September 14  WLIL Saturday
High School Football Report

Interview with coaches Jeff Harig and Ronnie Roberts concerning the Loudon vs. Sequoyah game the night before and Chris Hutchens shoulder injury

Part 1:  Head Coach Jeff Harig

Russell Mayes:  . . .Coach Harig good morning.

Jeff Harig:  Good morning.

Mayes:  Well, I guess the first thing on everyone's mind in Redskin country is Chris Hutchens who had to be helped off the field late in that football game; and it certainly looked like a bad injury coming on the touchdown by Josh McQueen.  Coach Harig, tell us the latest.

Harig:  We found out that it might be a broken scapula, which is your shoulder blade, and everything that was going on out on the field was more of a precaution that what was actually needed.  They were just making sure that he was stable in his neck and his spine; he was in a lot of pain, and it was difficult for the medical personnel out there to really determine what the extent of his injury was.  So as a precaution they brought the ambulance out and kept that shoulder stable and took him on to the hospital for X-rays.

Mayes:  We talked about in the press box [how] in a situation like that for the medical team erring on the side of caution; and I know that that was something that certainly looked bad out there on the field; and it was kind of one of those plays that lends itself to an injury like that where you really have a change of motion out there on the field.  It looked bad and certainly that something that's a real plus for the Loudon Redskins is to have an excellent medical staff available at the games.

Harig:  Yes, Damian Cash and Dr. Stempson do a great job; and its an ease on me I guess and our staff to have him out there knowing that if he evaluates a guy and says he can't go, then he can't go.  That's what they're trained to do, and they do a great job.

Mayes:  And I know it had to be tough, and we're certainly glad to hear that Chris is going to be ok, although a broken shoulder blade is not something that is we'd want to wish on anyone.  But its a whole lot better than what it looked on the field; so certainly our best wished go to him and his family.  

Harig:  That is correct.

Mayes:  I know it had to be tough for you to be out there on the field for such a long delay in the game.  How do you keep your team focused for the last nine minutes of that football game when they see something like that happen?

Harig:  Luckily, the game was over for the most part and that gave us a chance to substitute a lot of  guys in.  And there's not really a lot you can do.  You just hope your guys stay focused cause when they don't stay focused or they go half-speed -- that's when more injuries can occur.  So you hate to have a situation like that; and there's really not a lot you can do about it.  You just hope that your team continues to play hard and no more injuries occur.

Mayes:  Did you get any sense of how the injury happened?  I know it came on the fumble on the punt return by Felton, I believe, that McQueen picked up for the touchdown.  Did you get a look or any idea of how it happened?

Harig:  Yeah.  He got blocked by a receiver coming from the outside cracking down in on him.  He didn't see him coming, and you kind of saw him at the last second, and he kind of turned his head and took the block on with his shoulder.  And by doing that, I think that's what caused the injury.

Mayes:  Well, certainly once again, our best wishes go out to Chris and his family; and its certainly good to hear that its only a broken bone.

Harig:  Yes.

Mayes:  But Coach Harig, starting off this game last night against Sequoyah, and it was not a good start for the Redskins.  The first two offensive possessions, the Redskins cough up the football on fumbles on the first time the Redskins defense really stepped up and had a goal line stand; and it really looked like Sequoyah was going to do whatever they could to take advantage of the Redskin turnovers.

Harig:  We talked all week about maintaining focus: don't get caught up in the homecoming activities and that kind of stuff, and that's tough on a young man.  We had the Redskins Olympics, everybody got over to the stadium, and we had games all afternoon.  Its tough to keep that focus.  I thought we had the focus, but when you have mistakes like fumbles and penalties -- maybe we didn't quite have the focus.  They got us early, but we were able to keep focused and jump start our mental toughness, I guess you could say, and continue to play.

Mayes:  And that was something.  Do you think it was a wake up call for the Redskins when Sequoyah got that first touchdown?  

Harig:  It certainly was.  There are a lot of parallels between how we approached Anderson County and how Sequoyah was approaching us.  We talked about that.  For them, that was their big game; that was their Super bowl.   That really jumpstarted them when they got those fumbles. It also jumpstarted us, I hope, too.

Mayes:  Well, it had to make you feel good that the Redskins were able to just basically to move down the field and get a touchdown pass from Oody to Patric Johnson on the next drive.

Harig:  It made me feel a lot better, yes.

Mayes:  It was really a good looking offensive performance for the Redskins, as it seemed like that at times the Redskin could just move the ball at ease against Sequoyah. 

Harig:  Yes.  Coach Roberts, Coach Stamey,  Coach Brown, and of course Coach MacKintosh had an excellent game plan ready.  We knew we could exploit some of the things they were doing against us.  But they really (inaudible section of tape) against the run.  On that first touchdown, we found Patric wide open down the middle of the field on a nice pass play.

Mayes:  And the decision to go for two points early in the ballgame -- I thought that was a pretty good gamble to take on the two conversion attempts after the first two touchdowns.  Sequoyah jumps off sides, and you only have a yard and a half to get the two points. 

Harig:  We felt that we were a little stronger up front, and with our power game working pretty well right now,  we decided to go ahead and give it a shot.  And they just happened to jump off sides twice.  

Mayes:  One of the things that we talked about a little bit earlier this week was you really felt like the Loudon Redskins were going to have an advantage in special teams play, and that was really evident last night.

Harig:  Yeah, there's three phases to a football game; and when one is struggling, you hope that the other phases pick up, and we scored twenty-one points off our special teams.  They've had trouble with their special teams the first two weeks.  I would hope they would have worked on them, but we still had the advantage in that part of the game, and it definitely showed last night.  

Mayes:  Defensively, I'm sure you have to be excited.  Sequoyah only ninety-eight yards rushing and thirty-five yards in the air.  That's a good performance for the Redskins defense.

Harig:  Yes.  We keep getting better defensively.  You know, we watched the film, and Coach Stewart, Coach Newman, and Coach Lorenz -- its been great, as our staff, we're beginning to gel as a staff and know where our weaknesses are and know the things that we need to work on .  We just keep going back and working fundamentals and hopefully, by the end of the year, its going to pay off.

Mayes:  You create some more turnovers off the defense.  Chase Randolph, another fumble recovery for a touchdown, and it seemed like, once again, Chase was in the right place at the right time several times throughout the game.

Harig:  I tell ya, that kid . . . I call him "Johnny on the Spot."  He got that fumble recovery on the kickoff, and then he happened to pounce on the ball on our blocked punt.  He just continues to be in the right place at the right time.  

Mayes:  And Chase Randolph had two touchdowns in the second quarter for the Redskins on the fumble recovery; then he recovered the blocked kick in the end zone.  Another strong effort from Patric Johnson as he gets three touchdowns.  

Harig:  And he also had eleven tackles and five assists.  The kid was all over the field.  As long as we get him reading his keys and getting him to the ball, we're going to be able to play defense against a lot of teams.  

Mayes:  And then, in the last part of the ball game, Josh McQueen had the fumble recovery on the punt by Sequoyah.   So you score a defensive score; you score off some special teams plays; and you score offensively -- that has to be something that you are excited about .

Harig:  Very excited.  It was a team effort, and you can't look at any one point in the game and say these guys did a good job.  We all did a good enough job to win; and, if you do that every Friday night, you're going to win a lot of games.

Mayes:  Well Coach Harig, it was a good win for the Redskins.  Now you're 2-1 and you have to turn your attention to the defending state champions, the Austin East Road Runners.  Tell us a little bit about what you know about Austin East and what we can expect to see next week.

Harig:  I feel that we have a great opportunity to measure our team against a great team.  We're going to have that opportunity for the next three weeks.  I don't want our kids to dread it; I want us to look at it as an opportunity to go out and measure ourselves against what's perceived to be the best.  If they are better than us, then we'll know what we need to work on to step up to that next level.  We turned the film on this morning, and after watching our game and watching their game, its almost as if the tape is running in fast forward motion.  They are flying around on defense.  Offensively, they're trying to throw the ball everywhere.   They're running a new option play they didn't have in last year.  And there is speed all over the field.  So its definitely going to be a challenge for us to be able to step up and match that speed.  I thought we stepped up physically against Anderson County, and now we're going to have to see if we can step up and defend the speed.  

Mayes:  Well Coach, before we get off the phone with you right here, tell us about some of the other players who you saw on film who had good ball games that maybe we missed.    

Harig:  We mentioned Chase Randolph.  Up front, the guys who don't get a lot of recognition.  The defensive ends in Matt Brown, Shane Thompson,  Joey Watkins, Andy Green,  Josh Blankenship -- its their job to keep our linebackers free.  And Coach Lorenz and Coach Newman have been doing a good job at tying up blockers so our line backers coached by Coach Stewart can run to the ball.  And they've been doing a good job at that .  So its those guys that we don't see that are battling in the  trenches a lot that are doing a good job for us.  

Mayes:  Well Coach Harig, once again, congratulations on the win and we look forward to seeing you next week at Austin East.

Harig:  Thank you.

Part II:  Coach Roberts

Mayes:  And I believe we have Coach Roberts on the line, and we'll have a chat with Coach Ronnie Roberts, the offensive coordinator at Loudon High School.  Coach Roberts, good morning.

Roberts:  Good morning Russell.

Mayes:  And I know you have to be pleased as the Redskins [with] 207 yard rushing and were able to go to the air for six passes and 69 yards and a touchdown in the air.  A relatively good performance last night for Loudon.

Roberts:  We were a little bit inconsistent.  I think the biggest part for last night [was the fact that] we were able to hit some open receivers We didn't perform with . . .uh, we really never did put a drive together  We had some big plays; we had too many balls on the ground  We weren't as sharp as we're going to have to be for the next three weeks.  There's no doubt about that.

Mayes:  Well, it was certainly big, as we were talking about with Coach Harig.  Sequoyah gets that first early touchdown, and it seemed like Loudon was able to come back with an answer right there rather quickly to wrestle away the lead from Sequoyah.  

Roberts:  Sequoyah was definitely going to make us throw the football.   They had about eleven people with in six-and-a-half, seven yards of the line of scrimmage; and we were able to get Patric behind their secondary, and we were able to run a little play action against some people [who were] open.  It helped us a lot right there as far as getting our offense going a little bit.

Mayes:  And it was another big night for Patric Johnson as we said -- three touchdowns for him:  one on the touchdown catch and two rushing touchdowns.  

Roberts:  Patric has really given us a big lift right now, and with Chris going down, we've really got some. . .some depth problems in the backfield.  We've not really even got that far this morning, but we're going to have to set down and look at some personnel.  We've got Brent [who] could possibly still be out at fullback, and we've lost Chris at fullback; so we're starting to feel a crunch there. 

Mayes:  Do you kind of feel like its a repeat of last year because it was at this point last year when a lot of players started getting injured and [in] the middle part of the season it was really tough to get a full complement of players on the field.  

Roberts:  Last year it was at the tailback position.  I think when we went to Fulton, probably [in] week six we had a tight end at tailback; and with a squad our size and a school our size, if you take a couple of hits at the same position, its tough on you; and we'll find a way to get somebody in there; we'll let somebody step up for us . . . we just don't know yet.  Can you play fullback Russell?

Mayes:  Well, I'll be at practice on Monday (laughter amongst the men).  Well coach, what do you see as the biggest point of improvement that the offense has to make this year?

Roberts:  Well, I think our consistency has got to improve.  We'll look good for four or five plays, we're really executing, and then we'll have a breakdown; and I think, obviously, we've got to be able to continue to complete some passes in the passing game.  One instance we had this week was pass blocking, and Coach Brown really worked with the kids upfront about sustaining and getting Chad some time to look.  And we've got to be able to throw a little bit to keep people from loading up on us.  I think our run blocking is getting to a point where we can sustain something, but . . . (inaudible section of tape). . .and cutting down on the fumbles -- I think we put it on the ground six times last night.  We only lost two, but that's six plays where we didn't get anything.  

Mayes:  Yeah, and it was certainly in most situations especially in this group of games that is going to be coming up, you just can't afford the turnovers.  

Roberts:  No, we're fixing to go into as rough a stretch probably since '94 when we played Seymour, Kingston, and Gatlinburg-Pittman three weeks in a row.  They were all ranked in the top five at that time; and now were coming with Fulton, Austin-East, and Sweetwater, and all those are top-notch teams.  So its going to be a real challenge for us.  But I think our kids are looking forward to it, and I know we are.

Mayes:  Well Coach Roberts, thank you so much for joining us here on this Saturday morning, and I'll let you get back to your preparation for Austin East. 

Roberts:  Thank you.

Mayes:  Thank you for joining us.

Roberts:  All right.

Mayes:  Bye bye.

Roberts:  Bye.

Mayes:  That's Coach Ronnie Roberts and Coach Jeff Harig from Loudon High School, joining us here on the WLIL Saturday Morning High School Football Report.