Latest / Whatcom Preps Podcast / Whatcom Preps Podcast Episode 463 - Week 9 - Gatorade Gameday Preview Podcast

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Whatcom Preps Podcast Episode 463 - Week 9 - Gatorade Gameday Preview Podcast · Whatcom Preps Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Greetings and welcome into the Whatcom Preps podcast. This is
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: episode 463, the week nine Gatorade game day football preview.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: I am Tyler Anderson of Whatcom Preps and let's get
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: started here as it's going to be a long one.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Walton Beverage has been a staple in our community for
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: 95 years and I will continue to work harder every
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: day to make the fantastic people at Walton Beverage proud
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: of to sponsor youth sports and our community. They deliver
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: superior quality and commitment, and I plan to do the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: very same. Also, do you live in Whatcom, Skagit, Island,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: or San Juan County and want to become an official?
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Officiating is a great way to give back to your
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: community and ensure our youth have an opportunity to compete
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: in athletics. Go to nwofficials.com and find out how you
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: can get involved today. All right, well, let's look at
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the slate here as we've got a lot of games
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: on Thursday night, a few of them on Friday, and
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: also a Saturday afternoon, a ghoulish Halloween game. So we
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: got lots of stuff going on here. And what I
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: love about the Thursday night games is they're all at
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: different times. So they're all quite staggered. And we'll get
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: into that. First ones, we'll go in chronological order here.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: The first game is the first game of a doubleheader
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: out at Civic Stadium Thursday night. And it is the
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Sehome Mariners hosting the Burlington Edison Tigers. Sehome is 2-6
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: on the year, ranked 38th in the state in max
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: preps and 2A. Burlington Edison 5-3 on the year. They're
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: ranked 17th in the state in 2A. You know, you
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: look at this and it's, you know, Tigers should be
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: favored here. But again, you never know. All these games
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: got moved to Thursday because with possible upsets and different things,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: there could be like a fallout. I don't know, four-
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: or five-way tie for some of these playoff spots, and
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: they'll have to play for those. So there's a lot
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: that goes into this. It's an early game. It might
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: get done early. So you've got two teams that really
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: like to pound the ball, run the ball well. And
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: if you look at what Seaham's done in their two
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: wins in both those games, Cash Barnes had like around
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: 30 carries for 200 yards. In the six losses, he
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: did not. So I know that the Mariners are going
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: to want to try to run the ball a lot.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: They did throw the ball well last week out at Anacortes.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Gunnar Andersen had 181 yards receiving. I think that's the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: fourth highest in Sehome history in a single game. So
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: he is that long ball threat. Nicky Smith, also a
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: long ball threat. And you got lots of tight ends
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: over the middle. You can go to a Devin Bankson,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Elias Latta. So there's a lot of options there in
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: the pass game, but I know they probably want to
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: run the ball. So you might see a lot of
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: just smash-mouth football, just kind of old-school Seaholm-Burlington games from
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: back in the 70s and 80s. So, you know, you
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: give the edge to Burlington, but Seaholm, you know, they're
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: going to want to play well, especially at home. And,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: you know, if Seaholm does lose this, then they're going
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: to try to look to schedule a Week 10 game,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: just a crossover game with somebody. You kind of never
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: know who that's going to be. And hopefully they'll be
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: able to find an opponent because I always like when
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: even though they can't get to the postseason, it's always
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: good to get that last game in and we'll see
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: what happens there. But yeah, should be interesting. I think that,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: you know, I think the Tigers, you know, have that edge.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: But again, see home. They have a great kicking game. And,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: you know, the defense was really tested last week through
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: the air. Now they'll be tested on the ground as
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Burlington Edison likes to just pound up the middle with
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: their thousand yard running back and as well as their
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: quarterback who likes to run. Next up, this will be
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: a six o'clock game on Thursday out at Blaine High School.
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  Speaker 1: The Borderites will take on Linden Christian. Borderites are three
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: and five on the year, but they're ranked 20th in
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  Speaker 1: the state in 1A. It just tells you the level
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: of competition that they're playing. And this is the max
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: preps ranking Linden Christian six and two on the year.
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  Speaker 1: The only two losses came to Bellevue and Archbishop Murphy, uh,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: two teams that have high aspirations for playoff success that
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: are three and two way. Of course, Linden Christian is
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: one a, the links are ranked third in the state
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  Speaker 1: in max preps in both max and, or yeah, in
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: both max preps and in the coaches poll. So it's
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: a pretty solid ranking right there that everyone seems to
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  Speaker 1: agree on. Um, this is a game where you got
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: the Northwest conference champions playing against the team that finished
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: last in the conference. But boy, I keep telling everybody
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: that everybody in this conference is really good. So I
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: would still expect a pretty good game. I'm now joined
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  Speaker 1: on the Gatorade game day podcast by Linden Christian head
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: football coach, Greg Terpstra coach. Thank you for joining me today.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: How are you doing?
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: I'm doing great. How are you doing?
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Doing all right. How was woodshop class last week?
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: All digits are still intact.
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: This week, I am substituting.
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: For American history in the junior high. So, you know,
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: we got an election season. We're going through ballots. We're
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: looking at different profiles of candidates.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: It's really fun.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty cool. And that's probably, you know, a
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: little closer to the age group you're used to teaching.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: But that's an awesome age because when you start learning
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: about that stuff, oh, my goodness. I remember in, I
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: think I was in eighth grade in, in 92. And
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: there was, it was interesting because there was a three
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: candidate race for president in 92. So it was really,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: so we all had to like learn about the three
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: different candidates at that point. And that was a really
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: interesting thing to learn at that age. So that's pretty cool.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: And so during the Olympics, winter and summer, What sporting
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: event do you set aside time to make sure that
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: you watch?
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: I watch the Dutch speed skating.
• 6:20
  Speaker 6: It's crazy.
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: When the Olympics happen and the Dutch are involved, I just,
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: I go right back to my roots.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: I'm all about the orange, man. And hopefully not all.
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: About the orange this week against Blaine, but yeah, the Dutch,
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: all of a sudden that, like that, that country pride
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: comes out. And as much as I'm red, white, and blue,
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: there's something about the, Those Olympics and just kind of
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: seeing the Dutch compete, it's kind of cool.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. N-E-D, right? Let's go NED.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. On Friday, you hosted Mount Baker, came out
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: with a 21-14 win. You had some adversity early in
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: the game with Chris Coyman getting injured on his second carry.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: How much did that alter your game plan?
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: You know, it's not so much the game plan as
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: much as the mentality, right? You know, he's a big
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: bruiser up front, leading the charge. You hang a lot
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: of what you do on him. Mason Aronson, his little
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: cousin filling in, did a fantastic job. The linemen didn't blink.
• 7:29
  Speaker 5: They're ready to open up holes just for whoever's back
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: there and couldn't be more proud of them. Also, we
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: had Owen Enfield fill in for him on the other side,
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: and that kid's been a dog lately. We saw it
• 7:41
  Speaker 5: in practice, and he did.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: A really good job filling in.
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: Had to sort of get his feet wet there, seeing
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: the different movement on the wing tee, and then kind
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: of settled in.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that, too,
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  Speaker 1: because there was multiple times– you know, I'm doing the
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: stats on for defense and stuff. And there was usually,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: you know, I know all the kids, the numbers, I've
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: been seeing them for years. And then his, I had
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: to keep looking at the roster and go, who is that?
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Who is that? Who is that?
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: But, but he just kept making plays. And so that
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: was really cool to see that on the defensive side
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: as well. You know, I thought, I thought Wyatt Camp
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: House had another really, really good game. And he had
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: that typing catch and really showed his athletic ability as
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: he launched himself in the air to catch the ball. And,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: And it's good to see him back and playing after
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: missing a few games. How important has he been to
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: your team? Because he does it in all three phases.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: He does.
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  Speaker 6: He's so clutch.
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you speak of all three phases, just in special teams.
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: Just honestly, in high school, fielding a punt, it saves
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: you at least 15 yards every single time. And he
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: doesn't like a fair catch. He loves to just catch
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: it and see what he can do. He knows he
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: might get smucked, but You know, he's got nerves of steel. Defensively,
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: he's a lockdown guy. We love to put him on
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: whoever they've got that they think might be their number one.
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: And then offensively, he's just clutch. He knows where to get.
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: He knows how to present his numbers open and makes
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: it easier for the quarterback.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: And that's what's fun about having a guy that you
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: could tell that he wants the ball in the big moment.
• 9:20
  Speaker 7: Right?
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: We need to get a first down, get the ball
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: to me. He has that mentality. And, you know, a
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: lot of that could be, you know, being a part
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: of a state championship basketball team. They're not afraid of
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: the big moment. And he's definitely one of those guys.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: And man, you're right with the returning punts on a
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: few things there. Obviously, you know, firsthand, just, you know,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: receiving a punt is a big deal. But he is, boy,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: when he runs, like I say, he's like a bowling
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: ball of butcher knives he's just he's a guy that
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: does not want to go down he's really hard to
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: tackle and uh he just runs low to the ground
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: and it makes it really tough and you know i
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: think back at like the vancouver college game when he
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: had those really important punt returns late to set you
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: guys up and he just he just wouldn't go down
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: um the the two-headed.
• 10:09
  Speaker 8: Monster you can't say you can't.
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: Say enough about him and his heart um yeah and
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: it's interesting that you you bring that up about basketball
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: um I think, you know, these two sports are really,
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: and there's more, but mutually beneficial where that grit, that
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: toughness from football translates over into basketball. And basketball, the
• 10:31
  Speaker 5: heights that they've achieved, the moment's just, it's not too
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: big for any of these guys. And so I love
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: how the two sports complement each other. I wish in
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: other programs that that would be more of the case,
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: but You know, right now I'm actually advocating for athletes
• 10:50
  Speaker 5: from other schools to do what our kids are.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Doing, honestly.
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: If you're a hooper, go out for football. If you're
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: a football player, you know, try hoops. They really do
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: complement each other really well.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's, you know, you knew what it was like.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: You played both sports, and that's been a tradition at
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Linden Christian, so many kids playing both. there are obviously
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: some that specialize in one or the other, but it's been,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: and it's like you said, it's been mutual, mutually beneficial.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Both programs have been great for, you know, forever. And
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: so that's, that's really important. And I, I think that,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: you know, you talk to a lot of college coaches
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: and they want athletes to, to play other sports and
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: it just, it can bring out all these other things,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: you know, and especially the competition aspect and, being with
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: different coaches and how do you adapt and teammates and
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. It's, it's great.
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: They all say it, you know, to get it, to
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: get away from a sport for a while. So you
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: don't have those repetitive use injuries, right. You know, basketball,
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: God love it. But if you're pounding on a court
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: over and over and over, they want you to get
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: out on grass or on turf or some sort, just
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: to sort of change that pounding motion and exercise those
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: muscles in just a little bit different way. So you're
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: not so susceptible to injury.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: That's a good point as well. You've had this two-headed
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: monster quarterback, and this was kind of a game where,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: and correct me if I'm wrong, it's probably the first
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: game this year that was pretty 50-50 on the snaps
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: behind center. And I know that Dawson's still probably not 100%,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: but he did some good things. How is the rest
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: of the team doing? Has there been much of an
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: adjustment as far as different cadence, or has it been
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: pretty smooth with all that stuff?
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: You know, there was a couple disappointing moments the other night,
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: but I will take blame for those. I don't think
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: the communication was as good when maybe we were trying
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: to do a hard count. When we were trying to
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: quick kick versus punt, those were pretty disastrous. I think
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: Kent wanted to string me up.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: And he had every right to.
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: That communication broke down, and I'll take the blame for that. But,
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: you know, both guys are dangerous in their own way. And,
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: you know, Blanker's a little more subtle when he pulls
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: the ball or when he pulls something off. Dawson is
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: electric with the ball in his hands. Also, when he
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: catches it, they both present problems to a defense. And
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: We kind of wanted to see if we can get
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: another team a little bit kind of off balance.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: A little bit by the two quarterback approach.
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: And we really liked the reps that both of them got.
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: We both think that they took strides forward.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they both had great games. And, you know, people
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: talk about if you have two quarterbacks, you don't have any. And,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: you know, that might be an NFL thing, but in
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: high school it seems to work. Obviously, Linden's been doing
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: it for a long time, and you're absolutely right. When
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: a team has to prepare for two of them, that's
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: half the reps in practice, and you don't know when
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: you're going to see them and which capacity and all
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: that stuff. And, yeah, they both got in the end zone.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: They did some good things there, and that was really
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: fun to see. This Thursday, you're back on the road
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: at 6 o'clock at Blaine. Tell us about the Borderettes.
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: Well, I don't think that the Borderites have been a
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: surprise to at least our.
• 14:36
  Speaker 9: Team all year.
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: We knew that they had something special, that they had
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: dudes that they could hit, that they played excited, because
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: we saw them back at the Richland Bombers Camp, and
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: they competed with the best. And we knew that whenever
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: our game was going to be against them, that it
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: was going to be a dogfight, and it will be
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: this Thursday. I think they threw for eight yards the
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: other night, and.
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: They've got– we.
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: Know that Andy will prepare them really well as he's
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: done all season, and they've inspired. So they are going
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: to be quite the matchup, and we'll see on our
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: end who physically is ready to take the field.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: You know, you play against a team that loves to
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: throw the ball, obviously a little different than last week. And,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: you know, is it one of those things where, I mean,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: you're traditionally a 3-4 defense. Is it something that you
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: can use the guys on the field, kind of like
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: you did against Meridian, where you use the guys that
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: you normally have, the starters, but maybe put them in
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: different positions? Or do you say, hey, we're going to
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: go with maybe just one inside linebacker and bring another,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: you know, nickel back in or something like that? Or
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: does it just kind of depend on the moment?
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: I think our defense has shown that they are equipped to.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Be very versatile.
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: So, you know, without answering all the questions and all
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: the maybe tweaks that Coach Bauma might instill, yeah, we
• 16:08
  Speaker 5: feel really comfortable with our guys on hand, and they
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: do a fantastic job in the box and in space,
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: and we trust them.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think when I saw Justin Kiewik out there
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: pressing at corner a few weeks ago, I thought, okay,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: I love this. Look at this. This is a guy
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: that played offensive line last year, and he's out playing corner.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: And that does show the complete player of a lot
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: of your guys, and that's what's always fun to see.
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: I think Kiewik is pushing for taking quarterback snaps this week.
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: I think he wants to hit every position on the
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: field at some point.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: We'll see.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, man, I wouldn't put it past you, Coach. You
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: like having 10 quarterbacks on the team, so we'll have
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: to find out they're out of the turf field on Thursday.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Best of luck against Blaine, Coach. Thank you so much
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: for joining me today on the Gatorade Game Day Podcast.
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: Hey, thanks for covering all the boys.
• 17:04
  Speaker 9: You do a great job.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Coach. I'm now joined on the Gatorade Game Day
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Podcast by Blaine Head Football Coach Andy Olson. Coach, thank
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: you for joining me today. How are you doing?
• 17:14
  Speaker 6: I'm doing well, Tyler. Thanks for having me. You bet.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: During the Olympics, it could be winter or spring or summer,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: I should say, winter or summer Olympics. What sporting event
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: do you set aside time to make sure that you watch?
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: That's tough. I'd probably go with winter and hockey. Yeah.
• 17:35
  Speaker 10: I enjoy the fact that the United States are kind
• 17:37
  Speaker 10: of underdogs in that event.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:40
  Speaker 6: So the rooting interest increases for that. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: It's been a popular one, obviously, especially recently. And, you know,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: there was a there's been some great battles over the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: years with Canada. And that's been that's been really, really fun.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: And and you get to kind of relearn the game
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: a little bit, at least for me anyways. On Thursday,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: you hosted Sultan and you found some things that worked
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: in the passing game. At what point did you feel
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: like it could be a special or even historical night
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: for Connor Brown and his receivers?
• 18:13
  Speaker 10: I was probably the last to that party to realize that, honestly.
• 18:18
  Speaker 10: I'm calling the defense for us. So I had obviously
• 18:22
  Speaker 10: known he had three long touchdown passes, but my mind
• 18:24
  Speaker 10: just kind of moves on to that next thing. And
• 18:27
  Speaker 10: I was worrying about our special teams and then our
• 18:29
  Speaker 10: defense and trying to make sure the kids are organized.
• 18:31
  Speaker 10: And then I think there was like five minutes left
• 18:35
  Speaker 10: in the game when I had kind of heard out
• 18:37
  Speaker 10: of the corner of like walking past a couple of
• 18:39
  Speaker 10: kids and Then mentioned, like, Connor might be having a
• 18:42
  Speaker 10: historic night tonight. Like, he might break a record. And
• 18:44
  Speaker 10: at that point, I was thinking that they were talking about, like,
• 18:47
  Speaker 10: career touchdown or career yards at Blaine.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: Because I knew he was close to that. Right.
• 18:53
  Speaker 10: It wasn't really until after the game when I realized, oh,
• 18:55
  Speaker 10: we're talking about single game touchdowns and single game receiving, or.
• 19:01
  Speaker 6: Sorry, passing yards. But, yeah, pretty incredible.
• 19:05
  Speaker 10: I mean, I knew he was up there for the
• 19:06
  Speaker 10: touchdowns because that one's pretty easy to track live.
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 19:09
  Speaker 10: Yeah, we've only thrown touchdowns tonight, and we have seven
• 19:12
  Speaker 10: of them. But it didn't really dawn on me that
• 19:15
  Speaker 10: that was a record.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was pretty crazy. You know, a lot of
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: guys had six. And, you know, Ty Taubenheim held it,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: holding that record for a long time as far as
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: passing yards in a game, which was actually in a loss,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: a game you might have been at as a kid.
• 19:33
  Speaker 6: I was a ball boy.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. You're right there on the sideline
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: watching Blake Whitman run up and down, catch long passes
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: and Paul Silva. And, and that was a heck of
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: a game that that final game of the year. And
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: one guy I do want to bring up though, Hunter Candenoza, boy, he,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: catches everything. And he is just, you know, and he
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: did a lot on defense. He did a lot of
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: running around on Thursday night. And then he had to
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: kick a bunch of extra points and kick off. And, man,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: just talk about him and just kind of how important
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: he is to your team. Because I think he, not
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: that he gets, like, lost in the shuffle, but my goodness,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: he's pretty valuable.
• 20:10
  Speaker 10: He is very valuable, and what I'm most proud of,
• 20:13
  Speaker 10: he's always been able to catch a football. There's a
• 20:16
  Speaker 10: reason why the second half of last year as a sophomore,
• 20:19
  Speaker 10: all of a sudden he's getting six or seven catches
• 20:21
  Speaker 10: a night and kind of came into his own there
• 20:24
  Speaker 10: on offense.
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: So we knew what we had with that.
• 20:27
  Speaker 10: To speak to him as a receiver, he does a
• 20:29
  Speaker 10: really good job catching the ball that's thrown out in
• 20:32
  Speaker 10: front of him and looking over his shoulder and still tracking,
• 20:35
  Speaker 10: which is a tough skill. But this year, what we've
• 20:40
  Speaker 10: seen the most growth, and honestly, is his defense.
• 20:43
  Speaker 6: He's a willing tackler. He flies around. He's taking pride
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: in his defense.
• 20:48
  Speaker 10: So to be able to have him be a two-way
• 20:50
  Speaker 10: guy and kind of an iron man, that's been an
• 20:52
  Speaker 10: incredible asset for us.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, especially at the 1A level when you need
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: guys like that. You need a majority of your guys
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: to be like that, your starters. And one guy that
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: got a starting spot last week, and probably caused you
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: to be the most animated I've seen you on the
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: sideline was Dax Thompson, especially when he had that sack boy,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that was pretty cool. I was standing about eight feet
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: from you when you, when you gave the fist pump
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: there on that big quarterback sack. How, how, how awesome
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: was that play?
• 21:22
  Speaker 10: It's always exciting when a kid gets his first like
• 21:24
  Speaker 10: varsity moment.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:26
  Speaker 10: Um, and Dax is just another sophomore for us. So
• 21:29
  Speaker 10: I think he was like one of five on the
• 21:31
  Speaker 10: field at that time. And, um, he was getting his
• 21:33
  Speaker 10: first varsity start. Um, One of our D linemen, he
• 21:37
  Speaker 10: was gone on a family trip. So next man up,
• 21:41
  Speaker 10: Dax had to earn that opportunity because he is one
• 21:44
  Speaker 10: of our hardest working guys week in and week out
• 21:47
  Speaker 10: on our scout team. And he doesn't lack any physical courage.
• 21:50
  Speaker 10: He's willing to go out and compete. Really bright future
• 21:53
  Speaker 10: for that kid. He's going to be a really, really
• 21:56
  Speaker 10: good athlete.
• 21:57
  Speaker 6: And he just continues to get better.
• 21:58
  Speaker 10: So for him to have that moment where he got
• 22:00
  Speaker 10: a sack in a varsity game, And you could just see, like,
• 22:04
  Speaker 10: the switch flip for him there.
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: That was really fun.
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: And, you know, that happened kind of early second quarter.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: I feel, I truly feel that was a big turning
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: point momentum-wise. I mean, even though you guys were up already. But,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: you know, Sultan had, you know, a long drive that,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: you know, they had to kick the field goal. They
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: didn't get to kick it on the bad snap. But
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: there was kind of back and forth. But once that happened,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: it was, you know, you could feel the momentum shift.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: And it was all Blaine after that. This Thursday, you're
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: back at home again, 6 o'clock, against Lyndon Christian. Obviously
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: a really, really strong team. They've already clinched the 1A
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Conference Championship. Tell us about this year's Lynx.
• 22:45
  Speaker 6: They're really, really good.
• 22:47
  Speaker 10: In my opinion, the most talented 1A football team in
• 22:50
  Speaker 10: Washington State, athlete for athlete. So they do a lot
• 22:55
  Speaker 10: of really good things. Terps are always having them ready
• 22:57
  Speaker 10: to go. It's going to be a really great opportunity
• 23:00
  Speaker 10: for us. I mean, realistically, Tyler, we talk about this
• 23:03
  Speaker 10: year in and year out. Our goal is to find
• 23:05
  Speaker 10: out what our best self looks like, and we're always
• 23:08
  Speaker 10: competing against ourselves. There's always going to be an opponent,
• 23:10
  Speaker 10: but it's how we play, not who we play. So
• 23:13
  Speaker 10: we're really looking forward to the challenge. It should be
• 23:14
  Speaker 10: a fun night.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you have done well throwing the ball,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and you know Linda Christian is going to make adjustments,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: and that's going to be the fun chess part, the
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: chess game of that. And so I know Hunter will
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: have fun with that. As far as when you're calling
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: the defense, you know, it's pretty balanced, right? They like
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: to run the ball between the tackles. There's no, you know,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: everybody knows that. But the quick passing game and the
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: screens and stuff, which you're familiar with as well, is
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: there enough similarities to where you could try to replicate
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: it at practice a little better than you can other teams?
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: Yes and no. I mean, ultimately, yeah. Well, our athletes,
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: a lot of our guys play both ways, right?
• 23:58
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 23:58
  Speaker 10: So it can be a little bit of a challenge
• 24:00
  Speaker 10: that way. I know Coach Anderson is excited to no
• 24:03
  Speaker 10: longer have to be scout team quarterback because anytime we
• 24:06
  Speaker 10: are running wing tee stuff, I make him do that
• 24:09
  Speaker 10: because he naturally knows it better. So it's like we
• 24:12
  Speaker 10: don't have to worry about fumbled handoffs and things like that.
• 24:15
  Speaker 10: But there will be some elements that are obviously familiar
• 24:19
  Speaker 10: to us, just similar systems. But, yeah, Terpstra does a
• 24:23
  Speaker 10: really good job. scheming and running kind of like glance looks,
• 24:27
  Speaker 10: and then, you know, he'll false pull a guard and
• 24:30
  Speaker 10: then throw behind. So they run some stuff that's pretty great,
• 24:33
  Speaker 10: and he's been running that stuff since he was at Seaholm. So, yeah,
• 24:37
  Speaker 10: that's always going to be a fun matchup for us.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be a fun one, and there's
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of games going on Thursday night. You're right
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: there in the mix, and hopefully I'll be able to
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: be out there for a little bit of it as
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: I'm going to travel around and try to hit all
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: four of these that are in Whatcom County. So best
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: of luck on Thursday against LC, Coach. And thank you
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: for joining me today on the Gatorade Game Day Podcast.
• 24:58
  Speaker 6: Thanks for having me, Tyler.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: All right, moving on to the next game as we
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: travel down I-5 south a little bit into Everett at
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Terry Ennis Stadium is the Archbishop Murphy Wildcats, who have
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: been on two bye weeks. So they have not played
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: in a long, long time. And it's been three weeks
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: since they've played a game. I know they had some
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: injuries and stuff, so this might come in perfect timing
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: for them. They are 5-1 on the year. They will
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: host the Linden Lions, who are 7-1, and they are
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: looking pretty darn good. This is a 7 o'clock game
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: down there. Last year's game was the largest margin of
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: loss in Linden history, and so I know they have
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: that on their mind as well. A couple of evenly
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: ranked teams here. Linden ranked third in the state in
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: max preps, second in the state. in the coaches poll
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: and archbishop ranks second in the state and max preps
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: and fourth in the state in the coaches poll. So very,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: very evenly ranked here. It should be a fantastic game.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Another one that could go really quickly with two teams
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: that really want to run the ball a lot. And
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: two teams also that don't, you know, don't commit a
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: lot of turnovers and don't, uh, don't have a lot
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: of penalties against them. So that really makes for a
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: quick game. So, uh, get down there early and, and, um,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: and show up for the lions because they're going to
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: need everything against the, uh, the heavily armored Archbishop Murphy Wildcats.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I'm now joined on the Gatorade game day podcast by
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Linden head football coach, Blake Van Dalen coach. Thank you
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: for joining me today. How are you doing?
• 26:34
  Speaker 8: Awesome. Thanks for having me. It's always fun to get
• 26:37
  Speaker 8: caught up with you.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Awesome. Thank you very much. I enjoy it too. It's a,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: it's been fun all year during the Olympics and this
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: could be winter or summer. Or either. What sporting event
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: do you set aside time to make sure that you watch?
• 26:52
  Speaker 8: Definitely the final track events. You know, I just definitely
• 26:56
  Speaker 8: love seeing, you know, those are some spectacular athletes on display,
• 27:02
  Speaker 8: as they all are in every sport. But for some reason,
• 27:04
  Speaker 8: that one draws my attention. And probably the newest thing
• 27:07
  Speaker 8: I really enjoy is watching Snoop Dogg commentate on any
• 27:12
  Speaker 8: Olympic event has become one of my favorite things on
• 27:15
  Speaker 8: the planet Earth.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Bo Schizzle. I agree with you. Yeah. It is pretty cool.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: You know, I, I doing him, him commentating on like the,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: the wildlife, you know, the animals and stuff like that
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: is hilarious. And, and yeah, you know, track and field,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: there's something about, and I love going to the high
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: school events, even just, just, it's like a, It's like
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: a smorgasbord of sporting events. You get to just walk
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: around and see all these athletes do all these different things.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: But you're right. Watching the best in the world do it.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: My favorite is watching the high jump. Seeing a guy
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: like 6'3, like an high jump like 7'6. It's one
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: of those things that your eyes– it's like looking at
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the Grand Canyon. It doesn't look real. it's unbelievable um
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: on friday this past friday you went toe-to-toe with squalicum
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: you know you you brought it up you said hey
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: you know they they will game plan for us they
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: know how to they're really well coached and you came
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: away with a 35 to 32 win tell us about
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: the game.
• 28:16
  Speaker 8: Yeah it was interesting um you know, Lucy does that
• 28:20
  Speaker 8: to people. You remember last year, Anacortes in theory was
• 28:23
  Speaker 8: the unbeatable team until they got beat. And so, you know,
• 28:27
  Speaker 8: it's tough. We prepared our kids. They had a high,
• 28:29
  Speaker 8: high against Anacortes. And I felt like we maintained that
• 28:33
  Speaker 8: through Burlington. And now you're talking about that's the hangover game. Well,
• 28:37
  Speaker 8: now the kids got to learn what's called the trap
• 28:39
  Speaker 8: game where everybody wants to talk about Archbishop coming up,
• 28:43
  Speaker 8: but we had a game of the team in front
• 28:45
  Speaker 8: of us who was getting healthy and, uh, And when
• 28:49
  Speaker 8: they stay within their game plan and do what they
• 28:53
  Speaker 8: do well, they're very difficult to stop, as we found out. Luckily,
• 28:58
  Speaker 8: our offense was rolling, and it was the exact opposite
• 29:02
  Speaker 8: of the Burlington game. Burlington game, Coach Whitman had to
• 29:05
  Speaker 8: calm me down. The Squalicum game, I had to remind
• 29:09
  Speaker 8: him that we only had stopped ourselves once or twice.
• 29:14
  Speaker 8: but they were having a tough time stopping us. So
• 29:17
  Speaker 8: sometimes you just have to outscore your opponent, and that's
• 29:19
  Speaker 8: what it was on Friday.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: You know, I gave the Special Teams Player of the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Week award to Lincoln Van Rye because, yeah, you know,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: blocking two extra points, you know, you could say, oh, whoop-de-doo,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: but those were incredibly important extra points when you look
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: at the whole scheme of the game, you know, because
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: you win by three, he blocks those two points. Because
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: of the block, they go for two on one of them.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Your defense shuts it down. So, I mean, just talk
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: about him as a player and as a senior and
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: what he's done now that he's had the opportunity in
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: all three phases, it looks like.
• 29:56
  Speaker 8: Yeah, it was really cool. We have a program here,
• 29:58
  Speaker 8: Coach of the Week, where the kids pick a teacher
• 30:00
  Speaker 8: and they are invited to practice, film as much as
• 30:03
  Speaker 8: they want, as little as they want. And then they're
• 30:05
  Speaker 8: on the sidelines with us on Friday night so they
• 30:08
  Speaker 8: can kind of see how we do things.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:11
  Speaker 8: And so this week, it was Coach Richens, one of
• 30:15
  Speaker 8: our awesome history teachers here. And he went, he came
• 30:18
  Speaker 8: to film and he was there on Monday when we
• 30:21
  Speaker 8: noticed something. And he brought it up later. This is
• 30:25
  Speaker 8: why I'm telling the story is we were watching film.
• 30:27
  Speaker 8: And I said to Lincoln and Dawson and Dale, and
• 30:30
  Speaker 8: I said, hey. You know, it's the hardest thing in football.
• 30:32
  Speaker 8: Right after a team scores, you've got to hit the
• 30:34
  Speaker 8: reset button. But I'm telling you, the way they line up,
• 30:38
  Speaker 8: they're giving us an opportunity here, but it's going to be,
• 30:42
  Speaker 8: you know, it's going to be executed, you know, so
• 30:44
  Speaker 8: that I remember working with the scout team during the week,
• 30:47
  Speaker 8: I actually went up to the JV kid that was
• 30:49
  Speaker 8: lined up and I said, no, they line up like this.
• 30:51
  Speaker 8: And he goes, coach, why would they do that? Well, anyway,
• 30:55
  Speaker 8: our own JV kid in a tough spot. And he
• 30:57
  Speaker 8: ended up in the same spot that the Spalcom kid
• 31:00
  Speaker 8: had where, When Dawson and Lincoln are bringing it like that,
• 31:03
  Speaker 8: it's a tough task. That was a really hard assignment
• 31:07
  Speaker 8: for that kiddo. And you saw Lincoln got through twice.
• 31:11
  Speaker 8: And so it was really cool. Not often does that
• 31:13
  Speaker 8: happen in this situation. It kind of worked out as scripted.
• 31:17
  Speaker 8: And that teacher, Kevin Richens on the sideline, thought that
• 31:20
  Speaker 8: was pretty stinking cool that he got to see it
• 31:22
  Speaker 8: from the beginning to the middle to the end. And
• 31:25
  Speaker 8: you're right. That was, you know, the play of the game.
• 31:28
  Speaker 8: And Lincoln was your special teams player of the week,
• 31:30
  Speaker 8: but he was also our special team. He'll get a
• 31:33
  Speaker 8: Superman sticker for his helmet this week. And just a
• 31:36
  Speaker 8: great kid who, of course, yeah, he doesn't come off
• 31:39
  Speaker 8: the field. He's our starting left end slash tight end.
• 31:42
  Speaker 8: He's our starting defensive end. And he's in on as
• 31:46
  Speaker 8: many special teams as we can. He's had to wait
• 31:48
  Speaker 8: his turn a little bit, like we talk about. But
• 31:51
  Speaker 8: he's definitely making his mark on his senior year.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a good thing to bring up about
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: to all the coaches, especially the younger coaches that watch
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: all the film, look for everything. Because you're taking notes,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: you're looking for ways to get an edge, and they
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: might not pay too much attention to an extra point.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: A lot of times an extra point on film is
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: a three-second clip that it just kind of gets out
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: of the way. So to look at every single thing.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: So I congratulate you on that, on noticing things. And
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: it's something that the rest of the league and whoever's listening,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: coaches and stuff, that's pretty important. One thing I was
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: going to bring up, and I kind of had to
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: take a second glance at this, and maybe I'm wrong. Coach,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: you've only punted five times this season. That's pretty incredible. And,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: you know, as an offensive play caller, you've got to
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: take a lot of pride in that. You're picking up
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: first downs.
• 32:48
  Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, we've got a backfield– is running really
• 32:55
  Speaker 8: hard behind a road grader offensive line, as I like
• 32:59
  Speaker 8: to call them. So we put teams in a really
• 33:02
  Speaker 8: tough spot. Like most of our fourth downs have been
• 33:05
  Speaker 8: fourth down and one. It reminds me of some of
• 33:07
  Speaker 8: the Ferndale teams over the years and things like that.
• 33:12
  Speaker 8: So we've been really blessed. I think early on in
• 33:16
  Speaker 8: the season, someone told me we were on pace to
• 33:18
  Speaker 8: break the Josh Kraft 2012 scoring record and stuff like that,
• 33:23
  Speaker 8: which is like those are some numbers that are video
• 33:26
  Speaker 8: game numbers. And so for our kids to be on
• 33:28
  Speaker 8: pace for something like that was pretty cool. But, yeah,
• 33:31
  Speaker 8: we just found a way to move the sticks. And
• 33:35
  Speaker 8: having a running and actually two running quarterbacks, makes it
• 33:39
  Speaker 8: even more difficult for other teams to keep us behind
• 33:44
  Speaker 8: the sticks, if you will. So, yeah, it's been a
• 33:49
  Speaker 8: good year from offensive efficiency standpoint. And we've seen also
• 33:53
  Speaker 8: our defense has shined and had some amazing moments that
• 33:57
  Speaker 8: helped us secure big wins. You hear Mike McDonald talk
• 34:01
  Speaker 8: about complimentary football all the time. And you saw Sunday
• 34:05
  Speaker 8: night where the, the defense ran the game. We all
• 34:07
  Speaker 8: saw that, but the offense complimented the defense. And I
• 34:11
  Speaker 8: feel like we're, we're developing that within our own little world.
• 34:15
  Speaker 8: And now you're seeing the special teams starting to make plays.
• 34:17
  Speaker 8: And so, so, you know, it's really impressive when you
• 34:20
  Speaker 8: can get high school kids together to play complimentary football.
• 34:24
  Speaker 8: That means you have humble, hardworking, coachable kids.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's exactly what you want, and that's been
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: a staple there out at Linden High School. This Thursday,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: you're going down south to Terry Ennis Stadium to take
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: on Archbishop Murphy, and they haven't played a game in
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: 20 days. Have you ever coached a team that went
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: that long between games?
• 34:47
  Speaker 8: Fortunately, I think so. I think 2016 Archbishop had a
• 34:51
  Speaker 8: bunch of forfeits. We ended up, that was Coach Cramer's,
• 34:54
  Speaker 8: I think, last year. But I think they did have
• 34:57
  Speaker 8: a game right before they played us, now that I
• 34:59
  Speaker 8: think about it. But, no, it's quite a stretch, and
• 35:04
  Speaker 8: there's challenges to that for them. There's challenges to that
• 35:08
  Speaker 8: for us. I love our kids, and we love the opportunity.
• 35:14
  Speaker 8: That's what we've been preaching all week is we have
• 35:16
  Speaker 8: an opportunity. We can make excuses, and we can point fingers,
• 35:20
  Speaker 8: sign blame, anything in life. or you can look at
• 35:23
  Speaker 8: it as an opportunity, and that's what we're doing.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's one of those, it's that rest
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: versus rest thing, right? And so this is the ultimate
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: test for that. What do you see when you look
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: at the Wildcats for this year's team?
• 35:37
  Speaker 8: Well, the hard part is you have to prepare for
• 35:39
  Speaker 8: two teams. There's the team with their quarterback, and then
• 35:43
  Speaker 8: there's the team without their quarterback. From what we've heard,
• 35:46
  Speaker 8: it's in an appeal process. He could play, and he
• 35:50
  Speaker 8: might not play. And so they're vastly different without him,
• 35:56
  Speaker 8: as we saw against LC. And so, you know, it
• 36:00
  Speaker 8: puts our kids, once again, one day less to prepare,
• 36:03
  Speaker 8: and now you're kind of preparing for two teams. But
• 36:07
  Speaker 8: I love our kids accepting the challenge. They understand what
• 36:09
  Speaker 8: it is. But, yeah, you know, they are a traditional
• 36:13
  Speaker 8: wing team. When they have him, meaning they can run
• 36:19
  Speaker 8: effectively and pass. When he goes out or isn't playing,
• 36:23
  Speaker 8: they still can pass, but they'd rather not. So they
• 36:27
  Speaker 8: put in for the LC game a bunch of jumbo
• 36:30
  Speaker 8: sets and put their Severs kid and the Lucas kid
• 36:35
  Speaker 8: at running back or at quarterback and ran them.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: So they.
• 36:39
  Speaker 8: They showed a few things that they did. So luckily
• 36:42
  Speaker 8: we have the LC game to see that. Otherwise, we
• 36:45
  Speaker 8: would have really been kind of just out there guessing
• 36:47
  Speaker 8: what are they going to do if they don't have
• 36:49
  Speaker 8: their quarterback. So, yeah, so we prepare for both and
• 36:54
  Speaker 8: know that they have three weeks to prepare for us.
• 36:57
  Speaker 8: So we have to be patient in our play calling
• 36:59
  Speaker 8: and go to war.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: You know, you brought up a good point about them
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: having that tight game against Linden Christian, because then you
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: get to see them. What are they like when it's close?
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: They haven't had a lot of close games. I mean, yeah,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the Anacortes game as well, I guess. But but this
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: is more recent now. And so sometimes it's not, I mean,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: you just had a close game. It's, you know, these
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: teams that are destined for greatness and have high aspirations
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: in the postseason, it's kind of nice to have those
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: close games during the year because you know you're going
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: to have that at some point in the postseason. So
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: it's good to kind of see what they do when
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: they're in this kind of situation in a close game.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: So yeah.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Man, it's going to be a great one on Thursday night, Coach.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I know the radio is going down for it. And
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: I talked to Zen Hill of the Linden Tribune. He's
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: going to head down for it. So it's going to
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: be a fun one. And best of luck against Archbishop Murphy.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: And thank you for joining me today on the Gatorade
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Game Day Podcast.
• 37:58
  Speaker 12: All right.
• 37:58
  Speaker 8: Appreciate it, Tyler. Have a great week.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: And back up in Whatcom County now as we continue
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: to go chronological order here on Thursday night. We got
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the Mount Baker Mountaineers going on the road to take
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: on the Meridian Trojans, although it's a little different road
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: than you might expect. This game will be played at
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Nooksack Valley High School at Sid Lambert Field. So hopefully
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: everybody understands that. And maybe they'll have somebody at Meridian
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: High School at the parking lot that says, are you
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: here for the game? Drive to Nooksack because hopefully word
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: is getting out that this game has been moved to
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: Nooksack as Meridian's field is is not in the best
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: shape in this week with all the rain. They wanted
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: to get it played on a turf field. Mount Baker
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: comes into the game. Well, they both come into the
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: game 5-3 on the year. They've both already clinched a
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: spot in the Week 10 crossover to get to the
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: state tournament. Mount Baker ranked 8th in the state as
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: far as max preps goes. They're ranked 5th in the
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: state in the coaches' poll. Meridian ranked 7th as far
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: as max preps and 10th in the coaches' poll. So, again,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: a really good matchup. Again, this is a 7-3. 30
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: matchup so if you happen to go to meridian at
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: seven o'clock hey you still got a half hour to
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: get to the game to go out to nooksack valley
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: so maybe it works out okay i expect a packed
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: house out there um it should be a great great
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: game and what's cool about this with all these games
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: on thursday is i'll be able to go to a
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: lot of these games even if it's just for a
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: quarter there's a lot of these teams I haven't seen
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: in person yet. And, and it just, uh, you know,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: it disappoints me, but, um, but now I will be
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: able to do that. And even though these are two,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: two teams that, um, we'll be going to the state
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: playoffs and I'll be able to, uh, get to some
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: state playoff games still to see them play against each other.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: will be pretty interesting. And to see them do it
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: at Nooksack Valley will be really interesting. I'm now joined
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: on the Gatorade Game Day podcast by Mount Baker head
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: football coach, Ron Lepper. Coach, thank you for joining me today.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: How are you doing?
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: I'm doing pretty well today. How about yourself, Tyler?
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: Doing all right as well. The weather just keeps kind
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: of going back and forth, but not too bad. During
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: the Olympics, winter or summer or either one, what sporting
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: event do you always set aside time to make sure
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: that you watch?
• 40:17
  Speaker 7: Oh man, that's a, that's a tough one. Um, probably
• 40:21
  Speaker 7: Olympic hockey, hockey's right up there. Um, you know, I'll
• 40:25
  Speaker 7: go to the, like some of the special channels and
• 40:28
  Speaker 7: get to watch some of the wrestling and it kind
• 40:29
  Speaker 7: of intrigues me. Um, and then overall just, you know,
• 40:34
  Speaker 7: I like, I like, you know, it's, it, I like
• 40:36
  Speaker 7: a lot of this stuff. So I'll watch whatever usually
• 40:38
  Speaker 7: is prime time. I'm, you know, some, you know, doing that.
• 40:41
  Speaker 7: So yeah, I like, like watching most of the events.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just such a I mean, it's such a
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: cool thing, right, to see the best in the world
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: do what they do. But it's always interesting because you
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: might hear an answer of you would never think that
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: they would watch this sport. But, hey, you know, everybody's different.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: I was I was kind of hoping you would say
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: wrestling because I kind of figured that would be up there.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: And and of course, the hockey has been fun, especially
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: recently for the Americans. On Friday, you went toe-to-toe with
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: Linda Christian at their place. They took an early lead,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: and you kind of just hung in there the whole way.
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: You made it a one-score game late, but then allowed
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: a couple first downs, and Elsie was able to hold
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: on for the win. But what did you like about
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: your effort in that game?
• 41:25
  Speaker 7: Well, I thought our kids played really hard. You know,
• 41:27
  Speaker 7: they did kind of what we asked them to do. Unfortunately,
• 41:30
  Speaker 7: we made a couple of mistakes, you know, to hurt ourselves.
• 41:32
  Speaker 7: The first drive, you know, we're kind of going down
• 41:34
  Speaker 7: the field, and you know, we fumbled the ball inside
• 41:36
  Speaker 7: the 15, which is, you know, it's always a little
• 41:39
  Speaker 7: ominous right there. And I mean, I, I think that,
• 41:41
  Speaker 7: you know, maybe we, we could cap that off. Who
• 41:43
  Speaker 7: knows what happens after that. And then, you know, we
• 41:46
  Speaker 7: kind of gave them some, some, some extra possessions by
• 41:51
  Speaker 7: jumping off sides a couple of times, which, you know,
• 41:53
  Speaker 7: we got to clean that up, especially moving into the
• 41:55
  Speaker 7: post season.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: But overall, I thought our kids, you know, competed.
• 41:59
  Speaker 7: We still had a chance to, you know, we had
• 42:00
  Speaker 7: a chance to win a game like that. You want
• 42:02
  Speaker 7: to have a chance to, to win the game in
• 42:03
  Speaker 7: the fourth quarter and, We were there.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: We just weren't able to take care of business this time.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: You know, every, every episode of these, I always try
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: to bring up a different player, usually a senior to
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: talk about. And we touched on him a few weeks ago,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: but I want to talk about Eli James, a guy that,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: like you said, has played so many different positions for you,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: stepped up freshman year to play quarterback when there was
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: not really a quarterback for the sub varsity team and just,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: you know, all those kinds of things. And then, you know,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: on Friday night, you kind of had a, a defense
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: where you needed kind of that hybrid fourth linebacker. And
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: he kind of played that position and had a quarterback
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: sack on the wide receiver pass with Heinz. And he's
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: just a guy that has done so many things for you.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: Can you just kind of expound on his career as
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: a football player?
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm really happy for him.
• 42:53
  Speaker 7: You know, he's been one of those guys that's, you know,
• 42:56
  Speaker 7: been on our program, you know, and done what we've
• 42:58
  Speaker 7: asked him to do.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: We've had to move him around. And then, you know,
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: you just never know when you get that chance.
• 43:02
  Speaker 7: And he got a chance a couple weeks ago to
• 43:04
  Speaker 7: get on the field more and took advantage of it.
• 43:07
  Speaker 7: And then, like you said, we were able to use him,
• 43:08
  Speaker 7: you know, as a linebacker.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: We used him as a safety.
• 43:11
  Speaker 7: You know, he plays some tight end or wide receiver
• 43:14
  Speaker 7: for us. You know, so I'm really happy for him,
• 43:18
  Speaker 7: especially being a senior, getting a chance to have some
• 43:21
  Speaker 7: memories from when he walks away from the game that, you.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Know, he's able to do some things for our program.
• 43:25
  Speaker 7: And I hope he's, you know, he can look back
• 43:27
  Speaker 7: with a little smile on his face that, you know,
• 43:29
  Speaker 7: he enjoyed what he did.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is one of those things. I mean, it's
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: football's a hard game. Like I always say, if it
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: was easy, everybody would be playing it. And but there
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: are these memorable moments. And then, yeah, you're right, because
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: it goes fast. And then all of a sudden, I
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: think anybody that looks back is always usually pretty happy
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: and they have things that they love about it. And
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he will, too, because he's making the most
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: out of his senior year.
• 43:53
  Speaker 13: And.
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: You know, I kind of thought of this, and I
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: don't know if there's anything to this, but with Meridian
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: beating Nooksack last week, does that put your team at
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: ease at all, knowing that the round of 24 is
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: there for you, you don't have to win this week
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: to get there?
• 44:06
  Speaker 7: No, I mean, I'm probably sure it's probably in the
• 44:09
  Speaker 7: back of their minds a little bit, but, you know,
• 44:10
  Speaker 7: we're focused on, you know, we want to continue to
• 44:13
  Speaker 7: build moving into the playoffs, and, you know, that's always
• 44:17
  Speaker 7: been our goal. So that goal's been achieved, so we
• 44:19
  Speaker 7: can kind of check that off. Now it's about, you know,
• 44:21
  Speaker 7: ourselves and what we need to do to– give us
• 44:23
  Speaker 7: our best opportunity to have some fun in the next
• 44:25
  Speaker 7: couple of weeks. And, and it's, you know, it's kind
• 44:28
  Speaker 7: of like a playoff game this week from the standpoint that,
• 44:30
  Speaker 7: you know, they're going to be in there too. So
• 44:31
  Speaker 7: you're playing against a quality team. And, and so you
• 44:35
  Speaker 7: want to be able to go out and put your
• 44:36
  Speaker 7: best foot forward and make sure the guys are, are,
• 44:39
  Speaker 7: you know, going that way, knowing that no, regardless of
• 44:41
  Speaker 7: what happens, we're still going to be playing, but obviously
• 44:43
  Speaker 7: there is some, there's some benefit from, from coming out
• 44:46
  Speaker 7: on top this week. And so, you know, we're, you know,
• 44:49
  Speaker 7: a short week and we're doing, you know, what we
• 44:51
  Speaker 7: can to get ourselves ready against a, Pretty high-powered passing game.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this Thursday you'll be taking on Meridian on the road,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: but you'll be taking a different road as you'll be
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: playing the game out at Nooksack Valley with a 7.30
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: kickoff time. You kind of touched on it with the Trojans.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, they've been this way for the last couple years,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: but it seems to just be a little more crisp,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: a little more tight with their passing game. Tell us
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: what you see when you watch them on film.
• 45:18
  Speaker 7: Well, you know, first of all, it starts with the quarterback,
• 45:20
  Speaker 7: you know, the Alexander kid's pretty good, and he's, you know,
• 45:22
  Speaker 7: he can also run the ball, he's, you know, he's
• 45:23
  Speaker 7: a threat doing that, so, you know, yeah, senior, and,
• 45:26
  Speaker 7: you know, you, that's, you know, in that program, you
• 45:29
  Speaker 7: kind of hope your guys develop, and so they put,
• 45:31
  Speaker 7: they're gonna put a lot of pressure on you, and,
• 45:33
  Speaker 7: and so we've got to really, you know, we've got
• 45:35
  Speaker 7: to make sure that we're, we're supposed to be pre-snap,
• 45:38
  Speaker 7: and that we're, you know, that we're doing our job,
• 45:40
  Speaker 7: and not trying to do somebody else's job, and that's
• 45:41
  Speaker 7: something we always, we preach every year, and You know,
• 45:44
  Speaker 7: we can go back and look at different games and
• 45:47
  Speaker 7: different situations. Even last week, you know, we looked at
• 45:49
  Speaker 7: a situation where, okay, this was our job, and we
• 45:51
  Speaker 7: had a mistake in the coverage, which led to a
• 45:53
  Speaker 7: big play for them, and they were able to capitalize
• 45:56
  Speaker 7: on that.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: So we've got to try to, you know, minimize those
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: kind of mistakes if we can.
• 45:59
  Speaker 7: And then, like I said, for us offensively, we've got
• 46:03
  Speaker 7: to be able to move the ball, and we've got to,
• 46:05
  Speaker 7: you know, hopefully we can score more than 14 points
• 46:07
  Speaker 7: in a game and take some of that pressure off
• 46:10
  Speaker 7: the defense a little bit. But, yeah, it's going to be,
• 46:13
  Speaker 7: you know, again, a 1A Whatcom County football game is
• 46:16
  Speaker 7: going to be, you know, probably four quarters of a lot.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: Of different stuff happening and could come right down to
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: the end.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, when I saw the schedule and I
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: saw this was week nine, I kind of thought, oh boy,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: this could have a lot riding on it. And it
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: doesn't really have much riding on it, but you're right
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: where it is. Two playoff teams, it should be a
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: great game. Two different styles. The contrast is fantastic for
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: the fans. And, you know, it Like you said, even
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: though both teams know where they're headed, there's still seeding
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: involved as far as if you can get a win here,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: that could really help you for the Week 10 crossover
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: game with who your opponent's going to be. And correct
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong, is it kind of the same
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: structure as last year where there will be 12 teams
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: in the state playoffs instead of 16?
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: That is correct.
• 47:05
  Speaker 7: So our Week 10 is a round of 24 instead
• 47:06
  Speaker 7: of 32 just because we don't have We're one short
• 47:11
  Speaker 7: of another 1A school after playing football to get us
• 47:15
  Speaker 7: to a 16-man bracket, which is unfortunate because then, you know,
• 47:18
  Speaker 7: there's some other teams that probably would be in that
• 47:20
  Speaker 7: aren't because, you know, of that limitation, you know. But, yeah,
• 47:26
  Speaker 7: that's what it's going to be. So that round of 24,
• 47:28
  Speaker 7: everybody plays. And then the top four teams, like last year,
• 47:30
  Speaker 7: will receive a second, you know, first round bye in
• 47:33
  Speaker 7: the round of 16. And then the other eight teams
• 47:35
  Speaker 7: will be playing in those matches leading to the quarterfinals.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: All right. Yeah, last year I was– I should have
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: asked last year going into it because I was a
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: little confused. So this year I'm ready. Now we have
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: the answer from Coach Lepp himself. So everyone is set.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: And best of luck on Thursday against Meridian. Again, for
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: everybody listening, drive out to Sid Lambert Field. That's where
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: you'll be headed. And thanks again for joining me today
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: on the Gatorade Game Day Podcast.
• 48:00
  Speaker 7: Well, thanks for having me on, Todd, or let's say Travis.
• 48:03
  Speaker 7: Shout out to our good old buddy, Travis Legrande, who–
• 48:06
  Speaker 7: I know this goes to a lot of people, but
• 48:08
  Speaker 7: I'll go ahead and say it. We had a, you know,
• 48:10
  Speaker 7: he's battling with some health issues and we had a,
• 48:14
  Speaker 7: people were able to get together and we had a
• 48:15
  Speaker 7: little fundraiser forum, you know, event last week.
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: It went extremely well.
• 48:20
  Speaker 7: And so, yeah, I mean, it was pretty awesome to
• 48:23
  Speaker 7: see the generosity of the community that came out to
• 48:26
  Speaker 7: support Travis, who I know is a big supporter of you,
• 48:29
  Speaker 7: a close friend of both of ours. And, but yeah,
• 48:32
  Speaker 7: I appreciate you having me on and, you know, and
• 48:35
  Speaker 7: continue what you do for the kids.
• 48:36
  Speaker 9: Awesome.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Coach. Talk to you next week.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 48:39
  Speaker 11: Thanks.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: I'm now joined on the Gatorade Game Day podcast by
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Meridian Head Football Coach Patrick Ames. Coach, thank you for
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: joining me today. How are you doing?
• 48:48
  Speaker 14: I'm well. Tyler, how are you?
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: You're doing pretty much the same. During the Olympics, it
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: could be winter or summer or both, what sporting event
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: do you set aside time to make sure you watch?
• 49:01
  Speaker 14: Track and field.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: Is there a specific event?
• 49:05
  Speaker 15: I would not say there's a specific event. I enjoy
• 49:09
  Speaker 15: all track and field disciplines. So if I can catch
• 49:12
  Speaker 15: something on, I will. But I will say I just
• 49:17
  Speaker 15: love the whole nature of the Olympics.
• 49:19
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 49:20
  Speaker 15: I think like in a lot of households, like we've
• 49:22
  Speaker 15: just got it on whenever we can. And I find
• 49:25
  Speaker 15: myself watching sports that I will never actually watch again.
• 49:31
  Speaker 15: But if it's on during the Olympics, it's all fascinating.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they do a great job on NBC,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: you know, making it because sports fans are going to
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: watch sports, right? But they put storylines to things to where,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of, you know, people who might
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: not be interested in sports will latch on to that, right?
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: And of course, you know, just the history of the
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: Olympics is fantastic. So, I'm always curious to see. I
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: kind of figured track and field with you with being
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: a track and field coach, but you just never know.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: There might be something. I love the luge.
• 50:06
  Speaker 16: Who knows?
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 50:07
  Speaker 15: And flag football in 2028 is going to be fascinating.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. I did hear that that's going to
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: be happening. This past Friday, you hosted Nooksack Valley, and
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: it was a really close first half. Then you went
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: on a big run to begin basically most of the
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: second half. Um, was there halftime adjustments? Was there a
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: thing that you see that you saw and you talked about,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: or was it something else that helped you with the
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: big explosion in the third quarter?
• 50:35
  Speaker 15: I don't know if it was, is anything in particular
• 50:38
  Speaker 15: other than, um, our, our kids really just made some,
• 50:42
  Speaker 15: some really great plays and, and Nooksack played really, really well.
• 50:46
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 50:46
  Speaker 15: And, and, uh, a lot of those plays, um, you know, in,
• 50:49
  Speaker 15: in football, you call them 50, 50 balls.
• 50:51
  Speaker 14: And, uh, we came down with.
• 50:54
  Speaker 15: A number of those, um, And the quarterback play we
• 50:58
  Speaker 15: got from Trey Alexander that night was pretty good. And,
• 51:04
  Speaker 15: you know, we were able to capitalize on a couple opportunities,
• 51:08
  Speaker 15: you know, that we were able to get, force a
• 51:10
  Speaker 15: couple of punts, took the ball away. We were able
• 51:14
  Speaker 15: to convert those into scores, which you need to do to,
• 51:16
  Speaker 15: you know, to compete in tight football games against good teams.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, you definitely said it right
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: with those 50-50 balls. You know, Pierce went up and
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: got it a few times there. And, you know, great
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: basketball player going up for that rebound, you know. I mean,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: he just, he was able to adjust to the ball
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: extremely well, make a play. You know, correct me if
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong, but it looked like Casey Brennan had a
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: one-handed catch in the back of the end zone, just
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: kind of putting a hand up there. That was a great,
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's a ball that's, You know, not an
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: easy touchdown, but it happened. So a lot of things really,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: you know, those seniors for your team really stepped up
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: and you could tell that they really wanted it. And
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: another senior I thought had a really big day on
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: defense was Trevin Crabtree. I actually named him the defensive
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: player of the week. He's one of those guys that
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: kind of goes under the radar. But what makes him
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: such a good football player?
• 52:13
  Speaker 15: I think you actually just hit on it that he
• 52:15
  Speaker 15: goes under the radar because Trevin is just such a
• 52:19
  Speaker 15: team-first guy. And we just value that so tremendously on
• 52:25
  Speaker 15: our team. And any team does when you've got a
• 52:27
  Speaker 15: guy that is always going to be thinking about, well,
• 52:30
  Speaker 15: what do I need to do this week? How can
• 52:32
  Speaker 15: I help the team? And so on defense, he'll play
• 52:35
  Speaker 15: wherever we need him to. At times, he plays in
• 52:38
  Speaker 15: the box. He's played in the secondary area. Um, and
• 52:41
  Speaker 15: depending upon the game he's, you know, and the looks, the,
• 52:45
  Speaker 15: the formation he's playing, you know, some of both, you know,
• 52:48
  Speaker 15: within series and in, in the biggest games that, um,
• 52:52
  Speaker 15: that we've played this year and they're all big games
• 52:54
  Speaker 15: to be honest. Um, but, but Trevin has, has really,
• 52:57
  Speaker 15: really played well. And, um, you would not look at
• 53:01
  Speaker 15: Trevin and say that he's, you know, going to be a.
• 53:06
  Speaker 14: Stalwart run defender.
• 53:07
  Speaker 15: He's just not a very big dude, but he's just
• 53:10
  Speaker 15: such a good.
• 53:11
  Speaker 14: And sure tackler.
• 53:12
  Speaker 15: And he's not afraid to bring all, I don't know, 140, 145,
• 53:19
  Speaker 15: 150 pounds of himself to the party on every play.
• 53:21
  Speaker 14: So yeah, I'm glad you mentioned.
• 53:24
  Speaker 15: Him because he was actually our defensive player of the
• 53:28
  Speaker 15: week as well.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he just had a great game. So many tackles,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: especially early on. kind of setting the tone. He gets
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: that interception in the end zone. And he just did
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of good things and was around the ball
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: quite a bit, broke up a couple passes from what
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: I saw. And so doing a lot of things in
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: different aspects, right, against the run and the pass. You know,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: we talked about it back in week two where I
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: was like, hey, you know, from week one to week two,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: what's the biggest improvement? And I, you know, I watch
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: all the film, I see all the teams and I
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: don't know if any team has improved more from week
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: one to now than your team. It seems like there's just,
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: they just keep, you just keep getting better and better.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: Is there something that you could hang your hat on
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: or is it just, Hey, this is just kind of
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: going the way we hoped it would.
• 54:15
  Speaker 15: Uh, you always hope your team is going to improve
• 54:20
  Speaker 15: and every team, um, is going to have a plan
• 54:23
  Speaker 15: to do that. But something you said earlier, uh, at
• 54:25
  Speaker 15: least coming out of the game Friday night, that we
• 54:28
  Speaker 15: got great performances and great leadership from our seniors.
• 54:32
  Speaker 14: And right now our.
• 54:34
  Speaker 15: Senior group is really owning so much of the process
• 54:40
  Speaker 15: of preparing. And whether, you know, that leadership comes from
• 54:44
  Speaker 15: your seniors or whoever it is, whoever the leaders are
• 54:48
  Speaker 15: on your football team, it just so happens to be
• 54:52
  Speaker 15: our seniors right now, that's when you know that you're
• 54:54
  Speaker 15: going to have an opportunity to, to, to create yourself into,
• 54:58
  Speaker 15: into being a different, more competitive team. Um, if you're
• 55:01
  Speaker 15: getting good and authentic leadership, um, and our, our guys
• 55:05
  Speaker 15: have haven't wavered in, in our approach, uh, the way
• 55:08
  Speaker 15: that they treat each other, um, the way that we
• 55:11
  Speaker 15: go about our business. Um, and so many of our
• 55:14
  Speaker 15: seniors are developing into leaders because they, you know, they
• 55:17
  Speaker 15: care so much about, about each other and about playing
• 55:20
  Speaker 15: you know the best football that we can um and
• 55:23
  Speaker 15: we just mentioned trevin he's you know he's a part
• 55:25
  Speaker 15: of that and you mentioned pierce earlier and he's a
• 55:27
  Speaker 15: part of that and so many of those other guys
• 55:30
  Speaker 15: um that's that's the reason i think that you know
• 55:32
  Speaker 15: we've been able to to get better from week i
• 55:37
  Speaker 15: think you've mentioned from week two to now and and
• 55:39
  Speaker 15: obviously our coaches and that same approach of of being
• 55:44
  Speaker 15: unflinching and unfailing in the way that we prepare and
• 55:47
  Speaker 15: um preparing our kids really, really well to be able to, uh, uh,
• 55:51
  Speaker 15: to play our best come Friday nights.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: Um, this Thursday you'll be facing mountain Baker and, uh,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: always a great rivalry game year in and year out.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: It seems like, uh, it just always turns into a
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: really good game where it could be a shootout or
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: it could be a 13 to nine game. You just
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: kind of, you just kind of never know. Um, it'll
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: be played at seven 30 on Thursday and it'll be
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: at Nooksack Valley. Um, what went into the game getting
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: moved to another site?
• 56:17
  Speaker 15: Uh, our field, um, I think we're the only, the
• 56:21
  Speaker 15: only field grass field left in the County that, you know,
• 56:24
  Speaker 15: you've got three different football teams in your own school
• 56:28
  Speaker 15: that play on it and all your varsity soccer games
• 56:30
  Speaker 15: play on it. And we had a couple of Saturdays
• 56:32
  Speaker 15: of youth football play on it. And we knew what
• 56:34
  Speaker 15: the forecast this week, it, it, it wasn't going to
• 56:37
  Speaker 15: hold up, um, and be the surface that, um, that
• 56:41
  Speaker 15: we felt good about playing, um, our best football on and,
• 56:46
  Speaker 15: Mount Baker might feel differently and I wouldn't fault them
• 56:48
  Speaker 15: for doing so, but I think, you know, you take
• 56:51
  Speaker 15: all those other kind of factors out of it and
• 56:53
  Speaker 15: you want to, if you want to play a clean
• 56:56
  Speaker 15: football game and, and not have to worry about some
• 56:59
  Speaker 15: of the, some of the elements we were able to,
• 57:02
  Speaker 15: to be able to find a location to, to do so.
• 57:05
  Speaker 15: So obviously with the style of play that we like to, to,
• 57:10
  Speaker 15: to bring into games, it was, it was, it, it
• 57:13
  Speaker 15: was a difficult decision to make, you know, We enjoy
• 57:16
  Speaker 15: playing home games at Bob Ames Field.
• 57:18
  Speaker 14: Don't get me wrong. But we figured to give our team.
• 57:25
  Speaker 15: And really Mount Baker's team the best opportunity to play
• 57:28
  Speaker 15: cleanest and fastest, that being able to find a place
• 57:32
  Speaker 15: like Nooksack to be able to do so was going
• 57:34
  Speaker 15: to be in our best interest.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: If money was no object and Bryant came up to
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: you and said, hey, coach, we're going to go to
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: a turf field. What do you think? Would you be
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: all for it? Or would you be like, Oh, I
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: don't know.
• 57:51
  Speaker 14: At this point, I'd be all for it.
• 57:52
  Speaker 15: Just because, and, and, you know, when you have to
• 57:55
  Speaker 15: make a difficult decision about moving, moving a game from,
• 57:59
  Speaker 15: you know, from your community's gathering point, which in a
• 58:02
  Speaker 15: lot of respects, and it's like this in other parts
• 58:04
  Speaker 15: of the County, but for a school like ours, where
• 58:06
  Speaker 15: we don't have a town, And the school is the
• 58:10
  Speaker 15: center point of our community. Having to move a Friday
• 58:14
  Speaker 15: night game from our school, it's challenging. And I know
• 58:19
  Speaker 15: there are a lot of feelings around that. And if
• 58:22
  Speaker 15: that was something that we could preserve and not have
• 58:24
  Speaker 15: to worry about it, I do enjoy playing football games
• 58:28
  Speaker 15: on grass.
• 58:28
  Speaker 14: Don't get me wrong.
• 58:29
  Speaker 15: But just knowing now that this is the reality that
• 58:32
  Speaker 15: we're going to have to face year in and year out,
• 58:35
  Speaker 15: that we've got a grass field that everybody, you know,
• 58:38
  Speaker 15: in our school wants to, and deserves to play on.
• 58:40
  Speaker 15: It is just going to have to, if, if we
• 58:43
  Speaker 15: had the opportunity to, to improve it to the point
• 58:45
  Speaker 15: where every good, everybody could play on it and everybody
• 58:47
  Speaker 15: gets to have their senior night on it. And, and
• 58:50
  Speaker 15: all the, the, the fault are all that goes along
• 58:53
  Speaker 15: and the pageantry that goes along sometimes with, you know,
• 58:57
  Speaker 15: with high school sporting events.
• 58:59
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 58:59
  Speaker 14: I would, I would say, yep, Bryant, let's, let's do it.
• 59:02
  Speaker 15: If, if the money is there just so we can
• 59:03
  Speaker 15: preserve those experiences for, for our kids, for our families,
• 59:06
  Speaker 15: for our fans.
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Tell us about the Mountaineers.
• 59:12
  Speaker 15: There's a, there's a lot to like about a lot
• 59:15
  Speaker 15: of their players, if you're them and things that obviously
• 59:18
  Speaker 15: make us a little bit.
• 59:21
  Speaker 14: Nervous going into this one.
• 59:23
  Speaker 15: They're, they're an extremely well-coached and disciplined team and, one
• 59:28
  Speaker 15: of the things that you can count on year in
• 59:30
  Speaker 15: and year out playing coach Lepper and, and, and coach
• 59:33
  Speaker 15: Horseman and, um, and their entire coaching staff is it
• 59:37
  Speaker 15: doesn't matter the year that, that those guys are going
• 59:40
  Speaker 15: to be pretty geeked up and ready to play hard, uh,
• 59:44
  Speaker 15: and physical football, which you really, really appreciate. Um, so
• 59:48
  Speaker 15: it's always a challenge to, to be able to match their,
• 59:51
  Speaker 15: their physicality and their intensity. And, you know, when they're
• 59:55
  Speaker 15: on offense that, um, you know that they're going to
• 59:59
  Speaker 15: try to hang their hat on running the ball and
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 15: running especially a few key plays. And you try to
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 15: get your kids ready for the counters to all of
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 15: those basic plays and the wrinkles that they've got. And
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 15: then the quarterback, we've seen him in a number of
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 15: games throw the ball a lot. And whenever you play
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 15: a Mount Baker team that can also throw it, it
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 15: makes it really challenging to be able to prepare for
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 15: all that they could do, especially on a short week.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and going to a turf field, a lot of
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: people might go, oh, this really favors Meridian. But I
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: tell you what, when you have a lot of polling linemen,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: you don't want to do that in mud. Doing that
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: on a turf field could– so I look at it
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: as it helps both teams, like you were saying, if
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: it's not a great field. So I think it's going
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: to be really interesting, and you've done a lot of things.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: I know that– you've been on the coaching staff for
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: quite a while now, and you've seen this Mount Baker
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: offense many times. And a lot of times there's some
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: unique light or not lineups, but a personnel kind of
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: where they're lined up pre snap. And, and so is it,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: is it one of those where, I mean, on Alaska
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: is kind of like that, right? Where you look at
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: it and you go, okay, this is different. You, we
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: have to kind of not necessarily throw out our, what,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: what we do on defense, but, But we have to
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: really focus in on a different style here during the week.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: Is it kind of similar to that or not so
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: much to that, you know, nth degree that Onalaska brings it?
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 14: No, you're right.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 15: Anytime you play a team that is going to do
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 15: things differently than most of the other teams that you play,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 15: that they're going to be under center every play. And
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 15: they're going to be running the ball, which is not
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 15: necessarily en vogue in a lot of– a lot of
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 15: places these days, uh, it makes it, um, makes it
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 15: really challenging and stressful, stressful on your entire program coaches
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 15: down to, to all your players to make sure that
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 15: you can, you can put the, the best plan out
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 15: there with the guys that you've got and get the
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 15: guys that you do have in the right spots to
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 15: defend the things that, you know, they're going to want
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 15: to do. And, and you're right on Alaska challenges, um,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 15: in that way, tremendously now Baker presents, um, a similar challenge,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 15: although with a different presentation of offense, right. That, The
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 15: styles of the systems are different, but yeah, you're absolutely right.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 15: When you're going to play a really disciplined run first team, like,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 15: like Mount Baker, you, you do have to have your
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 15: guys in the right spots and, and, and looking at
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 15: the right places and reading the right keys. And then
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 15: to match, you know, what they see with the right
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 15: response every time. And, and, you know, we're, we're 17, 16, 17,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 15: 18 year old kids. And to, to say that, you know,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 15: all of us really let alone 16 and 17, 18
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 15: year old kids are going to make the right decision
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 15: based upon everything they see in life, little or football game.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 14: That's really hard.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 15: So, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's always a challenge to,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 15: to play these guys. We appreciate it.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 14: We, we value it. It's, it's a lot.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 15: More fun, rewarding win or lose, um, to be challenged
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 15: in this way. Um, and hopefully, uh, yeah, you hope
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 15: the kids match the effort and intensity with the time
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 15: that it's gone into prepare. And if you do those things,
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 15: whether you win or not, you're going to end up
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 15: feeling pretty satisfied.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. It's going to be an awesome one, Coach. Everybody listening,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: it'll be out at Sid Lambert Field at Nooksack Valley
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: High School on Thursday night, 730. Best of luck against
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: Mount Baker, Coach. Thank you so much for joining me
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: today on the Gatorade Game Day Podcast.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 14: Always a pleasure, Tyler. Thanks so much.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: All right. Thank you to both coaches. And now we're
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: going to go back to Civic Stadium as the second
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: game of the doubleheader out there. That starts at 8 p.m.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: The Squalicum Storm, 3-5 on the year. They're ranked 27th
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: in the state for max preps. Taking on the Bellingham Bayhawks,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: they are 2-6 on the year, ranked 48th in the
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: state in max preps. This is a game that's another
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: one of those crosstown rivals. And Squalicum right now, they're
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: very much on the uptick, as we've seen recently. some
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: wins as of late, and then they played Linden extremely tough.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: So you know that the Storm are kind of peaking
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: at the right time, which if they can snag one
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: of these playoff spots, then they're a team that might
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: have to go on the road for the crossover, but
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: they're going to be a tough out as well. The
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: Bellingham Bayhawks, they need a lot to go right for
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: them to have a chance at the postseason. First of all,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: they need to get the win, then they have to
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: have other things happen as well. But they're still fighting
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: for that as well as Bellingham really likes to air
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: it out. So look for that, which is always fun
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: to see. Squalicum, you know, they like to put the ball,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: you know, they like to keep the ball on the ground.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: I should say not put the ball on the ground.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: That's not a good thing. But they passed really well
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: last week, throwing for over 250 yards against a very
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: good Linden defense. So you got to be leery of
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: that as well. I'm now joined on the Gatorade Game
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Day podcast by Bellingham head football coach Adam Leonard. Coach,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: thank you for joining me today. How are you doing?
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 9: I'm doing well.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: How are you, Tyler?
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: Doing pretty well myself. During the Olympics, what sporting event
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: do you set aside time to make sure you watch?
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: Winter or summer, it doesn't matter.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 11: Okay, well, I don't watch the Winter Olympics. I'm not
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 11: a winter sports guy.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 12: Okay.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 9: But I will say, you know what?
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 11: Let's just go the other way with that because you
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 11: watch it because watching the United States beat Canada was
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 11: the coolest thing I've seen in.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: A long time.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 9: So I'm going to say, yeah, I'm.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 11: Going to say, I'm going to say hockey and I'm
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 11: going to say, uh, winter Olympics hockey is what, and
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 11: because I feel like the United States is such an underdog.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 11: I just watching that happen was, you know, one of my,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 11: one of my favorite movies too is a miracle.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 9: So yeah, put that together. That would be, uh, Hockey,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 9: Winter Olympics.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: Is there any sport, Summer Olympics, that might surprise me
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: that you're like, oh, they're doing this or the finals
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: for this. I got to make sure I watch this.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: Is there anything that stands out to you?
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 11: Obviously, I watch, you know, I was a big fan
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 11: when it came out. I was in high school when
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 11: the original Dream Team came out. Watching that group was amazing.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 9: So obviously, USA Basketball. I never thought to, you know, 84.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 11: Olympics was in L.A., And, uh, I was like, man,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 11: they should just have professionals do this.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 9: And then when I was in high school, I was like, wow,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 9: you know, here we are. And, uh, they're, they're putting
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 9: the best of the best out there.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 11: So I thought, I thought the dream team was one
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 11: of the coolest ever happened in my childhood watching that.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 9: So I have to say basketball, but what's.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 11: The sport where, uh, they shoot the gun and, uh,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 11: they had that guy from, I forget, but he was
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 11: from Turkey.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 9: Is that, is that a, and he was shooting like
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 9: he didn't even have any.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: Eye gear on right he just yeah is that the
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: biathlon or that's not like.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 11: Skiing and shooting is it no that was that skiing
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 11: and shooting but yeah it was a shooting and.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 9: This guy looked like Bugs Bunny cartoon and he was
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 9: just like yeah I watched that guy I'm.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 11: Like this guy's amazing he has no eye gear no
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 11: no scope yeah he looks like he's at a bar
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 11: or something just just playing darts no I'd say U.S. basketball,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 11: I think it all stems from the whole Dream Team
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 11: in 92, watching those guys get together. I thought that
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 11: was the coolest thing.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I was, you know, I'm only a
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: year younger than you, so I do remember a lot
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: of that. And it was just, that was a huge moment, right,
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: getting all those guys together. And think about what that
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: spawned now. When you look at the NBA now and
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: all the foreign players now, that got to witness those
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: guys play on TV and say, Whoa, we need to
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: catch up. And the last, how many MVPs of the
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: NBA have are non-Americans is just crazy. It's like six
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: in a row or something. So it is amazing what
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: it did. It was cool to see, you know, like
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: other guys, you know, like Arvita Sabonis and, and Detlef Schrempf,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: who was in the NBA at the time and Tony Kukoc,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: who was going to the NBA and, And actually, the
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: Germany team that had Detlef Schrempf actually had a player
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: on the team that played at Sehome. So that was
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: a really cool deal. I mean, he was like the
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: 12th guy. He was a seven-footer. He played at Illinois.
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: He was a foreign exchange student, came to Sehome for
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: just his junior year. And he was a seven-footer that
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: averaged like 17 and 13 or something like that. And
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: then he moved somewhere else. And then, yeah, he played
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: for the Fighting Illini. And then he was on that.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: It was pretty cool that he was on that. The
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: German Olympic team that played against the Dream Team. I
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: did not know that. Yeah, so it's a pretty fun
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: full circle there. On Friday, you went down to Burlington
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: Edison to take on the Tigers. I didn't see any
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: fog on the field, so that's an unusual thing, but
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: they jumped out early. but you fought the entire way.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: Tell us about the game.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 9: Well, you know, we got the ball to start the game.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 11: We went right down the field, got into the red zone,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 11: moved the ball really, really well that game. Actually, I
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 11: know it doesn't probably show in scoring 21 points, but
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 11: we really moved the ball well, but we just got
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 11: a couple stalls where We had about three or four completions.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 9: We moved the ball better than I thought.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 11: Actually, where I think we need to be in one
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 11: of our more successful games. We just could not capitalize
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 11: on some opportunities. But again, we really struggled stopping their
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 11: run and their offenses. They're a very physical team and
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 11: kind of got behind a little bit. Got behind 20-0.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 11: Came down before the end of the first half. 27,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 11: respectable game going into halftime. Felt really good about it.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 11: You know, obviously we had more yards on the ground.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 11: You know, more yards, I mean, as a total offense
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 11: in that first half. But second half kind of got
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 11: away from us a little bit. But, you know, we
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 11: fought the whole time in battle. Ben had three touchdowns
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 11: through the air. Put up over.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 9: 300 yards passing, which we were very happy with.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 11: And it's something to build on as we get into
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 11: this next week game against the city rival.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah it's uh you're definitely we're moving the ball quite
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: a bit and you know it's a rhythm thing right
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: you kind of get into that and then you know
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: and then it gets into a rhythm kind of calling
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: the plays and you kind of see what works and
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: it all that comes together and it is tough when
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: things stall but it's great when things uh score when
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: you when you score and it's all that put together
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: and it's funny how all of a sudden that and
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: then it's the game's over just like that it's like
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: man that goes fast every single game it seems like
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: it goes fast and and uh it's just crazy Let's
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: talk about your senior linebacker, Silas McGurr. We haven't talked
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: about him much this year and he doesn't get the headlines.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: He does a lot of the dirty work. What has
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: it been like to coach him?
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 9: He's such a fantastic kid. He's a great young man.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 11: He, I, I coached Silas going way back when he
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 11: was like in fourth grade for baseball and he was
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 11: playing baseball for me and great family, great, great kid,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 11: great student, you know, playing basketball. He missed last year,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 11: obviously to a, uh, an injury that kept him out
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 11: of the season coming back. He's kind of picked up
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 11: where he left off his sophomore year. Just a smart
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 11: football player, just a smart athlete overall in all the
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 11: sports he's playing. But he's a tremendous kid to coach
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 11: and had a really big game on defense.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 9: He had a catch on offense, had a really.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 11: Good game on our team in tackles against Burlington. And,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 11: you know, we're excited to see what he can do
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 11: as we get into his next week against Squalicum.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he is a fun athlete to watch. Kind of
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: the same thing for basketball, kind of does a lot
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: of the dirty work. But boy, when he gets hot shooting,
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: he can rattle them off. And I was at a game,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: I think, when he hit like seven three-pointers. And it
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: was just like, whoa, he is on a roll right now.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: And I think the next game he hit like four
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: or five. And so he had one of those weeks
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: where he couldn't miss. And he's got such a quick release.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: It's almost unorthodox, but he gets the ball off so quickly.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, I just always love to see good
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: things happen to good people. And so that's really cool.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: And speaking about your game this week, this Thursday, you
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: heard that right, everybody, Thursday. So be ready for this.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: You're back at home against Squalicum. 8 p.m. game as
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: it's scheduled. We'll have to wait and see as there
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: is a game before that. And so there needs to be,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: you know, X amount of time for, you know, getting
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: time on the field before the game. So we'll have
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: to see if it will be 8 o'clock. Tell us
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: about this year's Storm team.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 11: Well, they're, I mean, they're a tremendous team, especially of late,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 11: you know, you know, it's hard to figure them out.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 11: You know, they've battled injuries. I know we're battling a
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 11: ton of injuries.
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 9: We might, we've had, you know, maybe.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 11: Six to seven, eight guys out starters, original starters out
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 11: last week against Burlington. A lot of young guys are
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 11: stepping up and competing really well, but, but Squalicum is
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 11: so well coached.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 9: Nick Lucy has done such an amazing job for so
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 9: many years over there. He's a tremendous coach and, He's
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 9: got them kind of peaking at the right time.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 11: What a heck of a game against Linden last week.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: Their guys are really.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 11: Getting on all cylinders. And it's about matchups. It's about
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 11: how do they match up against Linden, how do they
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 11: match up against us, how do they match up against Burlington.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 11: You can't use any transitive properties to say A plus B.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 11: It just doesn't work that way in high school. You're
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 11: also dealing with high school athletes. So we're preparing well
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 11: for them. It's been a long weekend since it's been
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 11: a short week on Thursday. And we've got to get
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 11: ready to go. There's obviously a lot of playoff implications,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 11: potential tiebreakers, and all those things happen.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 9: But all we're focused on is the storm on Thursday.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 11: And they're going to provide a tremendous challenge for us,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 11: considering how well they run the ball.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: And we need to be.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 11: Able to stop the ball, stop the run. And that's
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 11: something that we're preparing for. But we also feel good
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 11: about what we can do against them with our offense.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 11: Our offense is starting to click a little bit.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 15: Yeah.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: You mentioned them, their game against Linden. And I, I
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: kind of felt like that was their best game they've
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: played all year. Week one, they looked pretty good against Seaholm,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: but every team, as you know, improved so much from
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: week one throughout the season. And last, you know, last
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: week they, they were with Linden the whole game. It
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: was legitimately, there were 10 touchdowns in the game and
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: it was back and forth. Linden scored, Squalicum scored, Linden scored,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: Squalicum scored, back and forth the entire game. The only
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: difference was a couple extra points were blocked by Linden
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: and There was a two-point conversion that did not go
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: Squalicum's way, and that was that. And the one thing
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: about the Storm that really took me by surprise in
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: this past game was, you know, we've seen them run
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: the ball all year, and they've done a good job.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: Now with Oz Bjornsson back, putting him in the backfield,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: you have that extra weapon back there as they left
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: Phoenix Price at quarterback. But Phoenix completed 12 of 18
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: passes for well over 200 yards, handful of touchdowns. So
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: the passing game kind of came alive against Linden. And
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of that probably is due to, Hey, we're
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: going to put eight in the box. We know they
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: can run the ball, but then the passing game worked.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: And how do you combat that? You gotta, you gotta
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: be ready for both.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 9: We need more players. I need, I need 12 or
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 9: 13 guys on the field.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: We can have both.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 14: No.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 9: Um, yeah, we're going to, we know they want to
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 9: run the ball. They want to control that.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 11: And the way our offense is moving the ball, he's
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 11: trying to keep us off the field, but it's, um,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 11: it's something that is going to, it's going to be
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 11: a tremendous challenge.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 11: Phoenix did have his, probably his best football game I've
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 11: seen him play this past week against Linden. And, you know,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 11: he's running that momentum into our week, but you know,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 11: there's so much familiarity between the players. They know each other.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 11: And I think it just amps it up for a really,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 11: really fun rivalry game. You know, we talk about the
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 11: CNO Bellingham rivalry, but there's a rivalry between Swallow and
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 11: Bellingham for sure.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 9: So everything's going to be amped up. And I think,
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 9: let's see the expression.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 11: I mean, we say record books. I mean, We're a
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 11: 2-6 team. The Spaulding's a 3-5 team. They are a very,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 11: very good 3-5 team.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 15: Yes.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: So, and, you.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 9: Know, we know that they're, you.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 11: Know, right now they're playing some top, top football. And,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 11: you know, we're going to have our work cut out
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 11: for us as we get ready for Thursday.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's one of those where I look at, like,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: remember the NFL when the Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: became the Ravens. And then the Browns came back a
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: few years later. This is exactly what happened in the
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: late nineties. Bellingham remodeled their school. And then everybody who
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: was going to Bellingham, they all transferred to Squalicum. There was,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: and then a few years later when the school was ready,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: Bellingham reopened brand new coach was Craig Bartle. And they
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: had a bunch of underclassmen and they had to kind
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: of start from there. And so it's, it's very much
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: Browns Ravens.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: And so there's something kind of fun about that. And
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: that is a great rivalry too, that people don't think about,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: which is just like you were talking about with Bellingham
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: and Squalicum. So yeah, best of luck on Thursday against
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: the storm. It's going to be a late night possibly.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: So be ready for that bundle up. Thank you so
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: much for joining me today, coach on the Gatorade game
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: day podcast.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 9: Thanks for having me Tyler.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: Have a great week.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 6: You too.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: And those are all the games on Thursday. We will
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: move on to Friday night now as we've got a
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: non-conference game between the Nooksack Valley Pioneers, who are 5-3,
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: going on the road to Quilsita Stadium to take on
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: Marysville Pilchuck, the Tomahawks, who are 1-7. And Nooksack Valley,
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: in max preps, they're ranked 6th in the state. And
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: they've already been, you know, this is just, I don't know,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: this just gets me angry. I know I have a
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: platform to talk about it, but when you're talking about
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: the state playoffs, get the best 24 in. I don't
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: care how you do it. Max Preps has them ranked
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: sixth in the state, and they will not have an
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: invite to even a crossover game to get to the
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: state tournament, which is just a shame. You know what
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: also it does? It makes it so no other team
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: in the state wants to play them in a crossover
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: game for week 10.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: You know why?
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: Because they are a state caliber team. And it's just
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: not fair to the kids. But hey, I don't write
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: the rules. I just talk about them. This will be
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: a 7 o'clock game. Marysville-Pilchuck ranked 59th in the state
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: in 2A. And Nooksack Valley is, they're going to be
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: playing angry. I understand that they could have done things
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: to get them into the position. But it's the schedule
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: that they play. And it's a really, really tough schedule
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: up here. And they've lost three in a row. But
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to be in the Tomahawk shoes right
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: now because Nooksack Valley is going to be, it's really
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: interesting to see when that happens. I've seen a lot
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: of teams kind of roll over and play dead once
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: they're eliminated. I don't think that's going to happen with
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: Nooksack Valley. I think they're going to be a little
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: ticked off and they're going to show what they can do.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: And it's also one of those games where you can
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: maybe get some other guys some time that really want
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: to get on the field and you kind of look
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: ahead to next season and and uh we'll just have
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: to wait and see what happens i am now joined
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: on the gatorade game day podcast by nooksack valley head
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: coach craig bartle coach thank you for joining me today
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: how are you doing good.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 13: Thanks uh thanks for having me and thanks for all
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 13: you do again for the whole year for for everybody.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah you're welcome uh Hopefully I'll have the energy to
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: do it next year. We'll find out. Yeah, we'll find out.
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: During the Olympics, it could be summer or winter. I
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: think I know the answer. What sporting event do you
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: set aside time to make sure you watch?
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 12: I try to watch some hockey, obviously.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 9: You know.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 12: That's a good question. I actually like watching.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 9: Speed skating.
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 14: Yeah.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 12: On the big oval, not the fast one.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay, yeah.
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 12: Not the short track, the long track.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: Right, right. It is pretty amazing to see, especially when
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: you see a still picture of them, like, leaning to
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: one side. It's like, how in the world are they even, like, still?
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: How do they not fall, right?
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 12: And the Dutch man, they're, they're good at that.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 13: And those, the legs on some of those people are just, they're,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 13: they're tree stumps.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 14: No kidding.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: It's, uh, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy to see. Is
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: there a, is there a summer Olympic one that you
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: can think of? Um, you're, you're, you're busy out there
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: coaching football.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 12: No, summer Olympics. Um, I like the track.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 13: I like watching the finals, like the 100s and 200s.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those are, my goodness, pretty crazy to see. I
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: can't even imagine in person, especially the 200, when they
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: go around the bend, seeing that in person would just
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: be crazy. You know, I love watching the high jump.
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: Because you see Pete, you see guys that are high
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: jumping like seven and a half feet.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's just, that's just ridiculous, you know? Um, because,
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: because you can see someone run fast and you can
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: see someone throw a javelin and, but when you, when
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: you see it right there as someone long jumping seven, six,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: and they're only like six, two, that's, that looks just wrong.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: And it's pretty crazy to see. Um, How about this?
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: This is something that you might get a kick out of.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: This just came to me. Only one athlete in Whatcom
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: County history in a high school track meet high jumped
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: seven feet. And you've coached him.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 6: Really? Yeah.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 12: Wow.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: Seven feet, coach. Seven feet. That's crazy.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 12: Gosh, who's that?
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: Who is it? Toby Syme.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: He was a pretty special athlete, huh?
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 12: Yes, he was that.
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 13: And you know, there's been some really good athletes, especially,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 13: you know, see home in the early Bellingham see home
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 13: days in the eighties and.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: Oh, so many high jumpers.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 12: Incredible athletes, especially track.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: There was, yeah, there's a, there was every single year
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: there was a Bellingham state champion, pole vaulter, high jumper. And, and, uh,
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: My goodness, yeah. There's some pretty crazy numbers, but seven
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: feet in the high jump.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 12: That's awesome.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: And Toby's 6'2, 6'3, maybe, but he could really get
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: off his feet. He was explosive. Yes, he was. On Friday,
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: you went on the road to face Meridian, and it
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: was a really close first half. Then the Trojans just
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: went on a run in the second half, and even
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: though you finished really strong, scoring some late touchdowns, just
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: kind of wasn't enough time to complete the comeback. I
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: don't know if you petitioned for a fifth quarter. I
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: know it doesn't go that way. But it seemed like
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: things were going your way at the end. Tell us
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: about the game.
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 12: Yeah, I mean, we started off exactly how we wanted.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 13: We had a six-and-a-half-minute drive and go down and score. Unfortunately,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 13: you know, it took them about 30 seconds to score.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 12: So, yeah, I mean, we just– we, we fundamentally made
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 12: some mistakes and, um, they took.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 9: Advantage of it.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 17: And, um, yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's kind of the
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 17: way that the whole game went, we'd get some momentum
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 17: and then, um, you know, we'd have a penalty or
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 17: we'd have, uh, we wouldn't get a first down.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 13: And so we're behind the sticks and, and, um, yeah,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 13: we just couldn't, couldn't get dig out of that, that hole. And, and,
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 13: you know, credit their quarterback. He's, he's really good. And, and, um,
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 13: you know, he threw some balls in some perfect spots and, and, uh,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 13: you got to tip your hat to him.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: You know, it's crazy because, and you probably know this
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: better than I do, but I always feel like when
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: these games are, you know, there's a lot riding on them.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of scoring back and forth. It seems
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: like they go really fast. Like it's just, it's, I
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: would imagine on the sideline, you're probably, whenever time you
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: would look up at the clock, you go, man, like,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: We're running out of time. Does it always kind of
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: feel that way as a coach that, like, the game
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: is moving faster than it feels?
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 9: There are times.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 13: There are times that, you know, you look at the
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 13: clock and you're like, man, this quarter seems like it's
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 13: an hour long.
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 12: But, yeah, it's when you get caught up. I think,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 12: you know, and we talk about this.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 13: I think when you're outcome-based and you're always looking at
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 13: the clock to see what the score is, I think
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 13: that can play– uh it you know have have some
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 13: effect on on you know your sense of time and
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 13: where you're at but if you're into the game and
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 13: you're just it's like okay play after play after play
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 13: you know you get lost in the game instead of
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 13: looking at the clock obviously you have to glance up
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 13: there and you know worry about timeouts and stuff like
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 13: that but it's more of a it's more of a
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 13: just you're looking to see kind of where you're at
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 13: and you're not really thinking about it but Yeah, I mean.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 12: Everybody's human, and so you kind of.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 13: Get caught up in looking at that and going, okay,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 13: you know, there is some game planning, like, hey, if
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 13: we score here and there's five minutes left, you know,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 13: then do we kick off and hope our defense plays well?
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 12: Do we onside kick? So there's a lot that goes
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 12: into it, but yeah.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I know that, you know, obviously the NFL
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: rules on the kickoffs have been, you know, changed. It
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: seems like year after year there's always something different, but...
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: Was there, and I would imagine this is true, in
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: high school football, you can't load up one side on
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: a kickoff anymore, correct?
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 12: You can load up six. So you can put six
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 12: guys on one side, but no more than that.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: Not like back in the day when you put everybody
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: on one side and you're just, okay. Because, yeah, because
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: I just haven't seen it in high school for a while.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, that was probably a rule
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: put in and I just forgot about it. And so, yeah, that's.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: you know, makes it even tougher there for Lonzo Hicks,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: but I understand it for the safety because there's some
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: huge collisions that happen in that play. Um, I want
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: to talk about coach Ackerman for a little bit. Um,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: you know, I, 27 years as an assistant coach, he's
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: coached in as an assistant, 277 games. That's a, that's
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: a pretty incredible number. Um, you know, uh, as far
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: as I know, this, this is going to be hanging
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: it up after this year. I know that there's, you know,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: you know, we don't know going, going forward, but just
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: talk about his importance in the program.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 12: He's got, you know, one, two more games left.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 13: Just depends on if we can find a week 10 game,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 13: but yeah, he's been, you know, tremendously.
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 2: Important to the program.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 12: He's, he's, he's a, a pillar.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 13: He's a, he's the foundation of the line and, and,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 13: You know, he's over the past, you know, 20-something years,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 13: he's got a lot out of those guys.
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 12: And the line guys are different.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 13: And everybody that knows football knows that line guys are different.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 12: It's like a goalie in hockey. They're just different. Or
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 12: a catcher in baseball.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 13: And so he's able to connect, obviously, because he played,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 13: but he's able to connect with them and kind of
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 13: be a mentor to those kids, not only in football,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 13: but A lot of them talk to him after football
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 13: and reach out to him. He's been valuable to our
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 13: program and huge shoes that you can't fill them, but
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 13: we're going to have to try to replace those shoes.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 13: It's going to be a sad day in one or
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 13: two weeks. We've been blessed to be around him.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: Literal shoes to fill would be tough at the size
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: 17 or whatever they are. You know, I do. I
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: want to share a quick TJ story because I know
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: everybody has them. But, you know, obviously I knew about
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: him in high school. He was three years older than me.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: He was a legend in high school. And so he
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: was kind of like a mythical creature to me.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 7: Right.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: Because you see him and even in high school at,
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: you know, six, six, six, seven, 280 pounds. Great basketball player.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: Really good touch. and um goes off and plays college
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: and has the knee issues but plays in the cfl
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: and um my next time really talking to him or
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: i never did really talk to him all of a
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: sudden i'm i'm in the market to buy a house
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: in blaine this was a long time ago and um
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: at 2012 and.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: 2012.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: Rob Adams is my agent at the time. He's working
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: me through everything. Then all of a sudden, one day,
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: he says, I can't make it out there to show
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: you something, but I'm going to send another person out there.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: And I didn't know who it was going to be.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, the jolly purple giant shows up,
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: and my eyes are wide open, and I'm saying to myself,
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: that's T.J. Ackerman. Because most people, it's not a big deal,
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: but for what I do and for what it means
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: to me, that'd be like someone saying, hey, that's Mean
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: Joe Green or that's Anthony Munoz. And he was just
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: so friendly, and I think he understood– my passion and
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: he made it so easy just to be able to
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: talk to him yeah and any calmed my nerves and
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: we've been close friends ever since since then I've sold
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: my house bought another one he's been my agent both
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: times and he's just such a wonderful person and so
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: you know it is fun to see him at practice
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: and you know he can still kind of you know
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: get his point across in unusual ways, but the kids
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: respect them so much. And so, um, it's really, really, um,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: going to be sad. Like you said, when he's gone,
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: because he's just, he's been there forever, not necessarily on
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: the sidelines, but that booth, um, will have a little
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: less weight in it. And, um, but yeah, it's, uh,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: it's just one of those things I wanted to bring
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: up because 277 games as an assistant, um, as a
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: pretty remarkable number, um, This Friday.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, go ahead.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 12: In our, in our County.
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 13: I mean, the, the line kids have been, I mean, just,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 13: he is one of those top guys. He, he's in
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 13: the conversation with, with bomber at Linden and, you know,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 13: a Bradwick that was at Ferndale, you know, forever and
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 13: just the impact that they have on programs and kids. And,
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 13: and it's far beyond what just football is. And so,
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 13: you know, he's, he's 100% in that conversation with, with,
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 13: The greats like that. Yeah, and when you have a
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 13: really good offensive line coach, holy cow, does that just
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 13: make things so much better for your team?
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: And you just mentioned a couple good ones, and then
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: what do you know? Really good programs, right? I mean,
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: that's just kind of the way it goes. This Friday,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: you're back on the road, this time in a non-league
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: game against Marysville Pilchuck. Coach, I saw them earlier this year.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: They are huge up front. and they really like to
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: run the ball. What have you seen from them?
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean, you hit it on the head. They're
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 13: really big up front. I mean, I don't think they
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 13: have a guy that's under 250 on the line. And,
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 13: you know, they're building down there. They got their first
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 13: win last week, and their coach is full of energy,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 13: and he's doing a great job trying to build that
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 13: program up. I know they've struggled down there because they
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 13: haven't had middle school athletics.
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 2: For a while.
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 12: And so trying to get that back on track. And so,
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 12: I mean, they're.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 13: Coming in with nothing to lose and full of excitement
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 13: after their first win. And we're coming in to kind
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 13: of right the ship and get back to what's important
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 13: to us.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: You know, when you face a team that's probably– 90,
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: 10 running or maybe more. Do you go into it going,
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I've talked about this with coach
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: James and coach left when they faced, you know, like
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: on Alaska, like when you, like when you face them, um,
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: is it, you have your 11 guys that have started
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: on defense. Do you kind of stay with those 11
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: or is there personal changes based on, you know, what's
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: going to happen with them running the ball most of
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: the time?
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 12: If we played in on Alaska, I would say yes.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 13: Um, but Marysville will, I mean, they're kind of a
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 13: wing T without really the pulling guys. Um, they're so
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 13: big that they just, they don't pull very well, uh,
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 13: right now. So they'll line up in a wing T
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 13: type formation, double wing. And, um, we'll keep the same personnel.
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 12: That we have in there. Um, yeah, but if we were,
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 12: you're absolutely right. If we were to play on Alaska or, uh,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 12: like a Rochester or somebody like.
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: That, then, right.
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 12: I think, yeah, absolutely. We'd go big up front.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of those things where probably both teams
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: run it the same amount, but it's kind of the
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: style that they run, right? And Marysville, they will throw
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: it here and there, but they do like to run
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: the ball and control the clock and get behind those.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, that one side of the line. You know,
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: you're talking 340, a guy. I mean, you know, you
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: look at Lucas Norris or Trevor McMillan. Those are big kids,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: but next to these guys, it's different, right? So you
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: got to try to get to the point of attack quicker,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: and then you just got to make tackles. Best of
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: luck on Friday against the Tomahawks. Thank you so much
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: for joining me today on the Gatorade Game Day Podcast. Awesome.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: Appreciate it.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 9: Thank you.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: And the other game on Friday night will be in
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: the county as the Ferndale Golden Eagles at 6-2 are
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: hosting Oak Harbor, who are 2-6. Ferndale ranked 16th in
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: the state in max preps. Oak Harbor ranked 44th. And
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: this is a rematch from earlier in the year. It's
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: also basically a playoff game. You win and you're into
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: the round of 32. So this is like a first-round
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: March Madness round of 64 game, basically. It's not it's
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: not like I don't think it's a total of 64
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: teams playing in this week nine. But it's a but
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: if you win, you get to the round of 32
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: is what I'm saying. So Ferndale Golden Eagles, they already
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: beat Oak Harbor earlier in the year, although the Wildcats
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: did some good things, turning Ferndale over a few times,
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: doing it in the red zone. So you can't take
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: them lightly. I'm now joined on the Gatorade Game Day
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: podcast by Ferndale head football coach Jamie Plankovich. Coach, thank
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: you for joining me today. How are you doing?
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: Doing good.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 4: How about yourself?
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: Doing pretty good myself. During the Olympics, it could be
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: summer or winter or either, what sporting event do you
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: always set aside time to make sure that you watch?
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 4: A weird one, but curling.
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard that a few times, but there is
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: something about it that's really interesting.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there is.
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I watched a lot of curling.
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: There's a place that I've heard of that's right across
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: the border that you can try it out. Have you
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: ever tried it or seen it in person?
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 18: No, not done that, but we've talked about doing that
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 18: as even like our coaches group going up there or something.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, that'd be awesome. That would be fun to see.
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: I need to cover that if that's happening. That would
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: be just fantastic.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 6: No video.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 14: No.
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: I've already got it in my head. I already know
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: exactly how it's going to be. Speaking of video, I
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: saw a video of your game from Friday night. Big
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: game on the road, big win against Cedra Woolley. Reminded
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: me a lot of the game a few years ago
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: when it was, I think, a one-score game. The Talon-Bungard game,
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: as I like to call it, when he just kind
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: of went off on both sides of the ball. This
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: one was 43-36. And I heard you were on the
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: radio the next day talking about the game, and so
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of people have heard you kind of talk
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: about it already today. but I want to specifically talk
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: about kind of the last few minutes. Starting when the
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: game was tied, the Cubs had the ball and they
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: go for it on fourth down in their own territory
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: and got it. And that, that kind of gave them
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of momentum. And how were you, you know,
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: feeling at that point?
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 18: Yeah, we were kind of in hang on mode and they,
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 18: they did get us on that one. We were, we
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 18: were trying to stay in regular defense and, because their
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 18: quarterbacks are punter. So once he dropped back, we took
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 18: a guy right from where they ended up running the
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 18: football back to catch the punt. That was definitely our
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 18: fault as coaches, making sure we should have just stayed
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 18: in regular defense and made.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 4: Them punt it with nobody back there. But we got
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 4: lucky to overcome that.
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah. I was just going to say, was there–
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. You can tell from your side,
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: but did it look like they were going to be
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: doing that the entire way, or did they see something
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: and call something in the moment? Or is that hard
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: to say being on the other sideline?
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 4: I think that was– they were going with that call.
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 14: Yeah, okay.
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 18: You know, and especially with the way the game was going,
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 18: they didn't want to give the ball back to us.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 18: So I understand– that decision by them. It wasn't, you know,
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 18: I think it was maybe three yards that they, they
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 18: had to get. So yeah, I understand that decision. They
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 18: hadn't stopped us really all night. So, um, I can
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 18: see in the, in their mentality that they figured they
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 18: can hang onto the ball and, and, you know, hopefully
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 18: chew up a lot more clock and we weren't stopping
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 18: them either. So I felt like the last team to
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 18: have the ball in that game was going to win it.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: And we know when, it was, it's weird. Cause when
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: I'm watching the film, I already know the final score,
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: but I don't know exactly how it plays out. And
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: as I'm watching it, I'm thinking, Oh, this is where
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: it happens. They get the punt. They, you know, they
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: get the ball back on the punt. They go down
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: and score. And then I saw him start to start
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: to go for it. I thought, Holy cow, what a,
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: what a crazy call that late in the game in
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: your own territory. But like you said, it makes sense, right?
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: You just, it, you don't want to give the ball
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: back in any circumstance. And, Probably not a bad idea
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: to do that instead of just lining up in regular
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: offense because you can catch a team by surprise. But
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: only a few plays later, your team makes a play,
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: knocks the ball out of the quarterback's hands as he's
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: scrambling to get a first down. He does pick up
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: a first down, but the ball comes out and, you know,
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: it gets, you know, I think it might have been
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: Hank Whitaker dove on top of it and you get
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: the ball back. And then the momentum at that point
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: completely shifted. Keep in mind, this is all during a
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: tie game, so there's no lead either way. Do you
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: remember about how much time was left when that happened?
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: It was about five minutes or so?
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 4: No, I think it was under two minutes.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: Oh, my goodness.
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 4: When we got the ball back, yeah.
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's even crazier because at that point, you
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: completed your first two passes– of the game in that
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: final drive. Kind of take us through that final drive
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: and how you got down the field.
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was great by our kids and our offensive staff.
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 4: We didn't panic.
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 18: We had a couple timeouts left, so we knew we
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 18: had that. You know, we had a couple pass plays
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 18: that were just clutched by Sawyer converting first one. to
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 18: Wyatt Royals just on a play action pass off of our,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 18: our counter trade luck, um, which got us a first down.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 18: I think we've been kind of stuffed on first down
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 18: in that one. Um, and then came back and, and, uh,
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 18: ran another play action pass where sir makes a great
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 18: throw to chance who is, has to go over the
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 18: top of a defender to make the catch. Um, and
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 18: then really good job off of that. Just come in, um,
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 18: And we didn't let Cedro really get set. We kind
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 18: of went hurry up and ran just our counter play
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 18: to Elliott. That's been so good for all season. And
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 18: our guys up front did a great job. And Elliott
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 18: does a great job cutting back and turning that into
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 18: a touchdown.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: Was that, you know, because that was the very next play, right?
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: Like you were just saying. So is that a play
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: where you send in the play call, which is the
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: pass to Chance Hatchett, Is the second play already– like,
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: do you send in two plays at once, or was
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: it just a quick– everyone looked and there was a
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: signal that said, run the counter next, or was it
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: two plays at once?
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 18: No, it wasn't two plays at once. We got the
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 18: first down, so the clock stopped momentarily. We didn't want
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 18: to take another timeout. So we just got the play
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 18: call in really quick and.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 4: Got up to the line.
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 18: And like I said, it happened so fast, I think
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 18: it didn't give Cedro time to– Set their D great,
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 18: so I think we got them a little off balance,
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 18: much like they got us off balance on that fourth
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 18: down play on the fake punt and able to make
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 18: some things happen.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Lenson scores with, I believe, 28 seconds left in
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: the game, and you get the extra point. You're up
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: by seven. Now, they do have another chance here, but
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: it happens again, Coach. Knock the ball out of the
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: quarterback's hands. And Trevor cuts, you know, reaches around, knocks
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: the ball out, Mason button shown falls on it. And
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: that really ends it. And that's one thing I was
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: going to bring up was it's kind of shocking. I
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: was looking at the numbers and I think your team
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: on defense has one interception on the entire year, but
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: you've recovered nine fumbles this year. Is it, is that
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: a point of emphasis about knocking the ball out or
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: is that just kind of the way it's gone this year?
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 4: I think it's kind of the way it's gone.
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 18: You'd think, um, yes, we'd like some more interceptions for sure.
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 18: Trevor Cutts caused both of those fumbles in that game.
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 18: And for all the challenges we had on the defensive
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 18: side of the ball to turn them over on their
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 18: last two drives. And I call them effort plays because
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 18: their quarterback was great at moving around.
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 4: Our guys were gassed.
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 18: But just two tremendous effort plays to get the ball
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 18: out of his hands on those two drives by Trevor
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 18: were just awesome.
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the big six, five kid with
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: the long wingspan and he needed all of it to just,
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: you know, do everything he could and you're right effort plays.
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: And you have to love that as a coaching staff,
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: because when you're giving full effort, that's all you can
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: ask for. And, and when that happens and the big
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: plays happen after that, it's, it's a huge thing. This
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: Friday night, you're back at hosting– you're back home hosting
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: Oak Harbor in what is essentially a playoff game at
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: 7 o'clock. Playing a team twice in the same year
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: can always be difficult for anybody. Have you noticed anything
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: different on film since you played them last?
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 4: A couple wrinkles, obviously, as you go through the season.
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 18: I mean, their base stuff is still the same. But, yeah,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 18: they've added a couple wrinkles since we played them. We
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 18: just– Yeah, we talk to the kids, you know, you
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 18: see this in the NFL all the time, that first
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 18: game has zero impact on the score in the second game,
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 18: and that's the attitude we've got to take this week. Yeah,
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 18: we played them a few weeks ago, but that does
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 18: not indicate anything about how this game is going to go.
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 18: We've got to have a great practice week and come
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 18: in ready to go for, like you said, it's a
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 18: it's a loser out of the playoffs if we don't
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 18: get this.
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a, it is, there's a lot of importance
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: riding on it. And I'm glad you brought that up
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: to the kids about, you know, just flush that one
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: because for them, it's their life as well. It's same
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: on the line for both teams. So they're all teenage
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: boys out there at the same time.
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: And I was going to also bring up with the
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: Westco 3A North kind of, you know, it keeps compacting
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: into a smaller conference really and, Um, has there been
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: any talk or possibility about having a season where you
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: just play everybody twice?
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 8: No.
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 9: Okay.
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 4: No conversation about that. Probably. I think everybody's on the
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 4: same page.
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 18: You don't need to do that. It's nice playing other teams.
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 18: That was, uh, what was nice about the schedule this year. So, um, yeah,
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 18: there hasn't been any, any talk about that.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, the one is did it for a while. Um,
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: And there has been talk of revisiting that because they
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: have four league games and they have to schedule five non-leagues.
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: But a lot of the coaches are like, I don't
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: want to go through that gauntlet. And especially that second game,
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: it's always tough. And so I just thought I'd bring
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: it up because the West Coast 3A North has less
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: teams than it did. And you are playing a team
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: for the second time. And I just didn't know kind
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: of how coaches would feel about that. But it sounds
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: like it's almost across the board. They would not be
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: going– they would not want that. And plus, like you said,
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: you get to play other teams. You get to– and
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: that helps seating, the seating committee down the line. You
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: can see, hey, this is what they did against Linden.
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: Look at this. I mean imagine– I mean I don't
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: even want to imagine that if you guys weren't able
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: to play Linden. So let's not even think about that.
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: But it's going to be a great one Friday night.
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: Not a lot of games on Friday night in the county.
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: There are only two county teams playing Friday night. There's
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: a majority of teams playing Thursday night. So– I advise
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: everyone to go check out the golden Eagles, pack the house,
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: get them sent to the next to the round of
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: 32 to then get into the state playoffs as it's a,
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: it's a March madness here. And the late October is
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: a round of 64. So best of luck on Friday
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: against the wildcats. Thank you so much for joining me
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: today on the Gatorade game day podcast.
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 14: Thanks Tyler.
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 4: Appreciate it.
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: And the final game this weekend is, will be the
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: Lummi Nation Blackhawks going on the road to take on
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: Northwest Christian. And Lummi Nation, four and three on the year,
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 1: ranked 19th in the state. Northwest Christian, three and four.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: They're ranked 30th in the state. This is a very
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: similar position that Ferndale's in. Meaning, you know, it's kind
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: of a win and you're in, lose and you're not
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: type deal. And so it's a very, very similar thing.
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: And it's a crossover with another district and elimination will
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: be on the road at Tenino high school playing this
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: game one o'clock on Saturday afternoon. So an early morning,
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: probably get up and go hopefully a good bus ride.
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: And those, hopefully the bus legs don't happen. They can
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: do some good things early and they played Northwest Christian
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: extremely well earlier in the year. So it's kind of,
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: it's a very, very similar to the Ferndale game. The
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: only thing different about it is that they have to
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: go on the road to play this one. So we'll
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: have to wait and see how that, how that goes
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: from there. And, You know, a win here would mean
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: you go and play a crossover in Week 10 to
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: get into the state playoffs in 1B football. So we'll
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: have to see how that goes. I am now joined
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: on the Gatorade Game Day podcast by Lemon Nation head
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: football coach Watiko Leighton. Coach, thank you for joining me today.
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: How are you doing?
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 16: Doing pretty good. Thanks for having me, Tyler.
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: You bet. During the Olympics, summer or winter Olympics, what
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: sporting event do you set aside time to make sure
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: you always watch?
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: Well... Last year was the breakdancing.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 3: I always wanted to see that. You know, the new
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 3: sport that came out.
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 3: So that was pretty cool.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 14: Yeah.
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 3: Overall... it's, it's, it's a weird thing, but I like
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 3: watching curling.
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. See, that's, that's why I wanted to ask the
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: question because it's, it's one of the, I think every
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: coach will have different answers and I'm really curious because
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: it's a curling is pretty awesome to watch, to see
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: how still they have to be and what they have
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: to do. And apparently up just right across the border
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: up in Canada, there's lots of places where you could
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: go do it.
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 2: Oh really?
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: And I've heard that I've never been up there to
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: try it, but yeah, But I've heard like there's lots
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: of places you could actually go and, you know, pay
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: whatever for an hour and just do it and just
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: have fun and try it out. So it might be
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: something to think about.
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 3: I have to make a trip.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: Alumni Nation curling state champ. Oh, man, that'd be awesome.
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: On Saturday, you hosted a really good Darrington team and
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: you stayed with them early, but they ended up pulling
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: away for the big win. What was working early on
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: and how did that change?
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 16: I would say our execution in the very beginning was
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 16: very nice. Our kids stayed disciplined, but we fell to
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 16: a couple of mistakes in the in the second quarter
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 16: that kind of broke us down. But we were able
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 16: to come back during halftime for a little bit. But,
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 16: you know, just a couple of mental mistakes that ended
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 16: into a big result for Darrington.
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know this, when you're playing a team
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: that's that good, you can't have mistakes, right? And there's
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: the little things, and people talk about that when they
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: play like Linden or Ferndale. It's like against them, we
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: just can't make mistakes, and that's just the way it goes.
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: And so that's what happened. Earlier in the year, and
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to you about this last week,
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: and I just kind of forgot, so I'm bringing it
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: up now. But earlier in the year, you guys played Concrete.
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: And since then, they had to prematurely end their season
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: with safety concerns. How close– has that ever come close
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: with your team? Has it ever been a concern?
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 3: Not this year.
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 16: You know, we've had a solid amount of players coming
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 16: up in this week nine. But in the past, I've
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 16: been there when I had, like, all these seniors when
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 16: they were– I think they were sophomores. We had to
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 16: cut a game short due to– low numbers. I think
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 16: we ended with like 10 players for a man team.
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 3: But yeah, nothing, nothing recently.
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's, it's one of those things that
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: people probably don't think about too much where it can happen,
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: especially in eight man. We just have low numbers and
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: you say, you know, we just have to end it.
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, I remember not that long ago. I'm trying
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: to remember what year it was, maybe 2018 or so.
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: or 19 when Bellingham, I think they only played six
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 1: games and they had to cancel the last few games
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: just because of low numbers. And that's a two-way school.
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: You know, you don't, you don't really see that too often,
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: but it seems like that's happening a lot around the
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: state now. There's been like a dozen teams that had
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: to stop their season short. And it's just one of
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: those growing concerns. And so I'm always curious, like, is
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: that something that's been brought up? But it sounds like
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: it's happened for maybe a game, but it sounds like
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: you guys are, Pretty good for the long haul. I
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: know how big of a deal sports are in the community, right?
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 9: Right, right.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 16: Yeah, I know we try to hold on to it
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 16: the best we can and keep our kids safe. But yeah,
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 16: I've been seeing that around on the news and social
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 16: medias of teams dropping due to numbers or safety concerns.
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's too bad. But, you know, football is always
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: one of those sports where I always say it's an
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: awesome sport to play. But if it was easy, everybody
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: would be doing it because that's the thing, right? It's
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: just– it's not easy. And I'm sure that you see
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: athletes walking up and down the hall and you're like,
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: man– come play football, you know, but it's, it's not easy.
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: And that's, that's the whole part. This Thursday, you're back
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: on the road or I'm sorry, not Thursday, Saturday. My, my,
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: my bad. I don't want to get you. I don't
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: want to freak you out here. I'll back on the
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: road at one o'clock afternoon game against Northwest Christian playing
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: on the black turf out at Tenino high school. Again,
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: you got them pretty good earlier in the year. What
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: do you need to watch out for for the second
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: time around?
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 16: So they kind of run the same stuff on offense
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 16: with a couple different formations. But if our kids stay
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 16: disciplined like they did that first game we played them,
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 16: it should be a good.
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 3: Run for us.
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 16: But they're another hard team, probably going to have some
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 16: confidence coming back. I remember shaking their hands. They were
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 16: all hoping we would get to play them again. So
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 16: they knew they would grow and have those changes. So
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 16: I know they're going to be ready for us.
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you got to make sure, I mean, obviously
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: it was a big win the last time, but how
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: do you keep your kids not to be overconfident, right?
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: Because they know they can do it. They've already done it.
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: How do you keep them from not being overconfident in
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: this turnaround here?
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 16: Just to remind them that every team that we come
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 16: facing from here on out are going to be pretty
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 16: solid teams. There's a reason why they're making it to
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 16: the postseason. They did some things that were great. We
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 16: were just able to capitalize on a few of their mistakes,
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 16: but we've got to be ready for anything they throw
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 16: our way.
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and now in a Week 9 game, like you said,
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: postseason is upon us. It's not necessarily the state tournament,
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: but in a way it is, right, because you have
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: to win to advance. A loss here would end your season,
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: but a win here, what would happen in Week 10?
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 16: We'll be playing in the District 4 crossover, so our
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 16: District 1 and 2 will play. District four matching up.
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 16: So since we'll, if we win, we'll be the fifth
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 16: seed playing against the number two seed in district four,
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 16: which would be the loser game of this week from
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 16: Nacelles and Wakaika.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: And that's, you know, when, when I hear that, I think, okay,
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: you know, a number two from somewhere else would be
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: pretty tough there. So obviously like you just brought up
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: a few minutes ago, everybody from here on out is
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: going to be pretty good.
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: So that's just, that's just the nature of the beast.
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 3: So.
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: Best of luck on Saturday on Halloween afternoon game. It'll
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: be ghoulish down there at Tenino high school against Northwest Christian.
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today on the
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: Gatorade game day podcast.
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Tyler. Take care.
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much. I know it's a long podcast.
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you to all the coaches who joined me this
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: week and, and I'm hoping they'll all be able to
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: play in week 10. We know that a handful of
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: them will be playing in crossover games next week. But
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: there are teams that I don't know if they don't
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: make the state playoffs, have they been able to schedule
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: a Week 10 game? I don't know. So we'll have
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: to wait and see until next week's podcast, and we'll
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: find out then. And until then, this has been Episode 463,
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: the Week 9 Gatorade Game Day Football Preview. I am
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: Tyler Anderson of Whatcom Preps, and I will talk to
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: you next week.