October 5  WLIL Saturday
High School Football Report

Interview with coaches Jeff Harig and Ronnie Roberts concerning the Loudon vs. Fulton Game

Part 1:  Interview with Jeff Harig

Russell Mayes:  Joining us now is head coach Jeff Harig and also the offensive coordinator Ronnie Roberts.  Coach Harig,  good morning.

Jeff Harig:  Good morning.

Mayes:  [Its] so good that you could join us on this Saturday; and the Redskins fight hard last night, but its another heart-breaking 35-28 loss to the Fulton Falcons.  Coach Harig, I know it was a tough loss for the team, but I think there is a lot of good that can come from this game.

Harig:  There is a lot of good and a lot of things that we can build upon.  I think last night we finally realized what it takes for us to succeed.  We have to play together, and we have to play as a team.  Ultimately, we have to execute.  There are all kinds of schemes; there are all kinds of ways to move the football and stop people; but we do what we do, and we have to execute it.  I think our guys finally realized the importance of that last night.

Mayes:  And I believe in a way, Dukes Field is becoming a house of horrors for teams.  You look back at the last two years -- Loudon playing against Fulton, Austin-East and Anderson County in the last two years at home has played all three of those teams very tough at Dukes Field and has had chances to win those ballgames.  So its something about Dukes Field that the Redskins seem to play well.

Harig:  Our kids have a lot of pride; and they're not going to let someone come into, especially our field and embarrass us.  We're going to play some tough teams; and we play in a tough region.  And our kids have a lot of pride in what they do, and they're not just going to let teams come in here and not realize that they've been in a football game.

Mayes:  Last week was certainly disappointing, and I know there were a lot of question marks circling around the team.  It was kind of a tough week for you all to get focused and get prepared, especially with the disappointment over the last couple of weeks.  It had to be big that Fulton, on their first offensive play, snaps the ball through the end zone; and, right out of the box, your ahead two to nothing.

Harig:  It was very big.  That kind of gave us a little spark there.  It kind of got the crowd into it also.

Mayes:  You take a 2-0 lead.  Fulton comes right back and gets an interception return, and then another big play out of your defense.  Its another big fumble recovery for a touchdown by Kelly Rushing. 

Harig:  It was a great play.  We have a motto "Scoop and Score."  It has really paid off for us this year  We've scored several touchdowns by doing that.  I was really happy for Kelly.  That was a great individual play on his part,  with his injury and battling back from his injury.  He's been through a lot.  Its good to see a kid who has fought so hard to come back have something good happen for him like that. 

Mayes:  Well, I know you were concerned last night about seeing the sideline's reaction to the score.  How did you all look down on the sidelines on that play?  

Harig:  The camera didn't catch us thank goodness.

Mayes:  Ok.  Well I know that's always something fun to look at.

Harig:  We didn't get caught.

Mayes:  It was a big play, and I know that had to continue the confidence.  You know, Loudon needed a big confidence booster; and to be in that situation, there again, its another mistake by Fulton that Loudon capitalizes on.  You really felt like at that time [that] this was going to be a good ballgame. 

Harig:  Yes.  Our defense. . .we've been having trouble defending some speed and giving up big plays; but, at the same time, we've contributed to the score by making some big plays ourselves.  

Mayes:  And really, for Fulton, it was one of those nights where it seemed like at times they had a hard time sustaining drives.  And the Redskins could make some stops. But it was really big plays, once again, there by the Falcons -- a long touchdown pass to Ronnie Collins, and then you have Davis there late in the ballgame to tie it up on a long run, and then Ricky Naughly to win the game for the Falcons a long touchdown run.  Fulton is a big play team and that's what they did last night. 

Harig:  Yeah.  It was all or nothing with them.  Either we stuffed them on three plays, or they were scoring touchdowns.  There was no in-between, no drives or anything.  We're going to hang our hat on executing fundamentals  Where teams like Fulton, they can spread you out and wait for that big play to happen.  And our job becomes not to give up that big play.  But we have to be perfect in our fundamentals.  [On] any big play we gave up, you can go to the film and watch one guy, or maybe even two guys, who didn't execute what they were supposed to on that play ;and it results in a touchdown.  So we've got to be perfect, and that put a lot of pressure on us to be perfect every play.  But that's just how it is, and we've just got to get better. 

Mayes:  It seemed like every time Fulton took the lead in the ballgame there early, the Redskins would be able to respond.  And I think one of the biggest plays of the ballgame was the drive there at the end of the first half, where the Redskins get a score with twenty-four seconds left and take that lead into the locker room at half-time.

Harig:   It was.  It was a big momentum booster, not only for our team but for our whole offense and our offensive staff to be able to actually. . . (I couldn't make out what he said on this section of tape) . . .and actually get involved and have some success doing things, that now the defense had to adjust to what we were doing; and now we get to adjust to what they did to us.  It was good to actually be involved offensively.  We've had a little bit of a drought the last few games, and it was a team effort last night.  

Mayes:  And then even more so, the momentum continued as you get the first touchdown of the third quarter and you have another big night out of Patric Johnson, a couple of touchdowns, as he scores in the ball game.  And a lot of people, Johnson included for the Redskins last night, had big nights and made some big plays.  Coach, tell us a little bit about some of the folks you saw on film that had good nights for the Redskins.

Harig:  Chad Oody continues to play well for us in the secondary.  He's all over the field.  Robby Kline is battling on both sides of the ball and giving all he's got.  Our defensive linemen stepped up, Daylon Sellers - we had a starter missing -- he stepped up and played nose and did a good job.  Our linebackers are reading their keys and getting where they're supposed to be.  We've got to do a better job of not giving up those big plays, and making a tackle here or there, a little better coverage here or there, and you know that was a different ballgame last night.  

Mayes:  Well Coach, I know the loss had to be disappointing; but I think you'll probably be able to spin this in a way that [as] you go to Scott County next week, and they picked up a big win, but now the Redskins might be able to pick up some momentum on this last-season swing.  

Harig:  We have no choice.  Our goal is to make the playoffs; but also our goal is to play one game at a time.  We've really got to focus on Scott County.  They came off a big win, and we control our own destiny.  As long as we keep playing hard like we did last night, I think something good is going to happen for this team.

Mayes:  Well Coach, it being Scott County, I'm going to miss you up there in the press box.  But I know you'd much rather be down on the field with the team.  And certainly best of luck to you against the Highlanders.

Harig:  Thank you sir.

Part II:  Ronnie Roberts

Mayes:  And now we have coach Ronnie Roberts, the offensive coordinator of the Loudon Redskins joining us.  Coach Roberts, good morning.  

Roberts: Good morning.

Mayes:  Well Coach Roberts, I know you have to feel a lot better about things.  The offense really had a good night.  Fulton, coming in to this ballgame, was only averaging giving up about 133 yards.  But the Redskins, on the ground, pick up 173 yards rushing.  It was a good night for the Redskin offense.  

Roberts:  It was a good night, and we had pretty good execution last night.  On Monday we came in with the intention of watching last week's film  We kind of searched our souls a little bit about why we hadn't been getting the job done and what it was going to take to get the job done.  And I think the kids did a real good job of buying in to the fact that if we execute we do have a chance to be successful.  Last night we had some success against a real good defensive football team I thought.

Mayes:  I know one of the things for offensive players and I'm sure everyone was talking about it -- people in the school, people in the community -- the Redskins hadn't scored in two weeks.  Do you think getting the safety early in the ballgame kind of took some weight off the offensive shoulders to kind of get settled down and get the job done?  

Roberts:  I'm not sure if the kids thought about it, but it sure kept me from jumping off the bridge.  It had been a frustrating two weeks, and just getting any points on the board was a relief.  And being able to answer some of their drives early in the game gave us a lot of confidence.  I don't think as a staff we ever doubted what we were trying to accomplish.  We just needed to do a better job and maybe find some other ways too to get other people involved.  

Mayes:  As you were saying, execution was the crucial thing in this ballgame.  Fulton's defense is a very good defense, a lot of athletes, a lot of speed, but really there were times last night that it looked like the Redskins really had them off balance.

Roberts:  I think we did a good job up front of getting hats on people, for one thing.  And we did a better job of using their quickness against them We spend a lot of time on misdirection in practice this week, and we were able to counter them a little bit and get them out of position  And then when we lined up and went right at them, our guys up front came off the ball and we had some pretty good movement and our backs ran the ball extremely hard last night and blocked well for each other  They just did a real good job, and we were going straight at them.  

Mayes:  And there were several big situations in the ballgame where you had fourth-and-one or a big down situation, and it seemed like, just about every time, you were able to make the play and that says a lot in crunch time when you need a yard to be able to get it. 

Roberts:  One of the things we tried to do was to play "keep away."  We ran fifty-nine offensive plays last night.  We ran a lot of offensive football plays, and we were getting a consistent push. And I had faith that the kids were going to get it done; and coach Harig, that's his decision, he had a lot of faith that they were going to get it done and I don't know how many times we went for it last night on fourth down, but we came up with it every time, I think, we attempted it. 

Mayes:  Well coach, I know the loss itself is disappointing but I think there's a lot of good that's going to come out of this and now the final four games of the year, Scott County next week.  These are all going to be big games  I know the offense is going to have a lot of confidence, and I know that you'll be looking forward to these next couple of games. 

Roberts:  Well, the season and what history will write about this football team is still before us.  I think we've learned a lot in these last three weeks  If you don't learn anything from a loss, its a loss; but if you learn something, you're going to end up gaining down the road.  And I think our kids have learned something; I think our staff has learned something; and I'm real excited about the next four weeks.  I think we have a chance to go out; and if we execute and we play hard, I think good things are going to happen to us.

Mayes:  Well coach Roberts, thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Roberts:  Thank you Russell.

Mayes:  And we'll have more in just a moment right here on the WLIL Saturday Morning High School Football Report.