Latest / Whatcom Preps Podcast / Whatcom Preps Podcast Episode 457 - Week 7 Gatorade Gameday Football Preview

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Whatcom Preps Podcast Episode 457 - Week 7 Gatorade Gameday Football Preview · Whatcom Preps Podcast

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Greetings and welcome into the Whatcom Preps podcast. This is
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: episode 457. It's the week 7 Gatorade game day football
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: preview and I am Tyler Anderson of Whatcom Preps. Walton
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Beverage has been a staple in our community for 95
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: years and I will continue to work harder every day
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to make the fantastic people at Walton Beverage proud to
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: sponsor youth sports in our community. They deliver superior quality
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: and commitment, and I plan to do the very same. Also,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: do you live in Whatcom, Skagit, Island, or San Juan
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: County and want to become an official? Officiating is a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: great way to give back to your community and ensure
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: our youth have an opportunity to compete in athletics. Go
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: to nwofficials.com today and find out how you can get involved.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: All right, well, we are in week seven, and Every
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: single game from this week is on Friday night. No
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Thursday games, no Saturday games, just a full slate on
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Friday night. So let's just jump right into it. As
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the first game, there is one 6 p.m. kickoff game,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: so we'll talk about that one first. As we have
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: the LaConner Braves coming to town to take on Lummi Nation.
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  Speaker 1: This will be, as I said, a 6 o'clock kickoff
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: out at Lummi Nation High School. And, you know, this is...
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: This is– Lummi Nation right now, they're playing as good
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: as they've done, I think, since Coach Layton has been there.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: And this will be a very even matchup. I'm now
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: joined on the Gatorade Game Day podcast by Lummi Nation
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: head football coach, Watiko Layton. Coach, thank you for joining
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: me today. How are you doing?
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I'm doing pretty good. Thanks for having me, Tyler.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: You bet. What is a chore around the house that
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: you really enjoy doing?
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: When I lived with my mom, I would say taking
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: out the trash, but now in my own place with
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: my woman, uh, I would probably the same thing. Maybe
• 2:12
  Speaker 4: dishes isn't too bad with just us too, but yeah,
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: I would say dishes for her.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Take it out of the trash. That's I, I enjoy that.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with that. It's good to lift something
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: and go outside and all that stuff.
• 2:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Um, Now, when you bring the bins out to where
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: they get picked up, is that a far away or
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: is that a short way?
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: It used to be a far away, but now my
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: apartment's not too far, but at my mom's house, it
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: used to be really far. Nice little decompressing moments there.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. I've been there before, and those are long walks,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: but those are good walks. Well, unfortunately, On Friday, you
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: went on the road, took care of business down in Concrete,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: a team that scored 90 points the week before. Tell
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: us about the game.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: It was a real nice executed game by our Blackhawks.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: We played hard all four quarters, no giving up, no
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: heads down. We played at every play, out of time, nothing,
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: no looking towards the end results.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: We just played every quarter to our best ability.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: And as a coach, you've got to love that because
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: it's easy to say, hey, this is what we want
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: to do, but it's rare when that actually happens. So
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: when that was actually happening, you must have felt pretty
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: good about it.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt really good.
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  Speaker 4: We had a good conversation this last week about where
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: we want to be for this playoff and postseason. So
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: a lot of our kids are just playing every down,
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: every play to their best ability. So it's really nice
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: to see them want it more this year.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. And we've talked in the past about
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: this year was kind of the year you were looking
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: to for a while. And going into this year, you
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: knew you had a lot of key players coming back.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: But who has been a pleasant surprise on your team
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: this year?
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  Speaker 2: I would have to say Cason Williams.
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  Speaker 4: He's one of our athletes on the field right beside
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: Mason and Greg and Landon LaFontaine, DeAndre. Real shifty, quick kid, resilient,
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: doesn't have any Too many down moments on himself, but
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  Speaker 4: he's real corrective on his actions and how he plays.
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  Speaker 4: Real coachable kid, but has been one of our players
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: that's been able to light our match and get us
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  Speaker 4: fired up and going.
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  Speaker 1: That's awesome. And he's just a sophomore, right?
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Correct, correct.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that is. And, you know, it is because it
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: is pretty senior heavy, but it's nice to have some
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: of those guys that you can rely on for the
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  Speaker 1: future as well. And it's really good to see him
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  Speaker 1: making a big impact. And, uh, this Friday night, you're
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: back at home against the Connor. Um, I believe a
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  Speaker 1: 6 PM kickoff. Is that right?
• 4:58
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 4:59
  Speaker 6: Okay.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: So everybody be known. It's not seven. It's six o'clock.
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  Speaker 1: Get there early. What can you tell us about the Braves?
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  Speaker 4: Uh, so they run a double wing, uh, offense and
• 5:09
  Speaker 4: eight man football with quarterback under center. Um, a lot
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  Speaker 4: of basic, just sneaks, dives, reverses, counters, um, nothing too special,
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  Speaker 4: but they're another hard nose football team. That's going to
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: be giving us a good fight for every, every down,
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: every play.
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  Speaker 1: Man, when you would think that, and I don't know
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: enough about eight man football, but I would think a
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: double wing and eight man, look, it sounds like they
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: have no problems, you know, using four plays to get
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: 10 yards and just kind of grinding it out. And
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: then they might spring one here and there. So you
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: gotta be ready for that. And, How often percentage-wise would
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: you say they put the ball in the air?
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Probably three to four times a game.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: They're real, real run-heavy, just like the old Ferndo where
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: we just run, run, run, run, run, and then once
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: those DBs come playing up, we've got to pass.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: So I've seen that a lot in their previous games.
• 6:07
  Speaker 6: So, yeah.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: And that's crazy. And, you know, a big deal about
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: a run team, and you would know this better than
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: anybody– is those receivers have to run block, and you
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: were a receiver for that Ferndale team, and so, you know,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: talk about the pride it takes in run blocking as
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: a wide receiver.
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because as a wide receiver, you're always looking for
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: the ball, and that's your time to actually get some action,
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: but those run blocks are real important to the plays,
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: and leaving one guy open or missing your block can
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: determine whether they get their five yards the first down,
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: or even just a tackle for a loss.
• 6:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And they had a, they had a really similar score
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: against concrete. You know, they beat them 64, 26. You
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: guys be concrete 68 to 32. So very, very similar
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: to that. So when you look at that, do you
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: go into it saying this is going to be a
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: pretty even game against an evenly matched opponent?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say so.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: They're real hard nose kid, not kids team, but last
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: year we came up short losing by three touchdowns. But yeah,
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: Just the same thing as last year. They're just going
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: to be running, running, running, hopefully get the ball out
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: a couple times. But we just got to stay disciplined
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: and do our responsibilities defensively and execute our blocks on
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: the offensive side.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: With this double wing stuff, is there a lot of deception,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: like sleight of hand behind the backfield? Or is it
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: kind of more just power and belly and dive and
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: stuff like that?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: They do a lot of.
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: How would I say this? They mostly do heavy stuff,
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: so if they're going to run it one way, they're
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: going to have a puller or even their quarterback pull
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: in to lead block for them on a toss. A
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: lot of counters, a couple misdirections here and there. But
• 7:58
  Speaker 4: most of their offensive game is just hard nose, marching
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: down the field, getting it to the end zone and
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: run some time off the clock.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so they're looking at it like, this is where
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: we're going, try and stop us.
• 8:09
  Speaker 8: And.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: And so with your secondary, then they're going to kind
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: of have to, you know, play more linebacker type positions.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: They're gonna have to probably come up in the box
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: a little bit and play a little closer to the ball.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Are they ready for that kind of a task?
• 8:25
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So we, we had film yesterday and we talked about, um,
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: our placements and where we're going to be at for
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: every situation, what we're going to key on, uh, defensively. Um,
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  Speaker 4: we are, I told our DVs, they're going to have
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: to be, um, more available on the tacking, tackling in
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  Speaker 4: the box, um, and be more available.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And then they might get too invested in that.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: And then you never know, like you said, three or
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: four times a game, you got to keep an eye
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: out on the pass play and, and, uh, hopefully you
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: guys on the sideline yelling pass because, uh, it's pretty
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: rare when it happens, but, um, That could be one
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  Speaker 1: that you really have to make a play on. It's
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  Speaker 1: going to be a great one, Coach. Best of luck
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: on Friday against the Connor. 6 p.m. kickoff, everybody. So
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  Speaker 1: be ready for that. Thank you so much for joining
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: me today on the Gatorade Game Day podcast.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me, Tyler.
• 9:17
  Speaker 6: Take care.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much, Coach. And that will be
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: one we will definitely keep an eye on. And as
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: we now jump to the 1A games. And we start
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: at 7 o'clock out at Sid Lambert Field. Lyndon Christian
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: coming to town to take on Nooksack Valley. This is
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: going to be a great one. Lyndon Christian, the coaches
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: poll that came out this week, they have Lyndon Christian
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: ranked as the third best team in the state. Nooksack
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Valley ranked fourth best in the state. So this will
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: be a fantastic matchup. This will be out at Sid
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Lambert Field on the new turf. And Lyndon Christian, 4-2
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: coming into this one. Nooksack Valley, 5-1. And, yeah, it's good.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: to be a fantastic matchup. I am now joined on
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: the Gatorade game day podcast by Linden Christian head football coach,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Greg Terpstra coach. Thank you for joining me today. How
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: are you doing?
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: Good.
• 10:11
  Speaker 7: Doing great. Thanks for having me.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: You bet. What is a chore around the house that
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: you really enjoy doing?
• 10:19
  Speaker 7: All the yard work. I love it. I like pruning things.
• 10:23
  Speaker 7: I do love my lawnmower. It's kind of burly. It's
• 10:29
  Speaker 7: a zero turn.
• 10:30
  Speaker 6: It flies.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: The first time you were on that thing and you
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: made that one turn, did you almost go off it
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: or were you ready for it?
• 10:39
  Speaker 9: Oh, yeah.
• 10:39
  Speaker 7: I almost put it out into the road.
• 10:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 10:42
  Speaker 7: Blew my mind, yeah.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I've never been on one, but when you see one
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: and you make that turn, it's like, holy cow, you've
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: got to hold on for dear life.
• 10:52
  Speaker 7: Yeah, a lot of Gs.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And speaking of one heck of a game,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: I was on the sidelines saying Gs a lot because
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Thursday night, great game against Archbishop Murphy. Um, they took
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: an early lead. You must've made some adjustments at half and,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: and came back, tied the game at 17, 17 with
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: a little over five minutes left and a crowd was
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: going nuts. It was a great atmosphere. They scored a
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: late touchdown and eventually took the 24, 17 win. Tell
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: us about the game.
• 11:25
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 11:26
  Speaker 10: You know, um, it's kind of odd your frame of
• 11:30
  Speaker 10: mind when you go to, you know, you schedule certain
• 11:33
  Speaker 10: teams just to make you.
• 11:34
  Speaker 7: Better and, and you know, challenge you.
• 11:38
  Speaker 10: And then you've got Meridian, a league game, and you're like,
• 11:41
  Speaker 10: we've got to do whatever it.
• 11:42
  Speaker 7: Takes to win that.
• 11:44
  Speaker 10: And then you go back to, hey, we scheduled this
• 11:48
  Speaker 10: great team to get better. We're going to try some
• 11:50
  Speaker 10: things and do some stuff.
• 11:52
  Speaker 7: And now we have Nooksack this week. You know, you've
• 11:54
  Speaker 7: got to win.
• 11:55
  Speaker 10: So it's a little bit of an interesting emotional roller
• 11:59
  Speaker 10: coaster there. But, man, we just felt it was a
• 12:02
  Speaker 10: really great night for both. The offense and defense to mature. Defensively,
• 12:07
  Speaker 10: Kent had a really good game plan. We brought in
• 12:12
  Speaker 10: Veldman in the second half. That was helpful coming off
• 12:16
  Speaker 10: of his injury. And, you know, offensively with Kellen filling
• 12:22
  Speaker 10: in at quarterback, doing a great job, ran the offense
• 12:24
  Speaker 10: really well.
• 12:26
  Speaker 7: Really proud of the boys.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was too.
• 12:30
  Speaker 6: I mean.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: In a way, I have no dog in the fight,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: but I'm always rooting for Whatcom County, obviously. And going
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: into it, knowing that you were missing some key guys
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: or some guys might be playing but be playing hurt.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: I did look at Caden's ankle about twice the size
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: of his other one. I thought, oh, my goodness, he's
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: a warrior out there. And it was just so great
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: to see the fight. And the crowd was amazing. It
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: was just, you know, doing the show now on Friday nights,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: it's rare that I'm actually at games. So I was
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: blessed to be able to go out there on that
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Thursday night game. You know, I thought your run defense
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: in the second half really came up huge. Especially, you know,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: you mentioned Veldman being out there, Peter Enfield, Gavin Van Lowe.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: These guys were making some big tackles right near the
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: line of scrimmage to make sure they didn't break the
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: long plays. What kind of adjustments were made at halftime?
• 13:26
  Speaker 7: You'll never know.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Was it, was it, were there adjustments or were there just, Hey,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: let's just do what we're supposed to be doing. We
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: didn't know.
• 13:37
  Speaker 7: Both, both.
• 13:38
  Speaker 10: I mean, um, in every situation we can pick on
• 13:42
  Speaker 10: a couple of kids of, you know, just alignment assignment, um,
• 13:47
  Speaker 10: where they're supposed to fill. Um, honestly, you know, making
• 13:52
  Speaker 10: these reads, you just got to get better at them.
• 13:54
  Speaker 7: And when you're playing like a wing T and, uh, uh,
• 13:58
  Speaker 7: You know, you get.
• 13:59
  Speaker 10: A lot of cross-action and things like that, and your
• 14:00
  Speaker 10: eyes kind of bug out, and you're not looking at.
• 14:03
  Speaker 7: What you're supposed to. It takes a little bit to
• 14:05
  Speaker 7: settle in.
• 14:05
  Speaker 10: You know, there's a reason why we're playing several wing
• 14:09
  Speaker 10: tee teams. Don't tell Lepper, but, you know, there is
• 14:11
  Speaker 10: a reason. And it's a difficult offense to stop when
• 14:16
  Speaker 10: ran really well, and we feel that we've found teams
• 14:19
  Speaker 10: that do it well. So, yeah, we just, I think
• 14:23
  Speaker 10: we settled in, got a little more disciplined, And we're
• 14:28
  Speaker 10: able to make some really good stops. Peter Enfield's really
• 14:31
  Speaker 10: coming on. Boy, that kid is unblockable. And then you
• 14:35
  Speaker 10: talk about making tackles. You know, a younger guy out
• 14:39
  Speaker 10: at corner, Josh Senti, was talking to Chris this morning
• 14:44
  Speaker 10: in the weight room, and he's like, that kid's probably
• 14:46
  Speaker 10: the best tackler pound for pound on our team.
• 14:48
  Speaker 7: So really happy with a bunch of kids.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he did make that great tackle for loss. You know,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: if he doesn't make that tackle– uh that is a
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: big big play and so that was really cool to
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: see the sophomore step up there and you brought up
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: kellen blankers earlier and i i was just over the
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: moon proud of him uh i thought he played extremely
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: well he had some big zip on those quick passes
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: i thought maybe he was a little amped up but
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: he was under control there was no a ton of
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: like overthrowing that seems to happen in your first varsity
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: start how was he feeling going into the game.
• 15:20
  Speaker 7: Oh he's feeling good he He's a really, really bright kid.
• 15:24
  Speaker 7: Understands the game.
• 15:25
  Speaker 10: I think he told me once he wants to be
• 15:28
  Speaker 10: a broadcaster someday, so you better look out.
• 15:30
  Speaker 11: Nice.
• 15:32
  Speaker 10: He understands the routes, the concepts. He understands how to
• 15:38
  Speaker 10: manage the game. I think he'd be the first to
• 15:41
  Speaker 10: tell you he's not going to rip.
• 15:43
  Speaker 7: Off an 80-yard run. But what he's tasked with doing.
• 15:50
  Speaker 10: Is distributing the ball to the playmakers and he is,
• 15:54
  Speaker 10: he's really good at that. So, um, yeah, you know,
• 15:58
  Speaker 10: just talking ball behind the scenes with him too.
• 16:01
  Speaker 7: He's very, very knowledgeable.
• 16:03
  Speaker 10: And, uh, that's exciting for us to have two quarterbacks
• 16:07
  Speaker 10: that are diametrically different.
• 16:10
  Speaker 7: Um, and maybe that's a real problem for teams that
• 16:12
  Speaker 7: face us.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean, it was, you know, you got him
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: some run earlier in the season, which proved to be valuable, uh,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: playing this whole game here and, you know, almost leading
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: them to a comeback win. It was just really, really
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: great to see. And it's just another weapon that you have,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: but let's talk about this Friday night. Now you're back
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: on the road against Nooksack Valley. What can you tell
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: us about this year's pioneers team?
• 16:34
  Speaker 7: Uh, really talented.
• 16:36
  Speaker 10: Um, they, you know, they always seem to have, um,
• 16:41
  Speaker 10: plenty of size and then plenty of, um, of guys
• 16:46
  Speaker 10: just with great ball skills. Um, you know, starting sophomore quarterback, boy,
• 16:51
  Speaker 10: they found some gold there. And then, you know, just
• 16:54
  Speaker 10: having a bunch of guys to distribute the ball to.
• 16:56
  Speaker 10: It looks like they have two good-sized tight ends that
• 17:00
  Speaker 10: find those open holes and then can also block. So, yeah,
• 17:06
  Speaker 10: they present a great matchup. And then, you know, defensively,
• 17:10
  Speaker 10: they're just really stout. They've got great tacklers. They've got
• 17:13
  Speaker 10: great safeties and defensive backs that come up and, you know,
• 17:17
  Speaker 10: aren't aren't afraid to make a hit, and it's going
• 17:21
  Speaker 10: to be a dogfight.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a pretty well-rounded team, and it seems like,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: you know, I've seen a lot of teams over the
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: years where, boy, they have everything, and it happens to
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: be a sophomore quarterback, which usually can bring a team
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: down a little bit, but he's, like you said, they've
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: kind of found gold with him, and he's a pretty
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: darn good quarterback. You know, last year's game was a
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: pretty big dogfight as far as it was pretty close
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: for a while. You got some turnovers late and ended
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: up winning by a couple scores. And, you know, facing
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: them now after them coming off a league loss, they
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: might have a little extra juice in them. Would you–
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: would that be fair to say?
• 18:02
  Speaker 10: Oh, yeah, I think so. I think, you know, both teams,
• 18:06
  Speaker 10: I think, ramp it up for this game. I mean,
• 18:09
  Speaker 10: every league game we all get up for.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 18:11
  Speaker 10: I think it's going to be an intense showdown on
• 18:14
  Speaker 10: the new turf. I expect both teams to play really,
• 18:18
  Speaker 10: really well, be really, really prepared, and it should be
• 18:22
  Speaker 10: a great show.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: That's going to be awesome. Coach, best of luck on
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Friday at Sid Lambert Field. Thank you so much for
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: joining me today on the Gatorade Game Day Podcast.
• 18:30
  Speaker 6: All right, thanks.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: I am now joined on the Gatorade Game Day Podcast
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: by Nooksack Valley Head Coach Craig Bartle. Coach, thank you
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: for joining me today. How are you doing?
• 18:41
  Speaker 6: Doing okay. How are you?
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Doing okay as well.
• 18:44
  Speaker 6: Good.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: What is a chore around the house that you really
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: enjoy doing?
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: None of.
• 18:52
  Speaker 12: Them.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: There's got to be something that you just don't mind.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh, I got to do that. That's no problem.
• 18:59
  Speaker 6: You know what I.
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: Really like doing? It's kind of my zen place, I guess,
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: is mowing the lawn.
• 19:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: Put the headphones on and... go out there and just
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: kind of get lost in a podcast or music and just, uh,
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: kind of a perfectionist when it comes to the lawn,
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: you know, I want it to be short and, you know,
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: like a golf course type. It's not there right now,
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: but yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the goal.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Do you edge it as well and do it look
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: all sharp?
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: My dad is like that and he takes a lot
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: of pride in that. You drive by the house and
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: it's like, Whoa, that, that stands out. And so, uh,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I've absorbed some of that. I do my best. I
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: don't really have a huge lawn, but I do enjoy
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: it as well. Like you said, putting the headphones on.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: and just kind of getting lost in that for a
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: little bit is kind of nice. That's one of those
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: things that like, and I know I'll never retire, but, uh,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: but if, if there was a retirement, I would love
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: to like mow football fields for the County. Like I would,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: I would love doing that. That would be so fun,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: you know? Um, So, yeah, I get you on that one.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: On Friday, your team suffered its first loss of the
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: season after a really hard-fought battle against Mount Baker. 21-14
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: was the final score and, again, came down to the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: very end. Tell us about the game.
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: You know, we made some mistakes early and, you know,
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: a couple of missed assignments, but And not the kids' fault.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: That's ultimately my fault for, you know, just not getting
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: us prepared. I think allowing us to do some things
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: in practice that aren't up to our standards. And so,
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: you know, all on that. I think, you know, Baker's
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: a really good team. So I'm not going to take
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: anything away from them at all. And at the end, yeah,
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: this is a if you know, you know. I feel
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: like Kaelin DeBoer after.
• 21:05
  Speaker 6: The end of that game.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Was there anything that surprised you in that game, like schematically?
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Or was it just– I would imagine there isn't anything
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the two coaching staffs haven't seen against each other. Like,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? You guys have faced each
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: other so much. You know each other so well. Was
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: there anything that kind of made you coaches go, oh,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: what are they doing here or anything like that? Or
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: was it basically just lining up and playing football?
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was– Who's lining up and playing? We've played
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: each other so many times in the past five years
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: that nothing really jumps out that's surprising. They have some
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: wrinkles that they threw throughout us, and we did as well.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: But if you go back over the film for the
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: last five years, what they did is somewhere in that
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: five years.
• 21:58
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And that's, you know, you're going to stick
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: to what you know, and it's hard to pull out
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: something brand new. And one thing I did notice in
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: the game too was neither team really took a lot
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: of chances. Both of you guys punted a lot. And
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: that was, you kind of know each other, you respect
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: each other, and you know, punting is important. You know,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: I think Lucas may have punted seven times in the
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: game and and mount baker punted maybe five or six
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: i mean that's a that's a lot but that shows
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: like not a ton of turnovers ball control good good
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: football was it you know i mean i don't know
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: i don't know really what the question is here but
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: but it's kind of like you know what i mean
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: like you went into it knowing like hey we're not
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: gonna like take chances we need to we need to
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: stay in the game the best we.
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: Can yeah and i think that's you know uh both
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: Both teams, I mean, we trust our defenses. And so
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: at that point, you're playing field position type games. But
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: also there's a respect on the offensive side that, hey,
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: if we don't get something at midfield, then their offense,
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: even though the defense has been playing pretty good, their
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: offense has the ability to.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Break a play.
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: So I think there's a mutual respect both on offense
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: and defense. And it's kind of that chess match of,
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: all right, do we play the field position game?
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: Do we go for it?
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: But if we don't, you know, we've stopped their offense,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: but they're, you know, they're just one play away from
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: breaking something big. And so, yeah, there's a lot of
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: that that plays into, but I think ultimately, I mean,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: both teams were pretty confident in the way the defenses
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: were playing.
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: Now it's just a field position.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Speaking of your defense, I thought, I don't know if
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: it's a breakout game, but I thought Paxton Miller had
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: a tremendous game just as far as making an impact
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: at the line of scrimmage, which you have to do
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: against that kind of team. And he's been a good player. uh,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: for the past year and a half, but I think
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: he kind of elevated himself to a all conference type.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: The guys are going to have to notice him now. Um,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: you know, and, uh, just talk about his impact and
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: kind of his improvement as you've been coaching him last
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: year and a half or so.
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he, he, he did. He had a, he had
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: a really good game defensively. Um, he's just got to
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: work on his pad level. Um, but he is, he's
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: understanding now what, what we're asking him to do. And in,
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: you know, we're a gap control defense. And so he's understanding,
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: all right, where do I need to go?
• 24:29
  Speaker 6: And, you know.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: For a lot of those defensive linemen, you know, across
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: the board, kind of throughout our league and in football,
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, their job is to create double teams and
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: basically keep linemen off the linebackers. And the linebackers are
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: the ones that get all the credit for everything. But,
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: you know, that defensive line, once you understand that, this
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: is my job and I'm just a part of, I'm
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: one person, a part of 11 that if I just
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: do my job, then that allows somebody else to, to
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: be able to break free and maybe do their job
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: a little bit better. And TQ is really starting to
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: grasp that concept and that makes him better and.
• 25:08
  Speaker 6: It makes us better. Yeah.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: He, it is so true because, you know, you, you know,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: people talk about that Baltimore Ravens defense in the early
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: two thousands and obviously Ray Lewis and Ed Reed get
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of credit, but you, You watch Tony Saragusa
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: taking up two or three blockers. That's where it all starts,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: and you go from there. And so, yeah, there is
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a lot to that that I think that once players
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: buy into that, it shows success for your team. This
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Friday night, you're back at home against Lyndon Christian. Last
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: year's game was a close one until the fourth quarter
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: when a few turnovers allowed the Lynx to win by
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: a few scores. What can you tell us about this
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: year's LC team?
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: They're probably the best team in the state. Across the board,
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: they're really good. I don't think there's anybody in 1A
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: that's better than them. It's going to be a tough challenge.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: They've got a great coaching staff that gets them prepared.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: They're all phases of the game they're really good at.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: We're just going to have to try to focus on
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: what we do and just worry about each play in,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: in our, our jobs, every play.
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: Absolutely.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Uh, Chris Coleman looks to be probably the top one, a, um,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: running back in the state. You know, he was all
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: state last year. It's, it's pretty tough to stop him,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: but how can you at least slow him down?
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of teams have tried and they
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: haven't been successful.
• 26:41
  Speaker 6: Um, I don't know.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: I mean, play 12 guys on the field maybe and put,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: you know, a bunch of guys up on a line
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: of scrimmage and, and, uh, you know, I'm not sure
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: that anybody's figured that out yet. He's just, he's a
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: really good, powerful player.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's, you know, it's probably just, you know,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: multiple guys flying to the football, right? I mean, that's,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: it's going to be really hard for one guy to
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: bring him down. He's very, you know, he's always been
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: a strong running back, but he's added something this year
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: and he's got some moves and he's got some more
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: speed and maybe another five or 10 pounds. And it really,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: really shows. And so it just kind of, Like I said,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: multiple guys trying to tackle him, and that's kind of
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: the way to go. It's been an interesting football year,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: and I think that you guys having a loss, even
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: though it's a conference loss, is a really, really tough thing.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: But is that in a way... something that can motivate
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: the players into now they're going to really listen to
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: what you guys have to say. I mean, even though
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: they've been doing it all year, is there something special
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: about this week of practice of, Hey, we just, you know,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: we just, we just took a loss and now we're facing,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: you know, one of the top teams in the state.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: Is there, is there extra motivation just from that during practice?
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think so. I, but I do think,
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: you know, the, the loss was, it's a wake up
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: call and not for the players. I think, you know,
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: for our staff as a coaching staff of, all right,
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: let's reflect back on if the kids aren't getting a
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: couple of things, then why is that? And that ultimately
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: comes down to us and me ultimately. And so it's,
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: this was a really good weekend for us as a
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: coaching staff to figure out, okay, what can we do
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: better as a staff at practice? And, you know, it's
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: cliche and I say it a lot, but it's what
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: we believe and it's what we do. we just focus about,
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: we focus on us. And so there are some things
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: that we have to fix and we'll, we'll get those
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: fixed on us. And really, you know, if you're playing
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: Linda Christian, if you're playing, you know, the Seattle Seahawks,
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: it doesn't matter. We're, we're just going to do what
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: we need to do as far as us. And we'll
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: worry about us and, and, and, you know, we'll, we'll
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: have a good week of practice. It'll be intense. And, Um,
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: you know, there's no more free passes for guys that
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: don't know what they're doing. And so, um, you know,
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: it'd be a competition week.
• 29:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: It's, it's interesting.
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: You brought up like, like, you know, the teaching aspect
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: of it, because this is something that just kind of
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: popped in my head. So excuse me for this, but
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: as a, as like a teacher, everybody learns differently, right?
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Some people are visual learners. Some people can hear it
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and they understand that some people need to do it
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: and they understand it. And I could imagine it's the
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: same thing for coaching. You can explain, something and maybe
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: a third of their players understood what you what you said.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: And then another third, you might need to work on
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: them one on one and have that kind of walk
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: through it. And another third, you might have to draw
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: it up and then they see it and they go.
• 29:54
  Speaker 6: Oh, okay.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: And so that's got to be an interesting challenge. You
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: really have to know your players. And, you know, and so,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and I've seen this out at different practices where a
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: play will happen, you know, against the scout team or whatever,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: and then they blow the whistle. And as the scout
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: team offense, let's say, is getting ready to run the
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: next play, multiple coaches are going out to talk to
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: individual players and saying, hey, this is what you need
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: to do for this and that. And you know, do
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: you feel like you have a pretty good grasp on
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: your guys on which players need to learn a certain way?
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: And do you have a good feel for that?
• 30:26
  Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: And you're, you're a hundred percent right. Some, some guys
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: are visual learners. Some guys are, you know, draw it
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: up on the board once and they get it. And yeah,
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: it is, it's, how do you get them? I mean,
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: you got to kind of go across the board. You
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: have to put it up on the, on the chalkboards
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: or the whiteboard now that, You know, draw it up
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: so they can see it. You have to play video
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: so they can see it, like a clip of the play.
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: And then you've got to walk through it at practice
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: and then slow it down.
• 30:53
  Speaker 6: A little bit at practice.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, there's a lot of different ways that
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: I think that coaching has evolved. You know, it used
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: to be just do this and go out and run it.
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: You know, back when we played, we didn't question anything.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: And not that the kids question anything, but they want
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: to know the why's now. And so I think the
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: good coaches explain the why's. This is why we have spacing.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: This is why we run these plays. So when the
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: kids understand, okay, if this is why we're doing what
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: we're doing, then it just makes more sense to them
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: and they understand it. And when they understand that and
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: they don't have any questions, they play faster. And I mean,
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: we've talked about it before, but if the kids don't
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: get it after the first time or second time, then
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: we as coaches need to look back and go, gosh, okay,
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: how come they're not getting it? Is it the way
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: I'm delivering it to them? Is it the form I'm
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: delivering it to them? And so we'll ask, hey, I've
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: explained this to you a couple times and you're not
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: getting it, so what am I doing wrong? And then
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: we'll take some feedback from the kids and we'll kind
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: of adjust. And if they still don't get it, then
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: that's our job as coaches is to put them in
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: the best position to have success. And if we're not
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: getting through to them, then we need to adjust. And,
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: you know, if after five or six times they don't
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: get it, maybe that kid just is not going to
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: get it. Then we put somebody else and we move
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: them to a different position. But, I mean, that's kind
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: of the whole process of getting it. And it's not
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: just a, hey, just roll the balls out there and
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: here we go. There's a lot that goes into coaching.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: For all you out there that want to become a coach,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: there's a lot more to it than you think. You
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: can start at the youth level and have fun and
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: show them the basics and stuff like that, but once
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: you get to the varsity level, there's a lot of
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: layers involved, there's a lot of hours involved, and there's
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of passion in it. I want to thank
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: all you coaches for doing what you do because it
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: shows on the football field really good, talented teams up
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: here and it makes for a tremendous product on the
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: field that we get to enjoy every single week. So
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: best of luck on Friday against Linda Christian. Thank you
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: so much for joining me today on the Gatorade game
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: day podcast.
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: Awesome. Thanks again, Tyler.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: All right. Thank you to both the coaches for being
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: able to cut some time out of their day to
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: join me and talk about those games. Again, seven o'clock
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: said Lambert field should be great one. Another one, a
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: battle as Blaine, the border rights will come out to
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Deming to take on the Mount Baker Mountaineers. Blaine, 2-4
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: on the season, Mount Baker 4-2. And this is a
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: longtime rivalry. This is a game that's been going on
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: for almost 100 years now. There's been over 100 matchups.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I can't remember the exact number. It's like 108, something
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: like that. But I think they started playing each other
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: in the early 30s. And so it's always fun. This
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: is kind of like the Packers and Bears playing each
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: other in the NFL. I'm now joined on the Gatorade
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: Game Day podcast by Blaine Head Football Coach Andy Olson. Coach,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: thank you for joining me today. How are you doing?
• 34:05
  Speaker 6: I'm doing well, Tyler. How are you?
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Doing well as well. What is a chore around the
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: house that you really enjoy doing?
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: Mowing the lawn.
• 34:18
  Speaker 11: Yeah, mowing the lawn, I just have always enjoyed being, like,
• 34:21
  Speaker 11: taking care of outside.
• 34:22
  Speaker 9: We kind of live out in the woods, so it's
• 34:24
  Speaker 9: a project to fight the war against the blackberries and
• 34:27
  Speaker 9: keep the backyard looking nice. So I enjoy mowing the lawn.
• 34:30
  Speaker 9: It takes about an hour and a half to do it. And,
• 34:33
  Speaker 9: you know, with as many kids as I have, sometimes
• 34:35
  Speaker 9: an hour and a half apiece. Kids don't like to
• 34:37
  Speaker 9: walk up.
• 34:37
  Speaker 11: To, you know, dad mowing the lawn. So it's a
• 34:41
  Speaker 11: nice break.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's interesting. If you're out in the woods,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: it's probably not like a, cookie cutter square uh spot
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: you're cutting your car you're probably going around trees and
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: all sorts of whips and wines there yeah yep that's
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: a makes it kind of uh yeah it makes it
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: so you can't really zone out while you're doing it
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: you really have to pay attention um because a lot
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: of times you know you just kind of like that's
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: your time to just kind of reset and just kind
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: of mow you've done it a million million times uh
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: but you probably have to pay a little more attention.
• 35:13
  Speaker 9: I've got to have a head on swivel for the
• 35:15
  Speaker 9: random tennis ball laying out in our yard or a
• 35:17
  Speaker 9: wiffle ball, too.
• 35:18
  Speaker 11: They pop out of nowhere.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely. On Friday night, your team hosted Meridian. It
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: was a one-score game for the majority of the time,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: either down two or down eight. But they got a
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: few short fields in the fourth quarter and were able
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: to take advantage and pull away 41-26. Tell us about
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the game.
• 35:39
  Speaker 9: Yeah, well, we started out actually in a pretty big
• 35:42
  Speaker 9: hole early.
• 35:42
  Speaker 11: We were down 15-0 right out the gate.
• 35:45
  Speaker 9: Meridian did a good job getting a couple quick three
• 35:48
  Speaker 9: and outs, and then we let Trey get loose and
• 35:51
  Speaker 9: do what Trey does on an 88-yard scamper on the
• 35:53
  Speaker 9: first play of a drive after Connor had pinned him deep.
• 35:57
  Speaker 11: You know, Meridian's really good. They have some really good athletes.
• 36:01
  Speaker 9: I would argue that they're probably the fastest team in
• 36:03
  Speaker 9: our league, so that was a great challenge for us is,
• 36:06
  Speaker 9: How do we avoid giving up the big pot play
• 36:08
  Speaker 9: to them? Obviously, when we talked about that 80-yard scamper,
• 36:12
  Speaker 9: we missed an assignment or a call there, and he
• 36:15
  Speaker 9: got loose. Good athletes make good plays, and they got
• 36:19
  Speaker 9: a lot of them, and Coach Ames had them ready
• 36:20
  Speaker 9: to go. Good football game, competitive, like we've kind of
• 36:24
  Speaker 9: learned to expect. Crazy things tend to happen when Blaine
• 36:27
  Speaker 9: and Meridian meet. It's usually a lot of points, and
• 36:30
  Speaker 9: usually decide to come the fourth quarter.
• 36:31
  Speaker 11: Yeah, it was tough.
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: It was fun to watch, and I really thought you
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: had some good things going with the run game, too.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Was there an exerted effort to have that be more
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: of a factor?
• 36:43
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 36:43
  Speaker 11: I mean, we know that team's got our pass game.
• 36:47
  Speaker 9: And if you're going to drop seven guys or eight
• 36:49
  Speaker 9: guys deep, we've got to be able to run the football.
• 36:52
  Speaker 11: Asher Hagee, our sophomore, is starting to come into his own.
• 36:56
  Speaker 9: Um, and it's cleaned some things up and keeps getting
• 36:58
  Speaker 9: better every week, which is awesome. Uh, Tanvir here was
• 37:01
  Speaker 9: awesome as a lead blocker and then getting a couple
• 37:03
  Speaker 9: of carries here and there and same with Sayu Kanaji.
• 37:05
  Speaker 9: But I mean, we talked about if you want to
• 37:07
  Speaker 9: win in the Northwest Conference 1As, you have to be
• 37:09
  Speaker 9: able to be physical.
• 37:10
  Speaker 11: You can't just finesse it down the field.
• 37:12
  Speaker 9: Um, so we're starting to learn through some growing pains
• 37:16
  Speaker 9: what that requires.
• 37:17
  Speaker 11: And we saw some growth there last week.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think I've told you before, but you know,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Asher Hagee is such a raw athlete that you know,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: he kind of reminds me of those toy cars that you,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: you hold onto the ground, you roll back and you
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: let go and they just go forward. And it's like
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: second step. He's at top speed already. And, um, but
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: what I saw, or maybe, maybe, I mean, I think
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: what I saw, cause I, you know, I know a
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: little bit of football, not near as much as you do,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: but it looked like he was more, um, he was
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: able to cut to the outside or cut to the inside,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: or he was able to do more running back type
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: stuff instead of just, I'm really fast with the ball.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Is that safe to say?
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: Yeah. Yep.
• 37:55
  Speaker 9: That's been a concerted effort on our part is, you know,
• 37:58
  Speaker 9: the development of Asher Hagee at running back. You know,
• 38:01
  Speaker 9: a few years ago, kids have these things called Beyblades
• 38:03
  Speaker 9: that they'd wind and let go and they just kind
• 38:04
  Speaker 9: of ricochet off everything. He kind of reminds me of
• 38:07
  Speaker 9: one of those, I guess he's a modern toy for
• 38:11
  Speaker 9: the audience that maybe doesn't know what the wind up cars.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Used to be.
• 38:15
  Speaker 9: But yeah, you know, he's just kind of the Tasmanian
• 38:17
  Speaker 9: devil with the football. He takes off and he's going
• 38:19
  Speaker 9: to hit somebody and then he's going to ricochet and
• 38:21
  Speaker 9: keep going. And, You know, I think that effort and
• 38:25
  Speaker 9: energy is contagious and is infectious. And when he runs
• 38:28
  Speaker 9: the ball, you'll see like as a, as a former lineman,
• 38:31
  Speaker 9: if a guy's going to run hard downhill and finish
• 38:33
  Speaker 9: like that's inspiring.
• 38:35
  Speaker 11: So he's inspiring his teammates by how he plays the game.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: And a lot of times in 1A football, you know,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: a team will go into the season knowing that you
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: have some dudes that you can rely on that are
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: going to be pretty good. And there's always those players
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: that raise their ability during the season. It's kind of,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Not that it's out of nowhere, but it's like, okay,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: this is great having these extra guys. Is there a
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: player on your team that you look at and you say,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: this player's really stepped it up perhaps more than you expected?
• 39:02
  Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, we're pretty young, you know. On Friday night,
• 39:08
  Speaker 9: I think we had three sophomores and a freshman starting
• 39:11
  Speaker 9: on our defense. You know, the continued maturation of Dimitri
• 39:16
  Speaker 9: Shvorak's always awesome.
• 39:17
  Speaker 11: You know, you kind of.
• 39:18
  Speaker 9: You kind of wonder what the feeling's going to be
• 39:20
  Speaker 9: like for a kid like that. What's been most impressive, though,
• 39:23
  Speaker 9: is his maturity and how he's kind of handled learning
• 39:26
  Speaker 9: the game of football and adjusting to, I'm not just
• 39:28
  Speaker 9: the biggest, fastest, strongest kid on the field. um and
• 39:31
  Speaker 9: how coachable he's been like it's been a real blessing
• 39:34
  Speaker 9: to be able to spend time with that kid and
• 39:36
  Speaker 9: um help him along the way um physically he looks
• 39:39
  Speaker 9: like he's about 17 years old but you know it's
• 39:41
  Speaker 9: just different when you jump from playing eighth grade football
• 39:43
  Speaker 9: to here's varsity friday nights right And I think a
• 39:47
  Speaker 9: lot of the kids that play against him would have
• 39:49
  Speaker 9: no idea that he is a freshman. So just by, again,
• 39:52
  Speaker 9: the way he talks on the field and the way
• 39:54
  Speaker 9: he leads, he already has kind of a leadership role
• 39:57
  Speaker 9: within our program. So the future is very bright for
• 40:00
  Speaker 9: that young man and the direction that the program's heading.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: And for those of you that don't know, he's about 6'2,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: 200 pounds, and starts on the defensive line, plays a
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: lot as kind of an H-back. And, you know, I...
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: It's one of those things where I didn't see him
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: play in eighth grade, but I would imagine he was
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: featured quite a bit. Is this defensive line kind of
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: a whole new thing for him, or is that something
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: he's done before maybe as an end? A little bit
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: of both.
• 40:28
  Speaker 11: I mean, how we use him is different, right?
• 40:30
  Speaker 9: And I mean, I think the biggest thing that's different
• 40:32
  Speaker 9: is the things that you can get away with when
• 40:34
  Speaker 9: you are just physically gifted. A lot of times your
• 40:37
  Speaker 9: technique goes out the window because you can get away
• 40:41
  Speaker 9: with bad habits that just work effectively.
• 40:43
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 40:44
  Speaker 9: And it's hard to tell a young man who's, you know,
• 40:47
  Speaker 9: making the play that you're making the play in a
• 40:49
  Speaker 9: way that's not going to help you in your future.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 40:52
  Speaker 11: So the the arm tackles and the things like that.
• 40:55
  Speaker 9: And, you know, I can just run and run at
• 40:57
  Speaker 9: a poor angle, but I'm still fast enough where I'm
• 40:59
  Speaker 9: going to be able to recover. Um, so that's been
• 41:02
  Speaker 9: like the continued maturation of him is like learning that, Hey,
• 41:05
  Speaker 9: I can't do a false step. I have to actually read,
• 41:07
  Speaker 9: I have to create separation in my hands, you know,
• 41:09
  Speaker 9: how to tackle at a 17 year old when you
• 41:11
  Speaker 9: are a 14 year old, um, that's going to be
• 41:13
  Speaker 9: stronger than you at times. So, um, you know, those
• 41:17
  Speaker 9: little things and just how coachable he's been to picking
• 41:20
  Speaker 9: them up and recognizing like, ah, yeah, I can't do
• 41:23
  Speaker 9: that anymore. I have to, I have to learn the
• 41:25
  Speaker 9: right way to do it. Um, that's been really great.
• 41:27
  Speaker 9: And our coaches have worked really well with him too.
• 41:29
  Speaker 9: So I appreciate that piece.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great to hear that he is open and
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: willing to learn because you do get those studs that
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: come in. And it's hard sometimes to mold a piece
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: of clay that's already been hardened by success. And so
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: that's really pleasant to hear because I'm excited for his future.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Probably not as excited as you are, but I love
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: when these new players come in and really show what
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: they can do. As long as I can just get
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: his name spelled correctly, that's all that I need to
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: worry about. But this Friday night, you're back on the road.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: You're facing Mount Baker. It's been a tough one since
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: you've come to Blaine playing Mount Baker. What can you
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: tell us about this year's group of the Mountaineers?
• 42:15
  Speaker 9: It's another Coach Lepper team that is going to maximize
• 42:20
  Speaker 9: the talent they.
• 42:21
  Speaker 11: Have on the field.
• 42:22
  Speaker 9: They're going to be arguably one of the two most
• 42:25
  Speaker 9: disciplined football teams in 1A football, that right there with
• 42:29
  Speaker 9: the other program that wins all the state titles from
• 42:31
  Speaker 9: the east side. They do it the right way. They
• 42:34
  Speaker 9: go and execute. They all know their jobs. They've been
• 42:36
  Speaker 9: doing it for a long time. I mean, he's got
• 42:38
  Speaker 9: a program going. So we know that we're going to
• 42:42
  Speaker 9: expect a lot of the same, but every year it
• 42:44
  Speaker 9: looks different with different athletes, which is also.
• 42:47
  Speaker 11: You know, it's exciting.
• 42:49
  Speaker 9: And I know I always say, you know, Mount Baker's
• 42:51
  Speaker 9: the measuring stick for public school football on the west
• 42:54
  Speaker 9: side of the state. Like you want to become more
• 42:56
  Speaker 9: like Baker and how they go about doing their business.
• 42:59
  Speaker 9: And in high school football, you don't control necessarily where
• 43:02
  Speaker 9: the bus stops and who they're picking up, but you
• 43:04
  Speaker 9: do control what you do with that.
• 43:05
  Speaker 11: And I think that nobody does it better than the Mountaineers.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, that's a great compliment. And You know, they've
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: ran that same offense for quite a while. There's been
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: a few, you know, wrinkles over the years. I think
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: back in 08, 09, they kind of had more like
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: a double-wing shotgun type thing. And they went to the
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: spread in 2000. But other than that, it's been pretty
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: much straight wing T. And, you know, I'm sure this
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: week of practice has been interesting with scout team wing T.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: What's the biggest thing you have to tell, especially your
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: linebackers on defense?
• 43:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 43:40
  Speaker 9: You know, we've tried different things in teaching how to
• 43:43
  Speaker 9: defend the wing tee out at Blaine. That has become,
• 43:47
  Speaker 9: you know, it's a great challenge. This week, we're actually
• 43:51
  Speaker 9: doing something a little bit different, which Lef's going to
• 43:53
  Speaker 9: laugh about is, you know, we've been defending our scout
• 43:56
  Speaker 9: team and the scout team doesn't have a football.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:59
  Speaker 9: Like we've been tackling kids without footballs because if your
• 44:02
  Speaker 9: eyes read you to the right place, then you're going
• 44:03
  Speaker 9: to be tackling the right kid. Last year we took
• 44:06
  Speaker 9: out a little mini Nerf football and did it as
• 44:08
  Speaker 9: an idea of trying to hide it, and I felt
• 44:10
  Speaker 9: like our kids just looked even harder for the football.
• 44:12
  Speaker 9: So if you have your eyes on the backfield, they're
• 44:15
  Speaker 9: going to take advantage of you, and they have in
• 44:16
  Speaker 9: the past, and they do it every week when you
• 44:19
  Speaker 9: look at, well, how did they break a big one?
• 44:21
  Speaker 9: Is the linebacker running in the wrong direction because he's
• 44:23
  Speaker 9: looking at their wingback or their tailback or even the
• 44:26
  Speaker 9: kind of sniffer player.
• 44:27
  Speaker 11: That they have on the side there.
• 44:29
  Speaker 9: So that is a tremendous challenge for our guys, but
• 44:33
  Speaker 9: we look forward to it.
• 44:35
  Speaker 11: And, you know, one thing that's a little bit different
• 44:36
  Speaker 11: this year.
• 44:37
  Speaker 9: Than last year, last year I kind of penned them
• 44:39
  Speaker 9: as the flying lepers because they were throwing the ball
• 44:41
  Speaker 9: all over the place downfield.
• 44:43
  Speaker 11: They still won't be able to do that, too.
• 44:45
  Speaker 9: So we have what we call outside drill where we
• 44:48
  Speaker 9: work on actually defending passes and stuff like that.
• 44:50
  Speaker 11: But when we're on inside, there's no ball, which is
• 44:52
  Speaker 11: kind of fun.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's, I mean, I've heard that expression, you
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: have to tackle everybody. Like that's, and against the Wing T,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: you have to tackle everybody. So I could totally see
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: where that is a method to practicing, and that's a
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: good way to go. It's going to be a fun
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: one out there. I think it's the longest, maybe not
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: the most games, but the longest running rivalry. I believe
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: the first game was 95 years ago, 94 years ago,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: something like that. Um, so it's kind of cool that
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: these two teams are still going at it every year and, and, uh,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: best of luck at Mount Baker. And thank you so
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: much for joining me on the Gatorade game day podcast.
• 45:30
  Speaker 11: Thanks for having me, Tyler. Appreciate you.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I am now joined on the Gatorade game day podcast
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: by Mount Baker head football coach, Ron Lepper coach. Thank
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: you for joining me today. How are you doing?
• 45:40
  Speaker 6: Doing well and a pleasure to be hanging out with
• 45:42
  Speaker 6: you once again this week.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, thank you very much. What is a chore around
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: the house that you really enjoy doing?
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: Cutting the grass or vacuuming, either one.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: You know, cutting grass is a very popular answer, but
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: I hadn't heard vacuuming. Why vacuuming?
• 46:01
  Speaker 8: Because automatic results, man. You see what you did, and
• 46:04
  Speaker 8: it's clean right now. So I do a lot. I mean, yeah,
• 46:08
  Speaker 8: when I'm home, especially in the summer, but when I'm home,
• 46:12
  Speaker 8: I'll jump on the old vacuum cleaner there and get
• 46:15
  Speaker 8: that done for Trish. Yeah, she thinks I'm kind of crazy,
• 46:18
  Speaker 8: but it's okay.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: That's funny because i i think back of uh the
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: show who's the boss from the 80s and he used
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: to like lift the couch up with one hand and
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: vacuum underneath and start vacuuming the curtains and i was
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: like i could see you doing that.
• 46:32
  Speaker 8: Yeah exactly so yeah that's i don't mind doing that
• 46:35
  Speaker 8: at all.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: That's awesome um on friday your team hosted nooksack valley
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: another classic game you pick up the 21 to 14
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: win um tell us about the.
• 46:45
  Speaker 8: Game yeah like like you said you know uh kind
• 46:49
  Speaker 8: of a defensive game on both sides. You know, first,
• 46:53
  Speaker 8: you know, I think we both had to punt on
• 46:55
  Speaker 8: our first possessions, and then they get a big play,
• 46:58
  Speaker 8: and then we were able to come right back and
• 47:00
  Speaker 8: kind of answer that, get a couple stops, and then,
• 47:03
  Speaker 8: you know, Kel Reardon gets a big, you know, makes
• 47:06
  Speaker 8: a big play on defense, you know, gets a sack,
• 47:08
  Speaker 8: causes a fumble, and we get that.
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: It sets us up to.
• 47:11
  Speaker 8: You know, a little bit shorter field, and so then
• 47:14
  Speaker 8: we're able to get that in there, and then kind of,
• 47:16
  Speaker 8: you know, like back and forth for the half. And then, again,
• 47:19
  Speaker 8: we were able to find a way to get in
• 47:20
  Speaker 8: the end zone in the third quarter. Gave them opportunity
• 47:25
  Speaker 8: where we turned the ball over and gave them a
• 47:27
  Speaker 8: short field and they took advantage. And then it was
• 47:28
  Speaker 8: defense after that. And, you know, like I said, pretty excited.
• 47:33
  Speaker 8: I'm pretty sure the fans were pretty excited about it.
• 47:37
  Speaker 8: You know, first down at the 13-yard line or something
• 47:41
  Speaker 8: like that with four plays.
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: And we were able to– get out of there with
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: a win.
• 47:45
  Speaker 8: So big win, you know, first league game of the year,
• 47:48
  Speaker 8: but also against a real quality opponent. And for us
• 47:52
  Speaker 8: to bounce back after the week before, I was just,
• 47:54
  Speaker 8: you know, down a few guys and, you know, we
• 47:56
  Speaker 8: didn't have a lot of, a very deep rotation on Friday.
• 47:59
  Speaker 8: A lot of guys, you know, had to get it
• 48:01
  Speaker 8: out a little bit and it was, it was, it
• 48:03
  Speaker 8: was fun to watch.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: You know, it's, it's a good thing you mentioned that,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: you know, those, those turnovers resulted into short fields, which
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: resulted then into touchdowns. It just shows the importance of,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: especially when it's two even teams, you know, a lot
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: of punts in the game. So you're not taking a
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: lot of chances and you have trust in your defense and,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: and those two big turnovers resulted in scores. And it's
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: so amazing how quickly that can happen in a, in
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: a game that only had five touchdowns and two of them,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: you know, came that way. And so it really does
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: show the importance of turnovers, especially when you make them,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: you know, near mid midfield. Um, You made a change
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: in personnel during the week. It was an unselfish move
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: by a star player that made the difference. Can you
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: expand more upon that?
• 48:46
  Speaker 8: Yeah, you know, as, you know, we talked about earlier,
• 48:51
  Speaker 8: you know, we had a couple guys out and then
• 48:54
  Speaker 8: we had a couple people at a family wedding in,
• 48:57
  Speaker 8: you know, in Missouri.
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: And so we were just down some numbers.
• 49:00
  Speaker 8: And I approached, you know, Noah Nicole Mills and said, hey, listen,
• 49:04
  Speaker 8: you know, it's not as crazy as you think if
• 49:07
  Speaker 8: you're sitting in my chair. and kind of explained what
• 49:10
  Speaker 8: we needed to get done. And, you know, on Monday
• 49:13
  Speaker 8: last week, he kind of said, okay. And then, I,
• 49:14
  Speaker 8: you know, I can tell you, it wasn't like, you know,
• 49:16
  Speaker 8: jumping in with both feet. And then Tuesday I just said, Hey, listen,
• 49:19
  Speaker 8: you know, um, you're going to give us our best
• 49:22
  Speaker 8: opportunity here because, and nothing against it. You know, there's
• 49:24
  Speaker 8: a reason why they're varsity guys because they've earned that.
• 49:26
  Speaker 8: But if we would have to put some, a couple
• 49:29
  Speaker 8: of younger guys in there, it probably wouldn't, it would
• 49:31
  Speaker 8: not have gone as well.
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: I know that for a fact. And, and, uh, so
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: for him to.
• 49:36
  Speaker 8: Put the team in front of himself, uh, something that
• 49:39
  Speaker 8: we really try to hang our hats on over here
• 49:41
  Speaker 8: in our program is one of our, you know, our
• 49:43
  Speaker 8: foundational pieces is about team, you know, team first kind
• 49:46
  Speaker 8: of thing and doing what's best for the team. And
• 49:48
  Speaker 8: Noah did it. And, you know, again, he wasn't perfect,
• 49:52
  Speaker 8: but he'll admit that. But at the end of the night,
• 49:54
  Speaker 8: you know, walking off the field with a, with a win, I,
• 49:57
  Speaker 8: he had a pretty big smile on his face.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And so, and for those who don't know,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: traded in the number nine for number 52, started on
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the offensive line and, and it went pretty well after that.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Speaking of that touchdown after Reardon's forced fumble that Silas
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Maple recovered with the short field, I believe it was
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: pretty close after that where there was a tremendous route
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: that was ran by Zion Paglia on a fake slant
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: and then to the corner. It was a great play call,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: and it looked like it couldn't have been executed any better. Yeah.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: When I was playing, that was a 92 corner, I
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: guess you'd call it. Is it still just what it is?
• 50:45
  Speaker 8: We call it a 96 slant corner. You've got to
• 50:49
  Speaker 8: sell that and get out there. We haven't used it
• 50:54
  Speaker 8: too much. It was just an opportunity where I felt
• 50:57
  Speaker 8: like what we were trying to do and we were
• 51:00
  Speaker 8: still moving the ball a little bit, but I just
• 51:02
  Speaker 8: felt This would be a good time to call that.
• 51:04
  Speaker 6: Might be expecting a run.
• 51:07
  Speaker 8: And, again, you can call a great game from the sideline,
• 51:10
  Speaker 8: but the kid's got to execute it on the field.
• 51:12
  Speaker 8: Those two guys did a nice job. The offensive line
• 51:14
  Speaker 8: gave us time to do that, a little pump fake.
• 51:16
  Speaker 8: And then I told Zion when he came to the sideline,
• 51:19
  Speaker 8: those are the toughest ones to catch when you're kind
• 51:21
  Speaker 8: of no one around.
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: You a little bit. Yes.
• 51:24
  Speaker 8: But, yeah, it was huge. Huge to be able to
• 51:26
  Speaker 8: capitalize after the turnover. That was a big, big, big
• 51:29
  Speaker 8: play for us.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: And at the 1A level, you know, every team will
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: tell you, you know, they have a few dudes, they
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: have guys that you know you can count on during
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: the season, but then there's always a few players that
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: step up, maybe even surprise you a little bit. Who
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: has been a pleasant surprise for you so far this season?
• 51:45
  Speaker 8: Um, I think, uh, you know, Anak Smith a little bit,
• 51:48
  Speaker 8: just being a little more involved on both sides of
• 51:50
  Speaker 8: the ball instead of just primarily.
• 51:52
  Speaker 6: Being a kicker.
• 51:52
  Speaker 8: Um, we kind of knew that going in a little bit,
• 51:55
  Speaker 8: he'd have that opportunity and, you know, he's got that
• 51:57
  Speaker 8: chance to do that.
• 51:59
  Speaker 6: Um, Jaden, Nicole Mills, doesn't get a lot.
• 52:03
  Speaker 8: Of praise per se, but he comes in in tough
• 52:05
  Speaker 8: spots and is able to spot guys like Smith and
• 52:09
  Speaker 8: Paglia on offense and defense.
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: And so he's been pretty solid this year.
• 52:13
  Speaker 8: As I look, you know, I think about our list,
• 52:15
  Speaker 8: those kind of the guys that, you know, other guys
• 52:17
  Speaker 8: we kind of knew, yeah, this is what we're going
• 52:19
  Speaker 8: to get.
• 52:19
  Speaker 6: But those two guys, I think, have done a really
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: nice job for us this year.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: This Friday night, you're back at home.
• 52:25
  Speaker 6: I got one more. I'm going to interrupt you. Sorry.
• 52:28
  Speaker 6: Eli James.
• 52:28
  Speaker 8: Eli James has had to play about 18 different spots
• 52:31
  Speaker 8: this year.
• 52:33
  Speaker 6: He's another kid.
• 52:33
  Speaker 8: I go back to our philosophy of doing what's best
• 52:38
  Speaker 8: for the team. We needed him to play quarterback as
• 52:39
  Speaker 8: a freshman. He really didn't want to do that, but
• 52:42
  Speaker 8: he did it. He's played running back. He's played tight end, receiver, safety, linebacker, corner.
• 52:49
  Speaker 8: He's another kid that's really become somebody that we're starting
• 52:53
  Speaker 8: to use a lot more and count on.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: He's definitely had to fill in some, some roles and,
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you look after a game
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: and he's got a bunch of tackles and he's in
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: on a lot of plays. And so that's always great
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: to see the senior, uh, get his opportunity and make
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: the most of it. Um, this Friday night, you're back
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: at home against Blaine. You know, there's been over a
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: hundred games against Mount Baker and Blaine. I think it's
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: the longest rivalry, maybe not the most games, but the
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: longest rivalry going back to the, early 30s or late
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: 20s uh you coached in maybe 78 of those i'm
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: just kidding uh but.
• 53:30
  Speaker 8: But i know you're probably not that far off and
• 53:33
  Speaker 8: we used to play twice a year so that's true.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: That's true uh what can you tell us about this
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: year's border right club well.
• 53:41
  Speaker 8: You know they uh the quarterback is back from last
• 53:44
  Speaker 8: year and he's uh he's kind of a shifty little
• 53:46
  Speaker 8: character uh does a good job throwing the ball i
• 53:48
  Speaker 8: know one of their um better receivers got dinged up
• 53:51
  Speaker 8: and so but they still got some other athletes out
• 53:54
  Speaker 8: there that, you know, that are able to catch the
• 53:57
  Speaker 8: ball and got some speed. They got a couple of
• 53:59
  Speaker 8: younger skill type of guys that they're playing on the
• 54:02
  Speaker 8: defensive line, linebacker and as running back that move around
• 54:06
  Speaker 8: a lot. So, you know, the record isn't maybe what
• 54:09
  Speaker 8: people would want it to be, but, you know, they've
• 54:12
  Speaker 8: been in ball games, you know, and they've got, and
• 54:14
  Speaker 8: they do enough things that if you don't take care of,
• 54:16
  Speaker 8: you know, you come in and not ready to go,
• 54:18
  Speaker 8: it can cause a lot of problems for you.
• 54:20
  Speaker 6: So, They definitely have our attention.
• 54:21
  Speaker 8: You know, we realize that, you know, we're not good
• 54:24
  Speaker 8: enough to overlook anybody. And so, you know, we're working
• 54:28
  Speaker 8: hard and preparing what we can to get ready for blame.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: You know, they changed their defense up a little bit
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: from last year. You know, they were kind of a
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: three-man front with two stand-up ends. This year, they're more
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: of a traditional four down front. And those four guys...
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: except for maybe Hicks in the middle, who you know
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: obviously from wrestling. The other three guys are more speed guys.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: When you're going up against quicker defensive linemen, does that
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: kind of throw things off for what you're trying to
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: do offensively?
• 54:58
  Speaker 8: Well, I mean, yes and no. I mean, if a
• 55:01
  Speaker 8: guy's just that much quicker or faster, it's going to
• 55:03
  Speaker 8: be hard. But then some of our schemes that we do,
• 55:06
  Speaker 8: we can kind of help mitigate that a little bit.
• 55:09
  Speaker 8: And ultimately, we've got to adjust to what we see
• 55:12
  Speaker 8: in the game come game time. So you have a
• 55:13
  Speaker 8: plan going in, but at the same time, things could
• 55:17
  Speaker 8: change a little bit. So I would expect to see
• 55:21
  Speaker 8: some multiple fronts there. And then, like I said, it's
• 55:25
  Speaker 8: my job to find out what's working and how we
• 55:27
  Speaker 8: can use that and how we can attack what the
• 55:29
  Speaker 8: defense is doing.
• 55:30
  Speaker 6: But you're right, they do move around a little bit.
• 55:32
  Speaker 6: Like I said, they were in the ballgame last week.
• 55:34
  Speaker 8: I know they kind of were even with Nooksack and
• 55:39
  Speaker 8: then kind of Nooksack kind of got going a little bit,
• 55:40
  Speaker 8: but then he came back out of the halftime and
• 55:42
  Speaker 8: had put together a real long, you know, successful drive. They,
• 55:45
  Speaker 8: you know, they moved the ball against LC early on. So,
• 55:48
  Speaker 8: you know, they've got some guys that can do some things.
• 55:49
  Speaker 8: And so we just have to understand that we got
• 55:53
  Speaker 8: to come ready to go because if we're not ready,
• 55:55
  Speaker 8: it could be, it could make it really tough.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: That's awesome coach. Thank you so much. Best of luck
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: against Blaine. And thank you so much for joining me
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: on the Gatorade game day podcast.
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: Well, thank you, Tyler, again. Thank you for everything you
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: do for the kids, and you have a great weekend.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: You too. All right, thank you to both the coaches
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: for joining me on that one. Next up, Bellingham, the Bayhawks.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: They're going to head to Anacortes to take on the Seahawks.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: And Bellingham, you know, had a rough one there against Sehome.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: They're going to try to bounce back, but doing it
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: against one of the top-ranked teams in the state, as
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: a matter of fact, in the coaches' pool, they have
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: Anacortes ranked third in the state. And I forgot to
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: mention in the earlier matchup, Mount Baker is ranked sixth
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: in the state in 1A. But right now, Anacortes is
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: ranked third as they will host Bellingham. And the Bayhawks,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: they have their work cut out for them. I'm now
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: joined on the Gatorade Game Day podcast by Bellingham head
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: football coach Adam Leonard. Coach, thank you for joining me today.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: How are you doing?
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: I'm doing okay, Tyler. How are you?
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: Doing okay as well. What is a chore around the
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: house that you really enjoy doing?
• 57:07
  Speaker 6: That I enjoy doing?
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 57:09
  Speaker 6: I love cleaning my garage. I just love it. I
• 57:11
  Speaker 6: have a beautiful three-car garage.
• 57:15
  Speaker 5: I have a fridge out there. I'm going to be
• 57:19
  Speaker 5: putting a TV. We have weights out there, a little
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: weight room out there. I clean that garage once.
• 57:25
  Speaker 6: A week minimum, maybe more. I mean, it's cleaner than
• 57:29
  Speaker 6: my kitchen.
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: It's the cleanest room in the house is my garage.
• 57:32
  Speaker 6: I love it. It's my spot to go.
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: And I love just cleaning it, organizing it. I'm a
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: little OCD with lining up.
• 57:39
  Speaker 6: The shoes and putting things away.
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: But I'd have to say cleaning my garage is my
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: favorite chore to do around the house.
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. What was not awesome was Friday taking a
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: loss at home against Sehome. It was 7-7 after one
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: quarter of play. But the Mariners just went off for
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: 25 points in the second quarter. Tell us about the game.
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, it started off, Seaholm's first drive was tough.
• 58:06
  Speaker 6: You know, 15, 16 plays, just running the ball and
• 58:09
  Speaker 6: pounding the ball.
• 58:10
  Speaker 5: And, you know, Cash had a heck of a game.
• 58:12
  Speaker 5: I believe he went over 200 yards. And, you know,
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: that kind of takes the wind out of your sails
• 58:16
  Speaker 5: a little bit. But I love the way we responded.
• 58:18
  Speaker 6: To that touchdown.
• 58:19
  Speaker 5: And we scored, I think, within four plays on a
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: 61-yard touchdown pass from Ben Leonard.
• 58:24
  Speaker 6: To Matthew Steele.
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: So we thought, okay, here's the game, kind of what
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: we expected, you know, back and forth. you know, they
• 58:30
  Speaker 5: come down, they score again, they're running the ball very effectively,
• 58:33
  Speaker 5: and then, you know, we just, we get the ball back, and,
• 58:37
  Speaker 5: you know, we go three and out, we have a punt,
• 58:40
  Speaker 5: snaps over all of Andros' head, safety, this time a safety,
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: I know, we've taught him, you know, when the ball
• 58:46
  Speaker 5: goes in the end zone, kick it out, or lay
• 58:48
  Speaker 5: on it, so.
• 58:50
  Speaker 6: Like the Linden game, and it didn't happen again to
• 58:53
  Speaker 6: us on.
• 58:53
  Speaker 5: A bad snap, I think a lot of it, you know,
• 58:55
  Speaker 5: the pressure, I gotta give all the credit to Seaholm's
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: defensive line, led by Logan Rogers, he's just He's such
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: a stud out there.
• 59:01
  Speaker 6: You know, he's a player. He's the coach of youth football.
• 59:03
  Speaker 6: He's just, you know, one of the best D-line men
• 59:06
  Speaker 6: in the conference.
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: He's tough, and I think it kind of, you know,
• 59:10
  Speaker 5: got a little bit in the head of our O-line. And,
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: you know, we had trouble with the snap and things
• 59:14
  Speaker 5: kind of fell apart. There's four straight points on safeties.
• 59:17
  Speaker 5: And it kind of spiraled from there. I think some
• 59:18
  Speaker 5: of our guys were getting pushed around a.
• 59:21
  Speaker 6: Little bit on the D-line, other O-line. And it came
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: a little bit, you know, it wasn't our style. It
• 59:27
  Speaker 6: was probably.
• 59:30
  Speaker 5: the most difficult game to watch as a coach and
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: to coach because it just.
• 59:34
  Speaker 6: Wasn't our identity, who we are. We weren't as physical
• 59:37
  Speaker 6: and we weren't as aggressive.
• 59:38
  Speaker 5: And definitely when a kind of team smells blood in
• 59:41
  Speaker 5: the water like that, they're going to just run the
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: ball down your throat.
• 59:43
  Speaker 6: That's what C & L did.
• 59:45
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: And you brought up Alejandro Pringle and I want to talk,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: I want to take a moment to talk about him
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: because as far as kicking off goes around Whatcom County,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: he's the best one I've seen this year. Consistent kickoffs
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: into or through the end zone, How did it come
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: about that he came out for football?
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: Well, Alejandro and Diego Diaz are both soccer players at Bellingham.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 5: And we have a great soccer program, both for.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 6: Our boys and our girls. And, you know, Alejandro is
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 6: pretty good. put together too.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 5: He looks like, you know, we're trying to get him
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 5: to play some running back, play some, you know, some
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: linebacker because he's built that way. But he's like, coach,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 5: I just want to kick. And both him and Diego
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: have been very, very effective. Kind of a lot of
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 5: Diego's are, you know, short and specialist and extra point.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 5: Alejandro's our kickoff guy. And, you know, we have seen
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 5: some impressive kicks in practice, you know, 50 plus yard
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 5: field goal attempts in practice. And, you know, obviously you
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 5: mentioned his kickoff ability and putting the ball in the
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 5: end zone. That's just a huge difference maker for us,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: you know, losing Constantine Franz, who was our foreign exchange
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: player last year. He went back to Germany for a
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 5: senior year. You know, that was tough, but these guys
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 5: coming out have been a real blessing for us. And,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 5: you know, and they're both, they're both juniors. So we
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 5: get them back next year as well. So that's great.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: That is awesome. And, you know, it's, And one thing
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: that a lot of people may not have realized is
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: you don't see a lot of safeties in high school.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden you see two of
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: them in one quarter. And when that happens, then that
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: team that took the safety has to kick the ball off.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: But you have to kick it off from the 20.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: And he was kicking off to like the five-yard line
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: from the 20. And really impressive. You could hear the
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: crowd on the film just kind of go, whoa, on
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: the kickoffs. And so that is such a weapon to
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: have to make it so the other team is starting
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: at the 20 all the time. And you see a
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: lot of this in high school football, especially around the counties.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: If you don't have a kicker that can consistently boom
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: it into the end zone, they'll do short kicks and
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: try to make something happen on a kickoff. Or you
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: see that short kick to the right that usually lands
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: it around the 30 or 35. And if they kick
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: it out of bounds, they don't really care because it's
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: going to be at the 35 anyways. But they'll all
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: tell you if they have a kicker that can kick
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: it through the end zone, they will do that instead.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: And so you're blessed to have someone that can do that,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: which has been a lot of fun.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 6: He is.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: And during that scene home game, you know, he was like, Coach,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: I go, don't kick it to 13.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 6: We know Nicky Smith was extremely explosive.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: I go, if you want to just kick it in
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: the end zone, because I'll just do that coach. I'm like,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 5: I love having that. That's a great option.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's something that like, you know, not a lot
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: of teams have that option. So some guys can do
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: it here and there. Jackson Yoon at Lyndon Christian. We've
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: seen a few in Knox Smith. We've seen a few
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: Parker McManus had a few, but he's the one that
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: does it the most consistently. So it's really cool to see.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: And what's the best way to flush away a tough
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: loss against a rival and move on to the next week? Like,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: what's the thing you want, you know, what's the thing
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: that you can do as a team to move forward
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: and just kind of get that one out.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 6: Of the way?
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 5: Well, this one was a tough one to move forward from.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: It was a homecoming game. It's a game that we
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: thought we matched well up on paper. We had common opponents.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: Everything kind of lined up to be a close game,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 5: and it just got away from us. You know, we
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 5: usually have film study and just me reading the room
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 5: as a head coach was like, you know what, we're
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 5: going to, there's nothing really to watch from this film.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 6: You know, we know we already talked about what we did. We,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 6: we were on, it was uncharacteristic of what we've been
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 6: doing this season.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: And so we canceled, canceled that, told the guys, I
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 5: kind of like, you know what, spend the weekend, not
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 5: thinking about football, go just clear your mind, have fun
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 5: at homecoming. Do you know, you know, the high school
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 5: students just, you know, keep your mind away from that.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 5: So we're trying to kind of clear that and, you know,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: clean that slate. Obviously, I have some things we're going
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 5: to be saying on Monday at practice, and we're going
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 5: to get back to work in a way that, you know,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 5: as we prepare for, you know, a tremendous team in Anacortes.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 6: But it was one of those things, I think this was.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: The weekend we needed to kind of not think about football, if.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 6: That makes sense.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: You know, just kind of reset the brains, get back
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 5: and realize that, you know, we want to still have
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 5: fun playing this game and start preparing for the next week.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 6: Absolutely.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: And speaking of that, this Friday night, you're back on
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: the road against Anacortes. You know, it's just, it's what
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: a conference, right? These opponents, what can you tell us
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: about the Seahawks?
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 6: I mean, just again, top to bottom, they're tremendously well coached,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 6: great program.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 5: Coach Portis has been building that up for many years
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: when he was involved with the youth program. Now as
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 5: the high school athletic director and head football coach, I mean,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 5: he's just got a tremendous team over there. Multiple state championships,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 5: you know, one of the top quarterbacks in the entire state.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: uh wazoo commit ryan harry next ryan fight since he
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 5: was in middle school just you know tremendous athlete quarterback
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 5: leader um they've just got they've got tough defensive players
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 5: andre cantino and they're.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 6: Just they're well-rounded they have great receivers every.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: Year i feel like they just have a factory of
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: receivers they just keep developing and they're going to be
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 5: really tough they do things well on both sides of
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 5: the ball and it's just going to be a challenge
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 5: but I think, you know, we've got to try to win,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 5: you know, just the battle within the battle. We're going
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 5: to try to win matchups and try to be as
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 5: competitive as possible against a very good team.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, last year's game, you
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: went into it, and I remember that one was at home,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: and it was, you know, kind of the defensive look
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: that you gave was– We're going to try to make
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: sure we keep things in front of us, kind of
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: put an umbrella. You're not going to pass all over us.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: And they looked at it and they may have switched
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: to runs a lot because they ended up running the
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: ball quite a bit with Shia Webster. You know, Webster's gone.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: Their big running threat is their quarterback. So how do you,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: you know, do you have a spy on him or
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: how do you go into this game? Because their offense
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: is maybe a little bit more predicated to the pass,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: but the big running threat is the quarterback. So does
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: that change things as far as, man, we might need
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: to play a zone instead of man, because we want
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: our eyes looking that way and not back.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, we don't want to get caught with
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 5: our eyes in the backfield too much on Harrington. We
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 5: do have to spy him, but if you do that,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 5: he's going to, he's going to, He's going to kill
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 5: you with his barrage of receivers that he has that
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: are just tremendous athletes.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 6: So we have to be balanced in our defensive approach.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 5: And one thing we want to do on offense is
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 5: make sure, as we are a heavy passing team, we
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 5: also want to be smart.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 6: With keeping our offense off the field.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 5: So be a little bit more deliberate in how we
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 5: run our offense, more balanced.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 6: I did like the way last week MJ Maena ran
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 6: the ball in the first half. I think there are
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 6: some things to build off on that. I think it's
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 6: a clock control game.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 5: And they have great crowds down there and great energy,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 5: and it's supposed to be decent weather Friday night, so
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 5: that kind of favors.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 6: We like to throw the ball as well, and I
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 6: think this is a week where we.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: Kind of put, we're thinking as a game plan, putting
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: some of the offensive scheme and planning into Ben's hands
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 5: and see what he reads on the field and kind
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: of give him a little bit more autonomy to do what.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 6: He sees out there and try to make things happen
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 6: that way.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Coach, it's going to be an awesome one. Best
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: of luck on Friday at Anacortes. Thank you so much
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: for joining me today on the Gatorade game day podcast.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 6: Thanks Tyler. Have a wonderful week.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: All right. Next up. We always, this is a great
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: matchup at year in and year out. Um, really excited
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: for this one as the Burlington Edison Tigers come to
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: town to take on the Linden lions. Linden currently ranked
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: second in the state in two way after their big
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: win over Anacortes last, last week, just one spot behind
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: Tumwater and, um, Yeah, this is one where, like I said,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: every single year these two teams seem to put on
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: one heck of a game. And Burlington and Linden are
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: very much mirror images of each other. I'm now joined
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: on the Gatorade Game Day podcast by Linden head football
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: coach Blake Van Dalen. Coach, thank you for joining me today.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: How are you doing?
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 13: Good. Thanks for having me on. And always good to
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 13: spend time with you.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love it as well. What is a chore
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: around the house that you really enjoy doing?
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 13: Probably mowing the lawn. You know, it's that white noise.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 13: You'd be amazed where your brain goes when you're just
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 13: out there walking back and forth and nobody bugs you. So, yep,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 13: mowing the lawn.
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that seems to be a popular answer. And
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: do you just zone out with the white noise or
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: do you put on headphones and just kind of listen
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: to something?
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 13: It's all... based on time and score, if you will.
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 13: Like sometimes I'm organized enough that I'll go have it
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 13: all charged and I'll put the headphones on. Sometimes, oh shoot,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 13: I have an hour to get the lawn mowed and
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 13: I better get out there and get going. And so
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 13: then not that time, but either way, it's the same
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 13: headspace because with music or just white noise, it allows
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 13: my brain to go wherever it wants to go.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And you need that every once in a while,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: as I have learned as well. On Friday, your team
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: hosted Anacortes, one of the most anticipated games of the season.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: and it didn't disappoint as you came away with the
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: 41 to 26 win what allowed you to come out
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: on top after that game.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 13: Well number one the kids you know they played to
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 13: our standard, to our potential. We've been talking about it
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 13: all year. And so number one, it was the players.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 13: Number two, I felt like our coaches did an outstanding job,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 13: thoroughly prepared themselves, which also put us in a situation
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 13: to prepare the kids. And then this doesn't always happen,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 13: believe it or not. The game plan was what we
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 13: thought it would be the kids executed it well enough
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 13: that we could stay on track or on plan if
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 13: you will never really had to go to plan b
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 13: and that once again comes back to the kids execution
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 13: but i just really wanted to compliment uh the humility
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 13: of our players because there was some very um um
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 13: Things that happened in the game where kids had to
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 13: buy into the team concept for us to win, and
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 13: they did. And then the coaches were really dialed in, even,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 13: you know, giving me little reminders. You know, don't forget
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 13: we said we wanted to do this, and don't forget
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 13: we want to, you know. Because sometimes you have the
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 13: urge to even little things. Like there were times we
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 13: felt like we could score quickly, and we didn't want to. So, yeah.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 13: It was it was the game plan was followed by
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 13: the kids. The coaches did a great job. And then
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 13: it was just probably one of the more electric atmospheres
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 13: in recent memory. So really neat for our kids to
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 13: get to experience the old school tradition legacy night at Linden.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: And speaking of game plan, you know, you ran the
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: ball 83 percent of the time. I had to be
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: part of your game plan.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 13: Yeah, we had two quarterbacks, extremely athletic. I know how
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 13: difficult it is. Even their quarterback, you know, he hurt
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 13: us as much running as he did throwing. And so
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 13: we were going to put them in a position where,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 13: you know, we wanted to run a lot of plays
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 13: to score. And one way to guarantee a few extra
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 13: yards each time is to have your quarterback run the ball.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 13: So I think both our quarterbacks had a total over
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 13: 30 carries. So that's a load for one position.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. And, you know, speaking of quarterback, you held Ryan
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: Harrington to under 50 percent passing, which was incredible. You know,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: when you watch him, I mean, he's he's so accurate
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: and everything is great. What contributed to that?
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 13: Early on, I could tell he was like, that's a
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 13: look he hadn't seen. And so luckily for us. they
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 13: only had one competitive game. And so they've been able
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 13: to do whatever they want. And so we, once again,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 13: there was a lot of preparation that went into it.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 13: And I give our defensive backs as well as our coaches,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 13: a lot of credit for, we try to put our
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 13: kids in positions to be successful and force him to
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 13: make those throws that honestly only he can make any hit.
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 13: But anytime it was just off a little, it had
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 13: a huge impact. And so that was our goal was
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 13: to make him feel uncomfortable, get him off his spot
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 13: and make those throws and catches as difficult as possible.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 13: And I really felt like we did that.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: You know, every school goes, deals with this, I should say,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: maybe where, you know, you walk the halls and you
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: see a kid and you go, Man, I wish he
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: was playing football. Even Lyndon maybe would go through this,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: even though you have 100 kids turning out. And this
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: year you had a kid that turned out that's an
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: amazing athlete, Jack Lovegren. And I want to talk about
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: his impact on special teams so far because it has
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: been fun to see. Talk about him a little bit
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: on that.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 13: Yeah, it started during track season. Coach Palmer took over
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 13: the track team this year, and I was the starter.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 13: And so I get to see the start and the
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 13: end of all the races, and there was a kid.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 13: that just caught his eye and then caught my eye.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 13: So we broached him and said, hey, we really think
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 13: you would enjoy football. And he's a junior and he's
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 13: never played. So we had to tell him there's going
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 13: to be a learning curve. You can jump on a
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 13: JV field and have a lot of success being extremely athletic.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 13: On a varsity field, there is a little bit of
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 13: extra that's needed. And so, for example, we started with
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 13: one task. We gave him on a kickoff. and put
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 13: him in a perfect position where we said, hey, when
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 13: this and this and this happened, you're going to have
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 13: an opportunity to make a play. And we've been repping
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 13: it like more than we'd probably rep anything. But we
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 13: felt like we have the right guys in the right spot.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 13: And there was a sequence in the game where we
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 13: had to punt. It was a 55-yard punt. Then they
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 13: fumbled the next play. We scored. It was that next kickoff.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 13: He popped it loose literally right before their kid was
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 13: going to grab it. And then Cash Triplett dove on it.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 13: And it was that exact play. And so, like I
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 13: pointed out to him in film, I go, this is
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 13: part of being on a team. You've worked so hard
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 13: for the last six weeks and sometimes wondered why and
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 13: your body takes a beating. But this was a moment
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 13: where in front of You know, 4,000 people, that cheer
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 13: was as loud as anything he's ever going to hear
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 13: in his life. And it was because he made a
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 13: play and everybody celebrated what he had done. And we
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 13: scored on the next two plays or three plays, I think.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 13: And it put us in a two score game. And
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 13: so we give helmet stickers away for players of the week.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 13: And he's going to get one this week for that play.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 13: And that's a number one team in the state, hugest
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 13: game we've had this year. And he made a key
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 13: play in it. So how cool is that for him
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 13: to go from never playing a sport to having an
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 13: impact on the biggest game of the year?
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that speaks a lot to coaching staff as
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: well and finding a spot that really works. And it's,
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: you know, let's be honest, it's hard to get on
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: the field for Linden High School. There are dozens of
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: scout team coaches guys that get recognized at your banquet that,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: you know, that you do a great job with that.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: And they might see the field a little bit here
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: and there. And so it's really hard to get on
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: the field. So when you can find a spot where
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: a guy can contribute and make a play like that,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: it's been it's really cool to see how that all
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: comes together. And, you know, I want to bring up
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: a little bit, too. You just played, you know, the
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: number one team in the state, as you mentioned, and
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: that can take a lot out of a team. How
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: is your team feeling as a whole this week?
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 13: Health-wise, you know, this was the game last year where
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 13: we lost Max and Danny. And so last year, not
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 13: only did we lose the game, we lost 1A, 1B
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 13: as far as our offensive weapons and defensive impact players. Well,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 13: this was the exact opposite of that. We came out
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 13: of the game healthy, so that's... the best case scenario.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 13: But now the prep begins on, you know, teaching the
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 13: kids why there's phrases like hangover game, why there's phrases
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 13: like trap game, why there's, you know, and training them
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 13: that it's natural for your body to want to say, okay, relax.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 13: And I'm so glad Nick Saban just released a really
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 13: cool thing on ESPN because he's the perfectionist when it
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 13: comes to how to handle not having a letdown. And
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 13: he was doing it the next day after they won
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 13: the national championship. So then he gave some really good advice.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 13: So we've been talking about it a lot. We had
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 13: a really great practice yesterday and we'll have another good
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 13: one today. I'm sure, but there's no way to, you
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 13: can't fake it. You've got to show up every day
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 13: and put the effort in to prevent the the body
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 13: from having that letdown. So luckily we're healthy and we
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 13: can go to war with the next, you know, it's,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 13: it's a cliche, but going one and O each week
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 13: in our conference is not easy. And that's our goal
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 13: this week. One and O.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: And this week you're back at home against Burlington Edison and,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: you know, year in and year out, it's always a
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: great matchup. It seems like there are, you know, if
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: there was point spreads and stuff and all that stuff,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: it would be like, well, when this game comes up,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: it's going to be close. It just always seems to
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: be that way. And, you know, I don't know much
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: about the Tigers. I know they like to run the ball.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: What can you tell us about them?
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 13: Yeah, I mean, I think they have one of the
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 13: hardest runners in our conference. And so this will be
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 13: like when we played Lentzen from This will be a
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 13: great challenge, but they also run their quarterback, which we
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 13: know a lot about, and that's what we like to
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 13: do as well. And so they've got a two-headed monster
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 13: in the backfield just like us and do a lot
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 13: of stuff off of play action just like us. They're
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 13: a downhill, hard-hitting defensive team just like us. I love
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 13: it that, you know, Craney's roots were in Burlington. Yeah,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 13: he played at Blaine, but his coaching roots were with
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 13: Glenn Ricker, who they've named their stadium after. And we
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 13: have conditioning drills that we do that are named after
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 13: Burlington Edison players because Craney stole them from them back
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 13: in the day. And we've done the same thing now
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 13: for 30 plus years. And so our two programs are
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 13: extremely mirrored. I think they hopefully have a ton of
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 13: respect for us. And I know we have a ton
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 13: of respect for them. Even one of our own, Andy Olson,
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 13: was coaching there for a while. And there was a
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 13: couple of games when we were winning our championships that
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 13: where we had to score on the last drive of
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 13: those games to win. I remember we didn't take a
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 13: knee on the one, but we kind of did so
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 13: that Pats could kick a field goal to beat them,
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 13: and we won state that year. So that's how this
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 13: Burlington-Lyndon rivalry is. And like you said, they get hard.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 13: And so last year, it was a mud bowl, and
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 13: our kids are mudders, and their kids are mudders, and
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 13: they're used to grass, and we're used to grass. There's
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 13: just a lot of commonalities. in this game. And that
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 13: makes for a great Friday night for our seniors and
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 13: their last game at home, which is amazing how quick
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 13: the season goes. And we're just excited that we get
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 13: a chance to go back out there.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we're all excited about that. It's going
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: to be an awesome one. Best of luck on Friday
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: against Burlington Edison, Coach. Thank you so much for joining
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: me today on the Gatorade Game Day Podcast.
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 13: All right. Have a great week.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: Well, now we'll jump to 3A for a second as
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: the Ferndale Golden Eagles will travel south to take on
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: the Stanwood Spartans. Stanwood is undefeated on the season and
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: is currently ranked 10th. in the 3A coaches poll, and
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: Ferndale not ranked. So this is a really, this will
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: be a, you know, Ferndale's the underdog in this one. And,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: you know, you could look at it early on and say, well,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: this might be for the West Coast 3A North Championship,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: although Cedro Woolley looms in the background for a game
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: in a few weeks. But this will be one heck
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: of a matchup. I'm now joined on the Gatorade game
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: day podcast by Ferndale head coach, Jamie Plankovich coach. Thank
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: you for joining me today. How are you doing?
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 6: I'm doing good.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 14: How about yourself?
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: Doing pretty good as well. Uh, what is a chore
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: around the house that you really enjoy doing?
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 15: Mowing the lawn.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: That seems to be a popular answer. Why, what, what
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: makes that so great for you?
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 16: It just, one, you see, uh, when you're done, it
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 16: looks good. You see, uh, see the fruits of your labor.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 16: Now labor being, I do sit on a riding mower,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 16: so it's not very difficult, but it just allows.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 14: You to kind of be in your own world.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 16: You can think through things and yeah, that is one
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 16: of my favorites.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: Especially if you mowed the same lawn a lot of times,
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: then you kind of, you don't have to really think
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: about what you're doing. You can really kind of go
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: into a different world at that point.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 6: Exactly.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: That's pretty nuts. I like doing that. Uh, on Friday,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: your team hosted Oak Harbor, even though the Wildcats went
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: down and scored on the first drive, uh, they didn't
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: score another point after that, as you picked up the
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: 22 to six win. Tell us about the game.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 16: Yeah, I thought, um, you know, they did a good
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 16: job executing on their first drive. Um, like you said,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 16: after that, we felt, um, They had less than 200
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 16: yards of total offense, so you take that first drive
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 16: out of the equation. We really did a good job
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 16: shutting them down the rest of the game defensively. Offensively,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 16: we did not punt, so you would think that there's
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 16: a lot of good things happening there. We should have
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 16: put more than 22 points on the board when you
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 16: don't punt all game. But we had four turnovers. So
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 16: those things were drive killers. We had two times that
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 16: we were stopped inside the five-yard line, one with a
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 16: turnover and one on a fourth down. So, you know,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 16: still stuff that we got to improve on, get better at,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 16: get crisper at coming into this week.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: And it's kind of nice to have those teaching moments still, right?
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: There's still things you can point to and say, hey,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: this has to be better, especially with the kind of
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: the gauntlet you have coming up here. So, um, it's
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: nice to have those things. And coach, I can't recall
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: a single player blocking more extra points in a season
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: than Brayden Hendrickson has done. Can you, can you, I mean,
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: you've been coaching a long time. Can you recall ever
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: a player on a role like this?
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 14: No, not even close.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 16: If you get one a year, um, it's, it's pretty good,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 16: but yeah, we, I think we might've only had one
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 16: game where we didn't block one. Um, And, yeah, it's largely,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 16: you know, he and Trey are doing a good job
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 16: at what we call our bully position in the interior
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 16: of the line. Both of them are pretty tall, get
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 16: their hands up and get good push. It has been, yeah,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 16: it has been remarkable.
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: And it's, you know, once you get into close games,
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: playoff type stuff, I mean, that is so important because
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: you might, you know, squeak one out by one point.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: And I know you've had games like.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 7: That in the past.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: You know, and it's trickier because you got to lay
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: off the long snapper, right? So you have to, there's
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: an art to being close enough, but you're not lined up, um, illegally.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: Is this something that you guys have really worked on
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: or is it just kind of been happening for you?
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 14: No, we work on it every week, you know, not
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 14: a ton.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 16: Um, we have the right guys in the right positions, both,
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 16: you know, like you said, with both, uh, Trey and
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 16: Braden's size, you know, they've gotten good push and they're tall,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 16: you know, so they get their hands up. So they've
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 16: just done a really good job of liking to do that.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 16: They're both starters, right, two-way starters, and they still like
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 16: being on that team. And it's a huge momentum piece
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 16: as well. You think about just, you know, you can
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 16: be down after just giving up a touchdown and and
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 16: then they come out and block the extra point, it
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 16: really kind of turns the momentum back around to your
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 16: side a little bit. So it's also good emotional play,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 16: not just keeping points off the board.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: That's a great point because it is, you're so right,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: right after a touchdown and that can really swing things
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: and you know you're getting the ball back. But if
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: you're getting the ball back with a great attitude and
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: great momentum, that can be a great thing for your offense.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: And And, you know, it's funny because I mentioned something
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: on the podcast maybe a week and a half ago
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: or something, and I just kind of threw it out there.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: I said, hey, you West Coast 3A North teams, you
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: don't want to put little guys at guard when you're
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: kicking extra points just against Ferndale. And so I was
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: actually trying to help these teams, and it still didn't work. No,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: I know, but I'm just saying, I mean, they know
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: that they've been watching the film, but it's crazy how
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: it just keeps happening. And it's really, really fun to watch.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: Is there a player on your team this season that
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: has been the most pleasant surprise? And, you know, I
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: don't want to, I don't want to mean that in
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: a way like, like, wow, he wasn't any good, but
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: someone that you knew could contribute, but has maybe taken
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: that extra step to being one of your biggest impact
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: players this year.
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 16: Oh man, that's a really good question. I think Brock
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 16: Hoyt on defense was a starter for us last year
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 16: at corner and we moved him to our nickel position.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 16: He's just gotten better and better. He's very physical. He's
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 16: a very good open field tackler. He's important in how
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 16: our defense functions. And I wouldn't say that he's a surprise,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 16: but he moved to a new position. Sometimes that can,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 16: you know, take a while to, to get used to
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 16: playing that new spot. So I'd say he's done a
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 16: great job. Other guy that didn't get a lot of
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 16: playing time got hurt last year is Tyler cuts. And
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 16: he also has had a couple of weeks. We've missed
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 16: him for a couple of weeks this year as well.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 16: But he, has come in and done a great job
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 16: at the end and is one of our group of
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 16: tight ends. So I think he's been a real pleasant
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 16: addition as well for somebody that you weren't sure how
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 16: he would translate to more varsity reps.
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 14: So those are a couple off the top of my head.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's one that definitely passes the eye test
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: at about 6'4, 6'5, 235 pounds. And so you love
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: it when they take what God gave them and then
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: you put that on the football field. You've got to
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: love seeing that. This Friday night, back on the road
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: at Stanwood, you know, I don't want to say it's
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: for the league title or anything like that, but they're
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: the only undefeated team in the conference right now. What
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: can you tell us about the Spartans?
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 14: Well, they're a dang good football team. Starts with their quarterbacks.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 16: He is a very special player, both with his arm
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 16: and his feet.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 14: We're going to have to do a really good job of.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 16: Containing him because he's not only a very accurate passer
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 16: and that, but he has broken down teams by his
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 16: scramble ability and then making big plays when he does
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 16: do that run in the ball. So we've got to
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 16: do a really good job of containing him.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 7: They're really.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 16: Watching them, they're really well coached on both sides. Their
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 16: kids play exceedingly hard. Their scheme-wise on offense causes you
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 16: a lot of problems with their spread and still have
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 16: an ability to run the ball and then, like I said,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 16: that difference maker at quarterback.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 14: Defensively, their kids just play really.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 15: Really hard.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 16: You can see they beat Cedar Woolley earlier this year
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 16: and then going last week against a very good Snohomish
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 16: team and jumping on them early and hanging on, they're
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 16: going to be a tough matchup on Friday.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: You know, you talk about like a quarterback that you're
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: going to be going against that's, you know, can run
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: and throw. And so, you know, kind of help me
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: with this a little bit. When he breaks down containment
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: and he's out there, is he more of a threat
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: to keep a play alive, looking down the field to throw?
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: Cause a lot of quarterbacks are good like that. Or
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: is he more just like, Oh, he's going to run.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: We need to get that. Or can he do both?
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 14: That's the problem. He can do both.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 14: Um, Yeah, because you're right.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 16: Some guys really are making one read and then just
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 16: using their feet and getting out of harm's way, right?
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 16: Making something happen, running the ball. He has shown that
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 16: he will definitely do that. If he sees a running
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 16: lane and it's there, he will take it. But he's
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 16: also still directing receivers down the field. They do a
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 16: very good job of scramble drill, what we call scramble drill,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 16: where the receivers know what to do as he starts
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 16: to scramble. A couple of key plays in the Cedar
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 16: Woolley game that they come back and score late to
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 16: win it were scramble plays that he kept his eyes
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 16: downfield and made big plays.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 14: Throwing the football. He is a problem.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 16: He's going to be the best one we've seen yet
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 16: this year, and we've seen some good quarterbacks.
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 14: He'll he's going to be a challenge.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's a that's pretty high praise. And that's one
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: of those things where I saw a little bit of
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: this last week with Meridians quarterback Trey Alexander, where he will,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: you know, he ran for over 100 yards. But what
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: he did really well was when he would. when he would,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: you know, scramble a little bit and the defender has
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: to make that choice kind of in the flat. Do
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: I stay back? Do I go at the quarterback and
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: good quarterbacks are good at baiting that and then just
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: hitting that open guy. And that's going to be a
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: challenge for you defensively. It sounds like, because, you know,
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: hopefully you have ways to combat that. And of course
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: I know coach Freeman is, is probably digging deep and
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: all these things and wide eyed and getting his kids going. So,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like you kind of have an idea
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: of how to deal with that kind of stuff?
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 16: Well, we're definitely– that's the focus this week, right? Our
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 16: pass rush has to be very disciplined.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 16: Our goal is to try to keep him in the
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 16: pocket at times to bring pressure and still, again, not
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 16: create running lanes. We do have a pretty good scout
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 16: team quarterback this year– this week with Jake doing a
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 16: lot of this.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 6: Sure.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 16: He's taking off and running and challenging our defense when
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 16: he sees openings. So we're prepping the best we can
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 16: to try to take away those plays. He's still going
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 16: to make some plays. He's just that good. So we
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 16: just got to do a good job of that not
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 16: being something that continues to happen on critical downs.
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 13: In the game.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great point. And that's, you know, a
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: lot of coaches, that's pretty amazing that you actually admit that.
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: He will have some plays. The big thing is to
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: make sure it doesn't happen over and over again. So
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: as long as the kids understand that and they just
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: go to the next play. If there happens to be
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: a first down on something big, just move on to
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: the next play and play football there. Do your assignment
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: after that. Coach, man, it's going to be a fun one.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: Everyone's looking forward to this one at Stanwood. Thank you
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: so much for joining me today on the Gatorade Game
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: Day Podcast.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 14: Thanks a lot, Tyler. Appreciate it.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: And now one of my favorite matchups here as we
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: got a 2A versus 1A. Sehome Mariners, they are going
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: to head up I-5 to take on the Meridian Trojans
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: in a tremendous Whatcom County matchup that we don't see
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: very often. They played a few times in the 2000s
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: in the aughts, if you will, but it's been a
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: while since they've played each other. I really love the
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: contrast of styles here and should make for a pretty
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: darn good game. I am now joined on the Gatorade
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: Game Day podcast by Meridian Head Football Coach Patrick Ames. Coach,
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: thank you for joining me today. How are you doing?
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 15: I'm doing well, Tyler.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: Thanks.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 15: How are you?
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: Doing pretty darn good. What is a chore around the
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: house that you actually really enjoy doing?
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 15: Mowing the lawn.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a popular answer. Yeah. I, I, I love
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: it myself. I started, I loved mowing my grandmother's lawn
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: when I was six years old. It was like the
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: coolest thing. Uh, yeah, it's, what is it about it
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: that you enjoy?
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 15: Um, you know what?
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 12: It's one of the few times and tasks it feels
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 12: like that I have this routine, right?
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 15: Like you're going to do it at least once a
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 15: week where you just do it so much.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 12: You, you know, if you live in the same place
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 12: long enough, you know, you can certain parts of your
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 12: brain can, can quiet down and shut down. And you
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 12: have an opportunity to, to fill that brain space with,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 12: you know, something else.
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 15: And, you know, like when it's.
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 12: Football season, like when I mowed the lawn, uh, I
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 12: guess it would have been Sunday afternoon. Um, we'd just
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 12: come out of our, our coaches meeting and, you know,
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 12: it's still turning over, uh, you know, a few things
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 12: while I was out here mowing. So I really appreciate
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 12: that time, right. Where it's just kind of, um, I
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 12: don't want to say completely brainless because that's not what
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 12: I enjoy about it. It's just that you have the
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 12: opportunity to think about other things and still be super
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 12: productive at the same time.
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's very true. You kind of reset, right? And
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: like you said, you get to be productive. You're actually
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: doing work, and that's a big deal. On Friday, your
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: team went on the road again and defeated Blaine, this
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: time 41-26, in a game that saw you do a
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: lot of things well, especially offensively. Tell us about what
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: you liked about that game.
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 12: We did play pretty well offensively in some spots, and
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 12: there were a few possessions that we didn't execute really well.
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 12: We had some drives that were derailed by a couple
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 12: of really costly penalties, and at times we just weren't
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 12: really as sharp as we needed to be. But we
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 12: played some pretty decent complementary football there in the fourth
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 12: quarter where our defense– we took the ball away, you know,
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 12: a couple of times we got a couple of sacks
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 12: and we're able then to, to quickly convert those chances
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 12: into scores to end up getting a win that, you know,
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 12: you look at it on the scoreboard, it was a
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 12: lot closer game to that, that anybody who was there
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 12: or watched it knows. And, you know, we were just
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 12: able to be sharp enough there at the end to
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 12: be able to hold on for that one.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: It seems like for the majority of the game, you
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: guys either had an eight point lead or a two
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: point lead. It was kind of, it was always a
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: one score game there for, A big, big chunk, especially
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: the middle of that game. And you're right in the
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: fourth quarter. I thought the interception by Josiah Harris was huge.
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: That kind of got the ball rolling. And and he's
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: a kid that, you know, correct me if I'm wrong.
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: I know he's a basketball player, but I don't recall
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: him playing a ton of football growing up. Is he
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: a first year senior or is he did he play
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: in the past?
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 15: He's a first year senior.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 12: I believe he he played growing up, but this is
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 12: the first time he's played in high school. And so
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 12: his ceiling, because he's really athletic, is really high. And
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 12: he's going to be one of those kids that we
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 12: know it and feel it right now. But at the
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 12: end of the season, you know, we're going to say, gosh,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 12: we wish we would have had this kid for four
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 12: years and not just the one. But yeah, he's really
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 12: coming into his own and getting really comfortable. And you
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 12: saw that on Friday night.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 12: That interception he made there in the fourth quarter was
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 12: an outstanding play for a corner to make.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: And it kind of got your team rolling. Then the
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: next set of downs or the next possession that you
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: had on defense, you know, you get them to turn
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: the ball over on downs and other short field. And
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: it just kind of went from there. So I thought
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: that was a really big play and a kid that
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: kid that I've really enjoyed covering in basketball too, because he's,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: he's really just, you know, he's happy. He loves, you
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: can tell he loves sports.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And so that's, what's really fun. He's been returning
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: kicks and, and catching some passes as well. And so
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: it's nice to have athletes like that out there. Um,
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: and speaking of athletes, uh, that 88 yard touchdown run,
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, we've talked at nauseam what Trey Alexander has done,
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: but the effort that was given by Casey Brennan on
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: that play was extraordinary. Can you, so for people that
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: don't know, can you kind of explain, uh, what happened
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: in that play and what Casey Brennan did? Yeah.
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 15: As, as, uh, Trey, um, it was a draw play
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 15: a quarterback draw.
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 12: And as he, as he breaks out of the second
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 12: level and heads to the sideline at that point, you know,
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 12: when you get to the sideline, it's a foot race
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 12: and you hope that, you know, the defenders don't have
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 12: the right angle. And, and for those who don't know Casey,
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 12: Casey's really, really fast. And he's, he's been on our
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 12: track team and, been on a part of a state championship,
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 12: you know, four by one team. He's, um, he's, he's
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 12: got the cred, so to speak as, as a sprinter
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 12: to be able to show up on Friday nights like that.
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 15: And it was just an incredible effort play.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 12: And it was, it was literally something that, you know,
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 12: I'm sure every team talks to their receivers about at
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 12: different times. And it was something that we stressed also that,
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 12: you know, in, in tight, big football games, um, big
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 12: plays make a big difference and big plays happen oftentimes
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 12: because you've got effort, not just from the ball carrier,
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 12: but for everybody else on that field who's going to
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 12: try to sell out to make another block. or to
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 12: try to hustle to at least get in the way. Um,
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 12: so whoever's got the ball can continue down the field. And,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 12: and yeah, it was almost like Casey decided he was
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 12: going to race Trey to see if he could get in.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 15: Front of him.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 12: Um, and, and yeah, he, he literally sprung Trey with,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 12: with that effort. And then it was kind of fun, um,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 12: to be honest on Monday to come into a team
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 12: meeting and, and, you know, people are giving Trey a
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 12: bad time and, There's no shame in being passed by Casey,
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 12: but Trey said, well, I.
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 15: Was slowing down, right?
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 12: I was going sideways to try to set up his
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 12: block for him. But, I mean, anybody who watched that
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 12: knows it was just Casey just hustling like crazy to
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 12: try to make sure that, you know, that.
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 15: Trey could keep going.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 12: And I'm sure Casey didn't know at the time that
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 12: was going to turn into an 88-yard touchdown.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 15: He was just trying to get one more block.
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: It was crazy, Coach. You know, we're doing our live
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: show where we're kind of talking about all the games
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: at once. And when we see a big play, there's
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: a button we can hit. And so it captures the
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: last 15 or 20 seconds. And then we can show
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: a replay later. We're not allowed to show NFHS stuff
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: live for certain reasons like that. But we know we
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: have this one caught in our replay. And then so
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: we can put it on later and watch it when
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: we watched it. We just gushed over it because my partner,
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: Jim Brin, goes, who's seven? And he's just pointing at
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: the screen. And I said, that's Casey Brennan. And we
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: watched it. Like, we showed it three times in a row.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: It was just one of those plays that was just
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: so fun to see. And it's one of those plays,
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: like you said, as coaches, you try to stress the
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: importance of downfield blocking. But not many receivers from that
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: far away could have even had the chance to make
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: a play if it was– his effort and it looked
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: like he almost took out a couple guys on that
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: play it was a it was a tremendous play and
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: it probably got the sidelines hyped it was right on
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: your guys's sidelines so that was uh that was something
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: to watch and you know a lot of times in
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: 1a football team will go in the season knowing that
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: you have some dudes on the team that you can
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: rely on to be pretty good and then there's always
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: those players that really raise their ability during the season
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: is there a player that you could think of from
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: your team this year that has stepped it up perhaps
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: more than you've.
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 15: Expected Uh, that, that's a really astute observation, Tyler. And,
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 15: and you're right. You're going to find those guys on,
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 15: on every team. We already talked about Josiah.
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 12: He's certainly one, uh, one guy that we're, um, that
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 12: we're kind of missing at the moment and you saw
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 12: him play, you know, kind of sparingly on Friday. Um,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 12: and that's case in Culp, um, a senior for us.
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 12: That's just had, you know, really, really fine senior year. Um,
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 12: dealing with a little bit of an injury, and he
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 12: just is chomping at the bit to come back. And
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 12: we're trying to be smart and sensible and protect him
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 12: from himself a little bit. But he's one of the
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 12: first ones to come to mind for me, certainly, as
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 12: somebody who has elevated his game and improved just a
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 12: ton and knows all of our receiver spots. and knows
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 12: where to align and what to do he's just super
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 12: valuable is doing a really good job with our younger
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 12: players also mentoring them and helping them out and then
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 12: can play you know a couple different spots which he
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 12: has this year on defense so uh he's he's really
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 12: kind of the epitome of what um we like to
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 12: think as a, as a Meridian football player, not only
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 12: is he a generational.
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 15: Guy that, you know, his dad played for us.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 12: Um, but you know, we talk to kids about, you know,
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 12: the more that you know how to do, the more
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 12: valuable you're going to be to the team and, and
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 12: be able to create opportunities for yourself to contribute.
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 15: And, and he's absolutely lived up to that.
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: That's, that's a great point. You know, he is definitely
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: a guy that, you know, he had some moments last year,
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: but this year, you know, it's, you know, especially in
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: that the Colville game. I mean, he's really had big,
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: big moments and it's been a lot of fun to see. And, and, um,
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: like you brought up, you know, his dad was a
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: phenomenal player, uh, back on that 99 state championship team averaged, like,
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know, 78 yards a catch or whatever crazy
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: number it was. A lot of bombs down the field
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: to 81 there. Um, and this Friday night, you're back
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: at home finally, and you're playing the, playing the Sehome Mariners.
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: And I love, when two local teams come together for
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: a non-conference game, it makes my job a heck of
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: a lot easier. And, and it's a lot, so it's
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of fun. I love these, you know, I
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: go back to the 06 season. You guys played an
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: amazing game against them that year. Also to open up
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: the 03 season, a great game against a very good
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: Seaholm team that year. And so there's been some prior matchups,
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: but it's been a while. What can you tell us
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: about Seaholm's team this year?
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 12: When we watch him on film, we're really, really impressed
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 12: with number 50, the Rogers kid. He's just a heck
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 12: of a football player on both sides of the ball.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 12: So he's going to be top of mind for our
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 12: guys up front, knowing where he is and how to
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 12: deal with him on both sides of the ball. Obviously,
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 12: last week, their running back, who I think is just
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 12: a sophomore, um, had a really, really good game and,
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 12: and they exerted their will in that one, certainly. So, uh,
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 12: we know that we're going to have, you know, our,
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 12: our hands full, but you're right. It is kind of fun, um,
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 12: to play somebody that you're, you know, you're kind of
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 12: aware of, but we don't match up with very often. And, um,
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 12: we know that we don't know them as well as,
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 12: you know, we know the other teams and in Whatcom
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 12: County that we match up with often.
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 15: Um, so you're right.
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 12: It is going to be, it is going to be
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 12: fun to, to play another group of, kids from, from
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 12: our County that we don't match up with regularly.
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: And, you know, I'm, I'm just, it's just coming to
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: my head right now. I don't know if Seaholmes played
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: a game on natural grass this season to this point.
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 11: Oh, that's wild.
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: And so I, cause they, they, they hosted Linden. I
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: don't think they've played Burlington yet. It's not, I just can't,
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: it's not my Rolodex right now in my head. So
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know if they've actually played a game on
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: natural grass. So do you, is there anything that you
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: can think of, of like, you know, Hey, they, you know, they're, they,
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: they might not ever practice on this. There's, are there
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: things you can take advantage of there? Or is it just, Hey,
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: you just, you know, we just got to go out
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: and play football.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 15: Yeah, I think you just have to go out and play.
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 12: I mean, if the weather were going to be bad,
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 12: I don't think it's supposed to be. Maybe there might
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 12: be something to that, but that's not something that.
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 15: We've got enough to worry about, right?
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 12: Try to slow them down and block those guys than
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 12: thinking about whether or not they're going to have solid
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 12: footing or be worried about playing a Whatcom County on
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 12: a grass field.
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you look at Sion from week
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: one to last week, I feel like there's been a
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: lot of improvement. They're a team that's kind of started
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: to build their identity with their running game. You've played
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: some really run-heavy teams so far, so at least you've
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: kind of seen that a little bit, and you've had
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: success against these teams. I mean, I know that Onalaska
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: is a different kind of running team, and Colville is
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: a different kind of running team, uh, you know, see
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: him as more just double tight, a single backfield and
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: just give the ball to him 30 times. Is there
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: anything that you could be like, Hey, this worked against
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: on Alaska. We could try that here. Or is it
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: completely different because of the styles?
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 15: Yeah, it's, it's different.
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 12: It's, it's more similar, I guess, to, to trying to
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 12: match up with, with Lynn and Christian and just the,
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 12: the sets that they run and the blocking schemes they
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 12: run and the way that, you know, They're going to
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 12: try to keep it between the tackles. There's some similarity
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 12: in style there for sure. And yeah, we like to
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 12: think that we've learned about our team and about what
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 12: we need to do differently as coaches to prepare our
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 12: team to be able to defend a team that's going
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 12: to come downhill at you like that. So yeah, there
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 12: are some things that are in our recent history that
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 12: we're hoping have informed the way that we're going to
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 12: be able to defend these guys.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 6: Absolutely.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: Best of luck Friday against Seaholm. Thank you so much
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: for joining me today on the Gatorade Game Day Podcast, Coach.
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: Good luck.
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 15: Thank you, Tyler. Always a pleasure.
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: And then finally, the Squalicum Storm will be hosting the
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: Lakewood Cougars. Squalicum, you know, they came off a four-game
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: losing streak and defeated Sultan last week on the road.
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: Game-winning field goal by Elias Laranaga and... You know, and
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: one thing I would like to mention, too, is the
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: long snapper for Squalicum. He shoots missiles back there. I
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: don't know if I've seen a better long snapper in
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: Whatcom County history. You know, Jake Mason was very, very good.
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: Randy Fleming going back to the 90s was very, very good.
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: There's been a few that have been just really accurate
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: and on the money every single time. But I don't
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: like if you're taking a stopwatch out and clocking it.
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know if anyone's doing what Eli Chavez is
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: doing at Squalicum. He will definitely go play somewhere high
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: level as a long snapper, which is not the most
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: glorious position, but he is really taken to it. And
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: it really helps that special teams going and a big
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: reason why Laranaga is able to get off these kicks.
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: And like I said, he got off the game winning
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: kick against Sultan. And this is a part of their
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: schedule now where it will start to calm down a
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: little bit as Squalicum will take on the Cougars. And
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: I think the storm is, you know, they're going to
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: be heavily ranked in this one. Um, it's going to
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: be back at civic stadium. I, I really feel like,
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: you know, after getting that win against Sultan, that fifth
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: spot is theirs to hold on to right now. And, um,
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: they kind of have the advantage over other teams for that,
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: for that spot. And, um, this is one where you
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: get another win here and even, it makes it even
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: easier for you to claim that fifth postseason spot and,
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: I really feel like the storm has what it takes
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: to do that. And, you know, the run game has
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: been great. We saw Phoenix Price with that big pass
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: to Mason Sone late against Squalicum, which enabled the kick,
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: the game-winning field goal there. And Tucker Hofstede, I mean,
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: we've seen what he does as a running back, just
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: a sophomore, but what he's doing on the defensive line
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: as of late has really, really stood out. Just super
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: active makes tons of plays, makes a lot of them
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: behind the line of scrimmage. And so I'm really loving
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: what the Storm are doing right now. And it's going
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: to be interesting because Lakewood loves to pass the ball.
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: So it's going to be about the secondary, you know,
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: Wilsoni and Hoffman and those guys be able to stay
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: in coverage long enough and you got to spy that quarterback.
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: So I don't know if that'll be Noah Gilbert or
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: Brock Scammell. Someone's going to have to keep an eye
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: on that quarterback because he will take off and run
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: quite a bit. So you got to be leery of
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: all that stuff. And then, you know, offensively, I think
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: you just keep pounding the ball and that's going to
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: be a big thing for the storm going forward. Well,
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: that wraps up all the games that are coming up
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: on Friday night. Be sure to check out the Wacom
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 1: preps YouTube page for Gatorade game day live. We'll bring
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: you all the action of all eight games, updated scores
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: to the second of everything going on. We'll show you
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: highlights of plays as soon as they happen. Um, we'll
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: be able to go live to a few games. I
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: believe the, um, Lyndon Christian Nooksack game will be able
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: to go live. Bellingham and a Cordis will be able
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: to go live. Burlington Edison at Lyndon will be able
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: to go live. So really excited about all those things. And, uh,
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: It's going to make for a very busy Friday night,
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: so hopefully everybody tunes in when they're able to, and
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: we'll be able to catch you then. Until then, this
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: has been Episode 457, the Week 7 Gatorade Game Day
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: Football Preview. I am Tyler Anderson of Whatcom Preps, and
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: I'll talk to you next week.