October 4: The Fulton Game

Russell Mayes: Welcome back to the WLIL Saturday Morning High School Football Report, and at this time we are joined by the head coach of the Loudon Redskins, Jeff Harig. Coach Harig, good morning.

Jeff Harig: Good morning.

Mayes: Well for the Redskins last night, it was another disappointing loss as they go on the road against a very good Fulton team and lose to the Falcons 44 to 7. Coach Harig, this was just another tough night for the Redskins.

Harig: It was. I thought we played hard; I thought they tried to do what the coaches asked of them; but there are times in the season when you are just faced against teams that are better than you. Last night [the case wasn't] that beat ourselves so much as it was Fulton was just a better team. And there was no question about that: they had more speed than we've seen all year, and they utilized that speed well.

Mayes: And Fulton really was an impressive team; and I think that kind of surprised a lot of people because they lost so many people from last year. And it looks like they got just a stable of talented athletes out there on the field.

Harig: No question. They are as an athletic team that we have seen all year.

Mayes: Well, as the games starts off, and I guess for the third week in a row to a very slow start for the Redskins, as on the opening kickoff DeMarcus Stevens returns the kick for a touchdown; and that was almost unbelieveable because Stevens is not a guy who you'd expect to see return a kick.

Harig: Yeah...they made two blocks. On a kickoff return, all you have to do is get one man out of his lane, and there's a hole. They made two blocks, got two guys out of their lane, and he found a hole and hit it right up middle field. It wasn't the best of kicks. We just didn't have any safeties back. [We] missed a tackle, and he was down the sidelines.

Mayes: So the game starts off 7-0; but, once again, Loudon fights back in the football game; and you get a touchdown run from Jake Brantley thereafter. Then, all of a sudden, the game's tied up 7 to 7. Tell us a little bit about Brantley's run.

Harig: It was executed well up front; it was a good call. Jake made two or three nice cuts to avoid defenders. We thought, going into the game, that we could control the tempo running the football. We felt pretty good about things early on there.

Mayes: Well, and also early on in the game you block a punt, and that's something you said that you saw on the film and thought that the Redskins would be able to do.

Harig: We have assembled a package where we send our block team on; and, leading up to that week, we thought we would have a chance to get one, if they kept blocking the way they had shown on film. Chase Randolph made a nice play, got in there quick, and made a nice block.

Mayes: We talked a little bit after the ball game last night about how you felt like you did just about everything you could in this ball game. You had a blocked punt; you faked a punt and did some other things. So, really, you have a lot of things up your sleeve coming into the ball game.

Harig: Yeah. We didn't leave anything here in Loudon. We brought everything we had and a valuable lesson is that sometimes giving it your all and trying to do your best is something you can take satisfaction in. The missed tackes and some of our pursuit angles just were not good enough. We've not seen speed like that; and there's no way you can practice against speed like that. So, we've just got to go back to the drawing board; and, hopefully, we're not going to see that much speed for a little while.

Mayes: Well, Fulton's quarterback Justin Long is probably a little bit different than any quarterback we'll see all year because we saw that he could run the ball extremely well but he could also throw it extremely well.

Harig: No queston. What make him so good, I believe, is his ability to throw the ball downfield. They're taking an 8 to 10 step drop, and he's setting up ten yards behind where the ball was snapped and still throwing it thirty to forty yards down field. We don't see many quarterbacks who can throw the ball with such accuracy that far down field.

Mayes: Well, and certainly that's a little bit different from what we see from most Quarterbacks. They can either run, or they can either pass; and that's certainly a difference. Really, just their speed, I think, was the difference last night.

Harig: No question. They had it at all skill positions, and they really used their speed well.

Mayes: And you were going to try to counter that speed with much the same game plan as you had against Austin East - trying to run as much time as possible. And there again, right up the middle, you were able to find some running lanes.

Harig: We were. They had some seniors in their defense that we thought we could take advantage of. Early on we did that. On a side note, running the clock: we have a stop watch on our sideline. When they set the ball, we start our stopwatch. We had three delay-of-game penalties when our stop watch showed twenty seconds. So I had a penalty and Coach Stamey had a penalty for arguing with the back judge there who has the clock. But when you have your stopwatch, and your game plan is to run as much clock as possible, its disheartening to get those delay-of-game penalties.

Mayes: And I know that was an extremely frustrating situation because I think the backjudge was looking at a stopwatch as well. You would think that about all stopwatches would be about the same. Someone else told me that somewhere up in the stands they were keeping a stopwatch, and the flags were being thrown at about twenty-two seconds. And it wasn't just Loudon that was getting the penalties. Fulton had several delay-of-game penalties too.

Harig: Correct. And I could see if we were late getting a play in, or we had a mistake in personnel; but we were at the line of scrimmage ready to run the football play. We were just trying to [get] those last four or five seconds, and then we were getting penalties. That's not acceptable at any level of football, I don't understand what the problem was.

Mayes: Well, and that's really a difference in officiating crews. Obviously, the ball is signaled ready for play; and sometimes that can be done faster with some crews than others; and it seemed like they were doing that quickly all night long which really, in turn, gives you less time when they get the ball and get it in quickly.

Harig: No question. It always seems to be with a Knox County crew. We've just got to play the game and coaches worry about officials. You can never blame a game on officials, but I just didn't think those calls were correct.

Mayes: Well, certainly it just added to the toughness of last night - Fulton an outstanding football team, but now for the Redskins four games remaining in the football season. Things are certainly not over, but you take a look at it; and now the playoffs - just getting into the playoffs - is basically going to be a four game stretch where you have to win every week.

Harig: No question. Our playoffs start Friday night, and we're going to go to work Monday trying to get better. I'm watching Scott County right now. There a fine football team. The quarterback, you hear so much about. He's as advertised. He's a heck of a football player. They're big upfront. And its definitley going to be a challenge for us.

Mayes: Scott County has had really a great turn around this year. They were 1-9 last year; but, as most Loudon fans remember, the Redskins had their hands full in that game last year.

Harig: No question. And their coach, Coach Sexton, has those kids believing that they can win; and they're playing that way. They're giving it all they have. We're watching them right now. They're behind the whole fourth quarter, and they just scored a fourth-quarter touchdown to beat Campbell County. So they are going to play for four quarters, and they're going to play hard.

Mayes: Coach, let's take a little time right here to talk about something we haven't talked about on this show; but I know it something you're certainly proud of this year, and that's your Junior Varsity and Freshman teams. Of course, the Junior Varsity teams play on Monday night; and the Freshman teams play on Thursday night. Just tell us a little bit about the progress of those two teams this year.

Harig: We've been really proud of those teams. This year we made a commitment to playing two full schedules - a JV schedule and a Freshman schedule. We've put all of our number two's, even if they play some on Friday night, we've put our number-two's out there on Monday in the JV game. I think its really paid off. All of our kids are getting chances to play in a game situation; and they're learning a lot of techniques. And next year we're going to be a step ahead because those kids have had a lot of game experience. We're extremely proud of our Freshman team. If you've not been to watch them yet, they are a sight to behold. We've got some real good, young skilled players and a lot of kids who have a lot of pride in playing for Loudon and have a lot of pride in how they play.

Mayes: Football is certainly a game where you have a lot of people on the team and in a lot of situations in the varsity, a lot of people don't get to play. This is great way really to get a lot of people some experience, get them ready for the run at the end of this year, get them ready for next year. Plus, just make them enjoy playing football because they're actually on the field getting to play.

Harig: And that's one thing we talked about. If you were a number two, in years past, you didn't get to play a lot of JV action. We didn't want to risk getting our number two's hurt. But these kids come out here; and they practice; and they lift weights for eight months. They do it to play football, not to go out and practice all the time. We've made a commitment to let those kids play, and I think its really going to pay off in the long run.

Mayes: Well Coach, coming up Friday night against Scott High its going to be an extremely tough football game; its going to be a big football game for the Redskins; its certainly going to be good to be back at Dukes Field.

Harig: It is. We're looking forward to being home. Its homecoming. Hopefully, we can get a good crowd out here and get this thing turned around.

Mayes: Well coach, thank you so much for joining us; and I'll let you get back to getting prepared for Scott County.

Harig: Thank you Russell.