday, September 12th, at Lancaster High School at 4:00. As always, the week before, we conduct a scrimmage (not exact game conditions) versus John Burroughs High School in Burbank. I write this having just come home from that scrimmage, so my thoughts about it are quite fresh.

These scrimmages are not scored, so unless one team dominates the other, it is difficult to know who "won." Today was not a domination by either squad. On the positive side, we connected well several times in the air on what we consider our "best" pass plays. We threw two long touchdown passes on plays that were not flukes. We connected to other receivers enough to know that we will be able to move the ball in the air. Pass protection was solid enough, and we did not make many mistakes.

On the ground, we had plusses and minuses. We see potential in some players who have not had as much practice time as others, and we got very good surge off the line with our offensive front. All these things add up to potential, if we can capitalize on it.

Defensively, we improved our tackling but are still not as good as we need to be on it. Our secondary covered well and picked off a few passes.

We looked quite good in the special teams area. As many of you who follow this blog know, I always say: there are three phases to the game: offense, defense, and special teams. If you win two of the three, you win the game. We look like we can win special teams often.

However.

We lost quite a bit of the intesnity we had built up over the past few weeks. We had taken some steps in practice to build competetiveness and had felt pretty good about it, but tonight, we seemed to lose an awful lot of it. We seemed to have players who were either afraid or uninterested in playing. No matter what we do as far as X's and O's, if those X's and O's don't play, you won't win. Or to quote another footballism, "It's not the X's and O's, it's the Jacks and the Joes."

Of course, there are some technical points that need recoaching, especially at the defensive end position, but we are pleased at the technical performance of the team. For the most part, we have taught the kids what to do and how to do it: apparently, we need to work on getting them to do it with intensity.

So, again, to those of you who have been reading, welcome back, and to those newcomers to the site, I'm glad you asked.

Next week: Lancaster!