Basementbias

Ah so yes we are going to have to pay to watch the webcast through IHSAA. Debating if I want to pay or listen to WZBD for free.

I'm hoping that AC's enrollment doesn't push them up to 2A with LCC moving up and Pioneer staying up. Plus SA will be talented, but not this talented. We have some good classes with this years freshman who will be sophomores and juniors that will be seniors in '21. Knowing our luck, we will bump up to 2A with Luers and Eastside.

So does this mean The Berne Witness won't be covering SA or that we will now have to pay for their feed when it's been free all year? Just curious.

This one intrigues me. South Adams is the #1 ranked team, but are they considered the underdogs in this one? LCC has the tradition and history as well as home field in this one. They are also the defending state champs. I thought South Adams looked pretty nervous last night against Southwood and played much differently than they have all season. Credit to Southwood for pushing them, but I think South Adams played "hesitant" as the favorite. Probably the pressure they put on themselves for collapsing at the same stage last year. Can the Starfires play fast and free this week or will it be the same? What should we expect out of LCC? I know Tipton was good, but Luers beating them yesterday they way they did surprised me.

It's going to come down to the Luers OL blocking. If they can keep Pioneers quick defensive linemen out, they probably have a good shot. I believe both twins play db so they probably match up with receivers, it will be the other 2/3 dbs matching up. Also going to come down to Luers D line stuffing the running lanes and having great gap integrity. Part of the time they want to run the ball like draw plays when they stretch it out and other times they just try to outman you up the middle and around the edge. They like to mix a version of the triple option in a unique way. The pulling of the guard and tackle to either create a wedge or zone run scheme where the back picks which of the two to follow as they didn't always lead the same hole. I noticed they would have the the left guard pull to kick the opposite dt or de out but the left tackle pulling and then going back to the left guards spot to find a lb, others he'd replace the right guard. Their TE's like to seal the edge.

11/18/2016 didn't start out as the coldest, but probably became the coldest towards the end in Monroe for the Pioneer vs Adams Central semi state contest. It had been a really warm and nice day, but the travel pushed it to a 7:30 kickoff and that was delayed to the storm that rolled through. We were sent to the school along with Pioneer fans that had made it early. The rest of them had traveled with the monsoon of heavy rain, wind, lightning, and thunder. The wind mixed with the driving rain and a 25 or 30+ drop in temperature made it chilly/pneumonia type weather. Playing probably wasn't too bad, but spectating was not great. I remember not being able to feel my legs as I was trying to walk down the bleachers soaked and shaking. Outside of that, maybe the 2000 semi state win over North White, but I was pretty pumped up as a 4th grade fan for that one with my buddies. As a player, semi state practice in 2005 on a Tues/Wed before playing Sheridan. We actually moved practice to the east of the school to get a wind break.

Probably still pulling both the guard & tackle as well. That was a different wrinkle compared to other teams. They also like to let the interior line go when running outside so they can block downfield. They used to have a hybrid 5-3 to 5-2 (play like a 3-5/3-4 some instances). They have 3 down interior linemen and 2 standing up DE's and at least 2 inside LB's with a 3rd playing a monster or a nickel type db. Lengthy and quick but not really bulky up front. They look deceiving to put it in a way. Very physical type of guys.

Not sure how they operate this year, but past seasons they primarily ran the ball and looked for a simple pass play when they lull you to sleep. I believe they still have the twins and they are speedsters. They had done quite a bit off tackle in 2016 and 2nd man through with Kiser. Probably similar with some changes.

Good luck to Luers! Having a family kicker on your roster again and hope you guys can get to LOS!

SA 49 Southwood 21. No knock on Southwood, they are a really good team. This SA team is just that good in comparison of watching them play this year and seeing Southwood last week.

South Adams by a large margin. Southwood & AC was close until the Jets forced the issue and forgot how to tackle. Southwood had trouble defending AC's passing attack. South Adams passing attack is much better than AC's. Southwood can key on the pass, but SA has Miller & Summersett that can pound the ball as well. South Adams defense has looked like it has gotten much better on run defense than earlier in the year. Their pass defense is good enough to shut down the Southwood passing game and I think they'll have more pressure on the QB than AC did (though AC had a lot).

Looking forward to all 3 matchups this coming Friday night. Norwell vs Concordia should be a good one. Eastside vs Luers part 2 could be interesting. Then the one I'm biased about is AC vs Southwood (hoping the Jets can pull it off). Seems like this Southwood team is like the 2017 team that knocked out the Jets. Hoping for similar results of 2016 & 2018 that favored the Jets. It's filling the void of the old AC vs Southern Wells sectional games.

Currently SA is the team to beat so far in the North. Not enough body of work to make a statement on LCC. AC will have to deal with Southwood who is back in now. All teams have to beat COVID as well. It was definitely a tale of 2 halves for the AC vs SA regular season matchup. The Jets had started to ground and pound for much of the first half and were driving to score to get a larger lead when Currie was injured. After that, the game completely changed as AC went ultra vanilla in my opinion. South Adams did start running the ball with Miller blocking for Summersett and giving their passing offense more time. A rematch of both healthy would be interesting to see what happens. Still think SA has just a little more this year plus that bad taste in their mouth after last season.

Nice, hopefully Southwood can advance on as well as my Flying Jets for a good sectional final battle.

Congrats to all the Unified Teams for getting the season accomplished! That is no small feat as the athletes could be considered in the high risk category and their teammates (considered partners in the rules) had to be aware and unselfish. Football by the spirit of the game in its purest form in my opinion.

It seems counter intuitive to be able to block and tackle each other and lend a hand to help each other up on the field, but not shake hands. I can see if you only want to allow the players who have played in the game to shake hands and the others do the wave. In todays world, I'll just leave it at that and thankful teams can still play. Really sucks to see our undefeated Sectional rival have to bow out because of COVID.

Good to see Fairfield getting back to strength. Same for Norwell as well. I hope this can convey hope to Southern Wells to stick with it. They're playing a JV schedule with mostly Freshmen. Have saw some of the JV scores, and they haven't faired very well in contests vs other JV squads in the conference. Fairfield can give that group hope that brighter days are ahead, just have to work hard for them. A big shout out to Eastside Blazers. An OT loss to a much larger school was the only blemish this year. They are building off of last years sectional title. Also another good year for Eastside's sectional opponent Bluffton. The ACAC needs their teams to get back to strength. While it's fun to see SA, Woodlan (not too long ago), and AC have success, it's more fun when they earn it against strong opponents like the late 90s through 2000s Heritage & Southern Wells squads.

Yep, I get that. I'm not so bullish on turf for the regionals being a requirement. Heck not sure I like having it be a mandate at all. I do however favor the neutral sites for regionals & semi states. I could handle not having neutral sites for regionals. Your example with my reasoning would have had it at Twin Lakes or North White depending on the size of the venues. Guessing Twin Lakes may have more seating but I could be wrong and definitely not sure how it compares to NJSP seating. I do know that I wouldn't want it to be played at LCC's field. It looks like a baseball diamond turned into a football field 😆.

I wonder if it's not happened yet where a school would host but have their team at another site. I'm guessing that the IHSAA made it so that the schools hosting are only hosting their class or their class and another.

Idea is to get away from the 10 or so team conferences and maybe top out at 6 or 7. Let's say 6 conference foes that you play in the beginning of the season. Then week 7 is first round of playoffs. You lose in week 7 but can schedule weeks 8 to 10 for regular season games to play other teams knocked out.

I've not saw it in person, but it popped up in my google feed last year. I loved reading about it. I'd love to see it grow throughout the state. Also wondered if there was a paralympic type football, or if unified encompassed that.

The best sport of football, may just be the Unified Flag Football. I think most of us should watch them play and realize what the game is all about. Maybe we can take some of that over to contact football. Yes, we like to see competitiveness in contact football, but we need some of the humility, grace, & sportsmanship from Unified.

I'm liking Ohio's COVID tournament set up currently. They normally play 10 game regular seasons with playoffs that you have to qualify for and are seeded. This year they're playing 6 regular season games before the tournament that is all in if you opt to participate. It is still seeded like before, but after losing in the playoffs you can schedule up to 3 regular season games depending on when you lose in the playoffs to get the normal 10 games. I think this could really be beneficial for programs having tough years with young teams. More games those teams get at the end of the year, the better. Not necessarily would you have more games, still the same number, but most likely with teams in similar circumstances allowing teams to improve instead of getting throttled by 35+ to end their season.

It's time to be critical towards the IHSAA for not having seeding or neutral site regional & semi state games. 😆 Can't be critical towards the OHSAA this year as they went all in and seeded all the teams for just this year. Next year back to being critical for not allowing all in towards them.

My 2nd cousin makes history for the storied Luers program!