September 6: The Anderson County Game

Russell Mayes: ...and at this time we are joined by the head coach of the Loudon Redskins, Jeff Harig. And coach, good morning to you.

Jeff Harig: Good morning.

Mayes: Well, this is always tough. To be on the phone after a tough loss, and certainly last night for the Redskins - it was a tough loss.

Harig: (inaudible section of tape due to technical difficulties?) ... to get better, and sometimes you're going to play teams that are going to be better than you. You hope your kids give great effort, which I thought ours did, and you hope they play well in big games, and we just didn't play very well last night.

Mayes: Well, you got off to a very quick start on the first offensive possession in the game. You stopped Anderson County after a couple of third-down conversions by the Mavericks. You get the football, and really, kind of put Anderson County back there on their heels with the halfback pass.

Harig: Umh, we did. Coach Roberts made that decision when we were doing our team stretch over there in Anderson County. That was going to be the first play. You know, all the hype during the week about Patric being the player of the week in the newspaper. You knew that they were going to key on him, so we thought would try to take advantage of them keying on him and maybe put them back on their heels a little bit throughout the game.

Mayes: Well, and then you do get the long pass there to Chase Randolph, and then it sets up Patric Johnson for a touchdown. You lead 7-0 in the ballgame, and you're off to a very good start.

Harig: We felt that was important to get off to a good start, to give our kids some confidence. We felt we could play with Anderson County as long as we could get them to believe, and getting off to a good start, we felt, was important.

Mayes: Well, and then Anderson County answers back; and that was kind of the story all night long. It seemed they were able to pretty much move the ball when they needed to with their fine running backs and also their fine quarterback Wright. And it was Anderson County back down the field in a seventy-three yard drive for the touchdown to tie it up. That was really kind of the story all night, wasn't it coach?

Harig: It was. They are a very physical team; they're a big team. That's not really our strong suit, playing against teams that are bigger than us. We had to do some things defensively to try and put our kids in a position to make a play. We blitzed more than I would like to. But I tried to give our kids the best chance to win, and it just didn't work out.

Mayes: And you had some opportunities there throughout the game; you had people pinned in there in the backfield. And I guess just a combination of not being able to bring them down with the tackle, plus Anderson County has some very athletic people that are very smooth, and they can just kind of slip out of tackles.

Harig: They're a very physical team as far as their running backs go. Their running backs run behind their pads, and their legs never stop moving. When you try to arm-tackle someone like that, they're going to be able to run through your arm tackles. And we have to do a better job this week of tackling with our chest and getting our feet moving to get our body in position where its not an arm tackle.

Mayes: And in this game, you didn't see Anderson County throw the ball quite a bit. And that was something you were hoping Anderson County would do.

Harig: Yeah. Last year we felt like they kept us in the ballgame a little bit by trying to throw the football and being a finesse team. Coach Kerr realized early in the season that his strength is being a physical, gring-it-out team; and they played to their strong suits.

Mayes: Really, this game was kind of dictated by field position; and Anderson County, for most of the first half, had pretty good field position. That made it a lot easier for them.

Harig: They sure did. We didn't do much to help them. I didn't feel our punting game was up to par kicking the ball. When you give teams like them the short field, they're going to take advantage of it.

Mayes: And then in the second half you get a touchdown run by Matthew Packett, and that brought the Redskins within seven points. And certainly it looked like Loudon did not quit at that point.

Harig: I was very impressed with that. At halftime I was worried about how we were going to respond in the second half. If our kids went out there and layed down, that game could have gotten real ugly. Our kids responded and - twenty-one to fourteen - were in the ballgame. And we didn't play well. You know, I think that's a testament of how good a team we can have if we play consistently and play hard and work to get better.

Mayes: And I thought the defense in the second half made some big plays; and, once again, field position and big plays by Anderson County were the downfall of the Redskins by Anderson County in the second half.

Harig: Yeah, we got backed up there on a punt. Jake Brantley slipped down about the ten yard line, and from there they had the field position (inaudible section of tape)...we had our backs against the wall much of that time.

Mayes: Coach you've got Seqouyah next week. Seqouyah has gotten off to a very good start. They had a tough loss last week at Grundy. Tell us a little bit of what you know right now about the Chiefs.

Mayes Harig: What we've seen so far is that they've got that big fullback back number forty-two, and you remember him from last year, he had a pretty good game against us - real big kid. But now they've got some compliments to go with him. They have a pretty good little tailback number in twenty-one; they've got a good receiver in number three; and the quarterback looks to be a much-improved player.

Mayes: Coach Jeff Harig, thank you so much for joining us here on this Saturday and best of luck against Seqouyah.

Harig: Thank you very much.