Latest / Whatcom Preps Podcast / Whatcom Preps Podcast Episode 460 - Week 8 Gatorade Gameday Football Preview

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Whatcom Preps Podcast Episode 460 - Week 8 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 460. It's the week eight Gatorade game day football preview.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: And I am Tyler Anderson of Whatcom Preps. Walton Beverage
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: has been a staple in our community for 95 years,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and I will continue to work harder every day to
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: make the fantastic people at Walton Beverage proud to sponsor
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: youth sports in our community. They deliver superior quality and commitment,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and I plan to do the very same. Also, do
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: you live in Whatcom, Skagit Island, or San Juan County
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and want to become an official? Officiating is a great
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: way to give back to your community and ensure our
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: youth have an opportunity to compete in athletics. Go to nwofficials.com
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and find out how you can get involved today. All right, well,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: we got a full docket again, and this time it's
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: spread out like I'm like last week where all the games,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: every team in Whatcom County was playing on Friday night.
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  Speaker 1: We got a Thursday game. We got a Saturday game
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  Speaker 1: and a bunch of Friday night games. It's going to
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: be another tremendous weekend of football. So starting off, let's
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: go in chronological order. We'll start off with the Thursday
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: night game as Sultan comes to town to take on
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  Speaker 1: the Blaine Borderites and Sultan three and four on the
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: year facing really tough competition this year in the Northwest
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: conference to a classification. Um, we've seen them with wins
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: over see home wins over Bellingham and they like to
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: run the ball quite a bit right now. Max preps
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  Speaker 1: has them ranked 34th in class to a, uh, the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: blame border rights two and five on the year. Uh,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: one of those wins coming by forfeit. The other one
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: came in week one. So, uh, They are looking to
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: get a big win. They are at home. Like I said,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: they're ranked 23rd in maps and max preps ranking in
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: class one. I'm now joined on the Gatorade game day
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  Speaker 1: podcast by Blaine head football coach, Andy Olson coach. Thank
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: you for joining me today. How are you doing? I'm
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: doing well, Tyler.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: How are you?
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: I am also doing well. You're on a road trip
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: for at least five hours. What snack do you have
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: close by?
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  Speaker 3: Hmm.
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  Speaker 4: You know, there's the, At Blaine, there's the new gas
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  Speaker 4: station kind of across the road from the high school,
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: that Ben's Hill Market that's just gigantic. It's like a
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: superstore for gas stations. And they usually have, like, this
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: random assortment of trail mix. And I've been kind of
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: into the Cajun, like, sweet, spicy trail mix.
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: Oh, interesting.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I actually don't even know the brand of it.
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: But I just walk in there, and there's usually, like,
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: six different variations, and I try one.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: That's the go-to.
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  Speaker 1: That's awesome. I think I know the guys that you're
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: talking about. I think is that the one that has
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: a big TA over it? And I'm like, hey, that's
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  Speaker 1: my initials. So it's like that's calling me in there.
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  Speaker 6: There you go.
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  Speaker 1: On Friday, you went out to Deming. And on the scoreboard,
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  Speaker 1: things didn't go your way as you came away with
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: a loss. But I thought you accomplished some good things
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: in the game.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: You know, there's times when we talk about, you know,
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: the idea of a glorious defeat. when you walk off
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  Speaker 4: the field and you feel proud of your efforts and
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: what that feels like, and even though the scoreboard doesn't
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  Speaker 4: say what you want it to say, you're like, man,
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  Speaker 4: we got better and we played hard and we did
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: the little things right and we represented ourselves well.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: And we felt like we did that on Friday.
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  Speaker 4: So even though we lost, we didn't feel like necessarily
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  Speaker 4: we lost in our own standard. We talk about often,
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  Speaker 4: you know, we're competing against ourselves and then there's obviously
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  Speaker 4: opponents on there, but it's about, you know, trying to
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  Speaker 4: play our best self.
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  Speaker 8: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And I really felt like the kids played hard all
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  Speaker 1: four quarters. And I mean, seriously, it felt like they
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: were not looking at the scoreboard. They were looking at
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: their teammates and getting each other going. And it just
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  Speaker 1: had that feel to it. And it made for a
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  Speaker 1: really fun game to watch. So, yeah, it was pretty cool.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, we talk about that going into the year.
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  Speaker 4: What is our goal as a coaching staff with a
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: young group of kids? And we want to maximize the
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: talent that we have and also teach them life lessons, right?
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  Speaker 4: So football is football and it's great.
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  Speaker 2: It's a wonderful mechanism to teach lessons.
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  Speaker 4: And, you know, ultimately sometimes you're going to have, you know,
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  Speaker 4: really tough days or tough situations in life, but how
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  Speaker 4: do you approach that?
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  Speaker 8: Who do you lean on?
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  Speaker 4: Can you focus on your controllables and not worry about
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: those other things? And it's fun when you get to
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  Speaker 4: this point in the year and you can start to
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  Speaker 4: see that maturation happen for kids, right? where they were
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  Speaker 4: becoming better young men through the game of football, and
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  Speaker 4: I felt like we did that on Friday.
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  Speaker 1: Speaking of maximizing efforts, Isaac Bauma, my goodness, 13 catches
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  Speaker 1: for 201 yards. Is it true that he just started
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: playing football last year?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah. He didn't play as a freshman. He loves the
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: weight room. We got him out as a sophomore. I
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: think he had some hesitations about playing, and then he
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: realized that he enjoys the game. um and he's just
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  Speaker 4: grown so much and physically and you know as a
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  Speaker 4: competitor too um just terrific effort and he's a one
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  Speaker 4: of those iron men for us like he doesn't come
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  Speaker 4: off the field as we play him on defense too
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  Speaker 4: so he walks a lot of miles on a friday
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  Speaker 4: night but uh i think you're gonna see the grit
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: in the fourth quarter when he's still sprinting his routes
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  Speaker 4: and stemming them appropriately and going and playing the football
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  Speaker 4: and You know, he's also so critical of himself while
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: he had the 13 catches for 200-whatever yards.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, his first comment was, well, I dropped three passes.
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  Speaker 8: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: I'm like, that's relatable. That sounds like me at that
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: age a little bit. Granted, I never got the ball
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: thrown to me, Tyler.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, you touched the ball every play.
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  Speaker 2: I missed this block.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Coach, you touched the ball every play, let's be honest.
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  Speaker 8: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So, I mean, it was really cool. He just kept
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  Speaker 1: going and going, and so I'm so excited. And, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it's really sad about his brother not being able to play,
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  Speaker 1: but him kind of stepping into that role, really, and
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  Speaker 1: being that go-to target has been awesome. And you played
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: a different style of offense. We talked about it last
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: week and how you prepared for it. And it kind
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: of allowed you to play perhaps a little different style
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: of defense with some extra linebackers. You insert sophomore James
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Luce into the lineup, and he made some great plays.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: How about that?
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  Speaker 2: I love James Luce.
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  Speaker 4: James Luce has been kind of our lead-by-example kid, even
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: since he was a freshman.
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  Speaker 2: He works really hard. He's pretty soft-spoken.
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  Speaker 4: He shows up, and on the scout team, he's just
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  Speaker 4: a menace. And, you know, we got to the point
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  Speaker 4: where we're like, man, you know, he's pretty small. I
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: think he's probably weighing about $ 1. 38 right now. But he
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  Speaker 4: just tackles everything at practice. We're like, hey, we've got
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: to give this kid a look. And when we told
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: the team that James Lewis was going to start for
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  Speaker 4: us at linebacker, they all erupted. They were fired up
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  Speaker 4: for him, so. Just a really great kid with a
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  Speaker 4: bright future who continues to grow and work. And you're
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  Speaker 4: going to be talking about James Lewis for a couple
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: of years here.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm excited about that. And that was, you know,
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  Speaker 1: it was so funny because, you know, I watch all
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  Speaker 1: these games and your defense has been a pretty constant
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  Speaker 1: this year where it's kind of been the same 11.
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  Speaker 1: I'm used to the numbers. I'm doing the stats. And
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I had to keep looking, 25. I had to keep looking, 25.
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I got to lock that in because
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: you're right. He is going to be a guy that
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: we're going to be looking for for quite a while here.
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  Speaker 1: And this Thursday night, short turnaround. You're back at home
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  Speaker 1: against 2A Sultan. What can you tell us about the Turks?
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  Speaker 2: Sultan is tough this year.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I think if you look at them historically,
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  Speaker 4: you're going to be like, you know, they've had some
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  Speaker 4: down years.
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  Speaker 2: They are big.
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  Speaker 4: They are physical. They've played a lot of games. good
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  Speaker 4: 2A teams close in the last month of football. A
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: lot of losing to Burlington Edison in overtime. Went and
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  Speaker 4: got Seaholm. Played close with Squalicum. Physically, they look all
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  Speaker 4: the part of the Northwest Conference 2A league. They're going
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  Speaker 4: to present us some fun challenges. It is a nice
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  Speaker 4: kind of progression. I'd love to take credit for this,
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  Speaker 4: but this is our athletic director. They run some similar
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  Speaker 4: stuff to Mount Baker, so we kind of get to
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  Speaker 4: go in from Baker to Sultan and There's a lot
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  Speaker 4: of similarities as far as the defensive game plan might
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  Speaker 4: go against Sultan because they're going to run.
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  Speaker 2: A version of the wing tee. So that part's awesome.
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  Speaker 4: And, you know, we got, we're going to play them
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  Speaker 4: on a Thursday night. So a little bit of long
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  Speaker 4: weekend and, you know, our kid's going to get out
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  Speaker 4: and get to watch some high school football on Friday,
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  Speaker 4: which will be fun too.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really, that's pretty cool. I love, I love
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  Speaker 1: seeing that when that happens is going out to a
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  Speaker 1: game on a Friday night and all of a sudden, Hey,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: there's this kid.
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  Speaker 9: Oh, that's good.
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  Speaker 1: Um, and you know, the big thing about Sultan I've
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: noticed is, well, I just said it, I think the
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: big thing, I mean, they are gigantic on the offensive line.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, going from like six, three to six, seven, uh,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: big dudes. And I, you know, take me back with,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: was Meadowdale maybe that big on the offensive line or
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: assault even bigger, maybe.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Um, so it might be taller. I would say Meadowdale
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: was bigger.
• 9:29
  Speaker 9: Okay. Yeah.
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: Athletes go. I mean, Meadowdale had 27 or 29 seniors
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: on the roster. And, you know, they still haven't lost
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: a football game, Tyler. They're undefeated right now. So the
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: Meadowdale is a little bit of a different animal there
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: as far as depth and size and speed goes.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: So they are very large, and they're well coached.
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: And we saw them a little bit at the Jamboree
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: and Meridian throughout back to August there.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: And you kind of got the impression, like, oh, you know,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: so it's going to be all right. They're going to
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: come and compete. in the 2A Northwest Conference. And they've
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: done just that.
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: So tribute to their coaching staff and the culture that
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: they have there.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, watching their game last week, I believe it was,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: or I'm trying to remember which one I saw. Or no,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: it might have been the Squalicum game. the halfback pass
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: for a touchdown and stuff like that. So there's some
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: new wrinkles that you might have to prepare for a
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: little bit. And, and also I think it was this,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I think it was a Bellingham game and the Squalicum
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: game where boy, you kick it on side and that,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: that up man will bring it. And so you gotta
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: be ready for that too. So they like to prepare.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: And like you said, they've kind of had some down years,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: but my goodness, this year they are, You know, I
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: don't know if they're senior heavy or what it is
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: or if this is kind of their year, but they're
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: really challenging some teams. And it makes for a really
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: good football game on Thursday.
• 10:52
  Speaker 10: Absolutely.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think they got a good blend. Just looking
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: at their offensive line, they have three seniors and two juniors.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: So they're pretty average age, I'd say, across the board there. But, yeah,
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: our scout team was real fired up about the idea
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: of doing halfback passes this week. You know, that was
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: exciting for them because, you know, last weekend ready for
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: Baker where they pretty much get their brains bashed in
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: a little bit in the scout team. They're like, yeah,
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: let's go throw the ball at halfback passes and do
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: these things.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: And coach, can we put in another trick play? Yeah, sure.
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: Let's have some fun with it. So yesterday we got
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: after a little bit doing some kind of crazy things.
• 11:27
  Speaker 8: But yeah.
• 11:28
  Speaker 6: Oh, man.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's going to be a fun one. And,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: you know, it's what's great about it is. I probably
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: get to go out there cause it'll be on Thursday night.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: So I'm excited about that. Best of luck on Thursday
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: against Sultan. Thank you so much for joining me today
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: on the Gatorade game day podcast.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Thanks Tyler.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: All right, now let's move on to the Friday games.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: We will stay in one a here. We'll start right
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: out with Mount Baker, the Mountaineers at five and two
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: going on the road to take on the Linden Christian
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: links who are also five and two, you know, last
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: year's game was just a, The one that will be
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: very memorable for many reasons. It was great all the
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: way through from the beginning to the last play. A
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff going on. And so this will be
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: a great rematch as well. You know, they're not the
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: same teams as last year. Both these teams went to
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: the semifinals, but there's a lot of different names and
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: faces right now on this year's teams for both squads.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: And as of right now, the Max Preps rankings, they
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: have Mount Baker ranked 7th in the state, Lyndon Christian 3rd.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: It's a little different in the coaches poll that just
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: came out. Mount Baker is ranked 5th in the coaches poll.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Lyndon Christian is ranked 3rd. I'm now joined on the
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Gatorade Game Day podcast by Mount Baker Head Football Coach
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Ron Lepper. Coach, thank you for joining me today. How
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: are you doing?
• 12:48
  Speaker 8: I'm doing well.
• 12:49
  Speaker 11: Always a pleasure to be able to spend some time
• 12:51
  Speaker 11: with you, Tyler.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Coach. You're on a road trip, at least
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: five-hour drive. What snack do you have close by?
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: Oh, my Cheeto Puffs.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: That's a go-to right away, right?
• 13:05
  Speaker 8: That's my wife.
• 13:06
  Speaker 11: As soon as we get out of the county, it
• 13:07
  Speaker 11: counts as a road trip, and we've got to pick
• 13:09
  Speaker 11: up some Cheeto Puffs.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: You got to be careful with the orange steering wheel,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: but other than that, you think you're okay.
• 13:16
  Speaker 8: I've got plenty of napkins.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: Oh, there you go.
• 13:18
  Speaker 8: All set. All the way.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Set to go. Speaking of orange, on Friday you hosted Blaine,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: came away with a 34-7 win. Tell us about the game.
• 13:30
  Speaker 8: How'd you like that set up for you with the orange?
• 13:32
  Speaker 10: Yeah, thank you.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Segway, baby.
• 13:36
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, you know, the week lead up to that,
• 13:40
  Speaker 11: you know, we come off a big win over Nooksack,
• 13:44
  Speaker 11: and we want to make sure we stay focused and
• 13:46
  Speaker 11: continue to work on some things. And so I thought
• 13:49
  Speaker 11: the kids had a good week of prep and then,
• 13:51
  Speaker 11: you know, got to win the game. And we made
• 13:55
  Speaker 11: a couple little mistakes, but we were able to overcome
• 13:57
  Speaker 11: those and, you know, give Blaine a lot of credit.
• 14:00
  Speaker 11: They played really hard. They had a good scheme. They
• 14:02
  Speaker 11: had a really good game plan, especially in the first half.
• 14:05
  Speaker 11: you know, really using time to run, you know, time
• 14:09
  Speaker 11: off the clock. And so that forced us to be,
• 14:13
  Speaker 11: you know, we had to be really efficient on offense
• 14:16
  Speaker 11: in that first half especially. And, you know, the second half,
• 14:19
  Speaker 11: then they had to fill the ball a little bit
• 14:20
  Speaker 11: more because we had a little bit of a lead.
• 14:22
  Speaker 11: And so overall, you know, they got some yards, but
• 14:25
  Speaker 11: we were able to make stops when we needed to.
• 14:27
  Speaker 8: And then we were able to find the end zone
• 14:28
  Speaker 8: a couple times. And overall, yeah, a good, solid Northwest
• 14:31
  Speaker 8: Conference game.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I loved that, you know, five touchdowns, five different
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: guys scored. I love that, you know, your three different
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: senior running backs all scored on senior night. It kind of,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a lot of things kind of came together in a
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: good way, plus you get the win. And you talked
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: about it a little bit where the defense gave up
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: some yards, but only the one touchdown. Was there kind
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: of a bend but don't break game plan going in
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: or did it just kind of end.
• 14:58
  Speaker 8: Up that way? I think it kind of ended up
• 15:00
  Speaker 8: that way.
• 15:00
  Speaker 11: Like, you know, they did some things on the back,
• 15:03
  Speaker 11: you know, in the secondary that, you know, caused us
• 15:05
  Speaker 11: a couple of issues to kind of figure out. But,
• 15:08
  Speaker 11: you know, like I said, give them some credit. You know,
• 15:10
  Speaker 11: they had a good game plan coming in. And so obviously,
• 15:14
  Speaker 11: you know, when you go into a game, you'd like
• 15:16
  Speaker 11: to shut somebody down. But theoretically, that's just not how
• 15:18
  Speaker 11: it is nowadays, especially with so many different ways you
• 15:21
  Speaker 11: can move the ball, you know, back to the old
• 15:23
  Speaker 11: school days when, you know, pretty much everybody just ran
• 15:25
  Speaker 11: the ball and you had the, you know, seven, six, 14, 13,
• 15:28
  Speaker 11: you know, kind of games because, you know, run the
• 15:31
  Speaker 11: ball and, you know, and playing, you know, smashing off ball. But,
• 15:35
  Speaker 11: you know, throw the ball, you make one mistake and
• 15:37
  Speaker 11: all of a sudden, you know, a big play happens
• 15:39
  Speaker 11: and it can turn a game really quick.
• 15:42
  Speaker 8: Absolutely.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: There's one senior I wanted to kind of point out
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and talk about, and that's Titan Arnold. I feel like
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: when I saw, I brought this up in a podcast,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: I think when I saw him in July, there was a,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: out at Linden, there was a scrimmage out there and, and,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and he was doing some good things, but I was
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: kind of, I was kind of worried about like, he's
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: not getting out of his stance quick enough. I'm like, man,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I hope he can, I hope he can get moving
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: pretty well. He's a big kid. And this year, boy,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: it seems like, and especially on defense, like he's moving
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: around quite a bit. Um, how has his progression been? And, and, uh,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: what have you liked about his game so far?
• 16:22
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I think that's a fair, you know, assessment there.
• 16:27
  Speaker 11: You know, he transferred into us from another school, so
• 16:29
  Speaker 11: we had to kind of get used to how we
• 16:30
  Speaker 11: do things. It was a little bit different there. You know,
• 16:33
  Speaker 11: we don't go backwards very often on, you know, on purpose,
• 16:37
  Speaker 11: up front, and so just trying to get him to
• 16:39
  Speaker 11: get in and buy into what we're doing, and he's
• 16:42
  Speaker 11: a great kid. You know, he's a real big part
• 16:44
  Speaker 11: of the team. The kids, you know, he just gets
• 16:46
  Speaker 11: along with everybody. He's you know, does some really nice
• 16:49
  Speaker 11: things in the locker room with the kids, you know, keep,
• 16:51
  Speaker 11: you know, has bonded well that way, but then, you know,
• 16:54
  Speaker 11: continually reminding him what we need out of him because
• 16:57
  Speaker 11: he is a big kid. And so we get him going.
• 17:00
  Speaker 11: And if he does that, then it's good things for us.
• 17:02
  Speaker 11: And so, you know, he's taken that on, he's worked
• 17:04
  Speaker 11: hard and, you know, we just constantly want to continue
• 17:06
  Speaker 11: to build that and keep pushing in the right direction.
• 17:09
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: And there's been, you know, there's been, you've had a
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: lot of right tackles over the years that have been
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: big kids that, you don't play a ton on defense,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: but he's really starting to get a lot of minutes
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: on defense, a lot of snaps, I should say. And, and, uh,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: and he's really benefited and it's helped you guys out
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: because it's been a, he's been playing really well. Uh,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: this Friday, you're back on the road against Linden Christian, uh,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: always a tough team. And, and, uh, this year is
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: no different. Tell us about this year's links.
• 17:37
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 17:37
  Speaker 11: I mean, they're, they're a really good football team. They're
• 17:39
  Speaker 11: probably as good as any team in the state at
• 17:41
  Speaker 11: our level. Um, You know, they're up there. They've got weapons.
• 17:45
  Speaker 11: You know, they've got some big men on the interior.
• 17:49
  Speaker 11: Coaching staff does a good job, gets them prepared. So,
• 17:52
  Speaker 11: you know, going in, we understand that, you know, we've
• 17:55
  Speaker 11: got to make sure that we're taking care of our business.
• 17:57
  Speaker 11: You know, to make sure that, you know, it starts
• 17:59
  Speaker 11: with understanding what they kind of want to do, making
• 18:01
  Speaker 11: sure we're aligned right and we have the right, you know, responsibilities.
• 18:04
  Speaker 11: You know, one blown coverage or one, you know, mental
• 18:08
  Speaker 11: breakdown because you didn't hear the play or something can
• 18:11
  Speaker 11: really be a big deal. You know, for us offensively, because,
• 18:15
  Speaker 11: you know, they've done a really good job fishing the
• 18:16
  Speaker 11: goal line defense as, you know, offensive. We have to
• 18:19
  Speaker 11: be efficient offensively. They've done a good job running the ball. So,
• 18:23
  Speaker 11: you know, they can keep the ball away from you
• 18:25
  Speaker 11: a little bit. So, yeah, we're excited about the opportunity.
• 18:28
  Speaker 11: You know, again, you know, after the Onalaska game, you know,
• 18:32
  Speaker 11: we've kind of got back after a little bit. And
• 18:34
  Speaker 11: so expecting a really good football game this, you know,
• 18:38
  Speaker 11: on Friday night and probably be a little physical and
• 18:41
  Speaker 11: we'll see what happens.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: You know, they've played a couple of wing T teams,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: prominent ones, obviously with Bellevue and Archbishop Murphy. And I mean,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: I guess, I don't know if Archbishop Murphy is really,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: you know, wing T, but, but when you, but is there,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: so it's a benefit to them obviously because they've seen
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, but that can, can that benefit you
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: too as well and say, Hey, this is what they
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: did against this team. Is there something you can pull
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: from that at all?
• 19:05
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 19:06
  Speaker 11: I mean, you're always watching the film and you're looking
• 19:08
  Speaker 11: for that stuff. So hopefully, you know, there's some things that,
• 19:10
  Speaker 11: we might be able to take advantage of, you know,
• 19:14
  Speaker 11: and seeing what other teams are able to do using
• 19:16
  Speaker 11: the same kind of type of offense, just like anybody else.
• 19:19
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 19:19
  Speaker 11: Like, you know, if you watch the game from, you know, last,
• 19:22
  Speaker 11: you know, last week against us at Blaine, you know,
• 19:24
  Speaker 11: so there might be some routes you want to put
• 19:26
  Speaker 11: together or something where we might've struggled a little bit.
• 19:28
  Speaker 8: So, yeah, I mean, it's, it goes both ways, but.
• 19:32
  Speaker 11: You know, ultimately it comes down to the kids, you know,
• 19:34
  Speaker 11: play by play execute and, you know, willing to compete
• 19:37
  Speaker 11: every play and then, you know, give it a great effort.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: You know, their passing attack, a lot of it is,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: you know, snap the ball, quick throw, and there's a
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: receiver on the outside that's blocking.
• 19:48
  Speaker 7: And.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: it just, they seem to do really well. They got
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: big guys out there with Veldman and Kiewich. They got
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: big tight end type bodies out there that can block.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Coach Horsman's got his hands full with that because it
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: just seems to be an extension of the run game
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: almost where you can pick up a big chunk of yards.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Is there a key to defending that or is it
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: just executing?
• 20:10
  Speaker 8: Well, I mean, it's both.
• 20:11
  Speaker 11: I mean, obviously defending, you know, you watch, you got
• 20:14
  Speaker 11: to make sure that, you know, the defensive back has
• 20:16
  Speaker 11: come up as playing what he's supposed to in our defense.
• 20:19
  Speaker 11: You know, watching one of the plays in one of
• 20:22
  Speaker 11: their games where they did that, what you're talking about,
• 20:25
  Speaker 11: threw it out there and the defensive back come up,
• 20:27
  Speaker 11: got to the inside and now there's nobody outside and
• 20:30
  Speaker 11: now you're in trouble, right? So, you know, our guys
• 20:33
  Speaker 11: have to make sure that they don't get outside of
• 20:35
  Speaker 11: there because their job is outside leverage and then Hopefully
• 20:38
  Speaker 11: we see that quick enough that we get guys scrambling.
• 20:41
  Speaker 11: We always try to promote on our program that we
• 20:44
  Speaker 11: want to get a lot of red hats on the
• 20:46
  Speaker 11: ball and then try to limit the damage of those
• 20:48
  Speaker 11: kind of plays.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Coach, you do a great job of that.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Gang tackling. I don't total up as many assisted tackles
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: with any other school than your school, and so that's
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: something to be proud of there. So best of luck
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: on Friday against the Lynx. Thank you so much for
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: joining me today on the Gatorade Game Day Podcast.
• 21:05
  Speaker 8: Thanks, Tyler, for having me again.
• 21:07
  Speaker 11: I know I say every week, but we mean it.
• 21:09
  Speaker 8: Thank you for all the work that you do for
• 21:11
  Speaker 8: the kids in the county. Thank you.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: You're welcome, Coach. Thank you. I'm now joined on the
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Gatorade Game Day podcast by Linden Christian head football coach
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Greg Terpstra. Coach, thank you for joining me today. How
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: are you doing?
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: I'm doing great.
• 21:24
  Speaker 12: I'm substituting in the Linden Christian shop class, and we
• 21:28
  Speaker 12: haven't lost a finger yet.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: How many times have you been the substitute in the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: shop class?
• 21:36
  Speaker 12: This will be my third day, but I'll be doing
• 21:41
  Speaker 12: it all week.
• 21:41
  Speaker 8: This week, yeah.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 21:44
  Speaker 10: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Watch out. You look about as happy as I've ever
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: seen you, Coach. This must be pretty fun for you.
• 21:51
  Speaker 12: Yeah, you know, for a guy who grew up hating
• 21:56
  Speaker 12: to go to school, hating to be in the classroom,
• 21:58
  Speaker 12: and then becoming a teacher, a sixth-grade teacher, it's a
• 22:02
  Speaker 12: little ironic, but I'll tell you what, man, this shop
• 22:04
  Speaker 12: class stuff, that's pretty cool.
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: I really dig it. And the ladies, they absolutely kill
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: it in here.
• 22:12
  Speaker 12: They're just so, they got the attention to detail and
• 22:15
  Speaker 12: every tool goes back to where it actually supposed to go.
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: It's phenomenal.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: You know, I've heard that from a lot of coaches
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: that have coached boys and girls sports, and they say
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: they love coaching girls because they, they, they, because they
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: take direction and you only have to tell them something
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: once that they do it the right way. So it
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: kind of reflects like this, doesn't it?
• 22:35
  Speaker 13: It does.
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: And oftentimes they're tougher.
• 22:41
  Speaker 8: Absolutely.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: All right, coach, you're on a road trip at least
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: five hours. What snack do you have close by?
• 22:47
  Speaker 12: Uh, I've got the, um, the little packets of the, the, uh,
• 22:52
  Speaker 12: mountain mix, you know, um, You know, the M & M' s,
• 22:58
  Speaker 12: the peanuts, the almonds, the, yeah, that sort of mountain
• 23:03
  Speaker 12: mix stuff that you get. I make my own bags
• 23:07
  Speaker 12: or get the pre-made bags. I've always got those.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, that's a good one. On Friday,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: you went out to No Snack Valley, picked up the win.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Tell us about the game.
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah, beautiful night, beautiful field. Boy, they do a nice,
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: nice job. The environment was fantastic. It was packed.
• 23:28
  Speaker 12: It was senior night for them, so a lot of
• 23:30
  Speaker 12: people there, a lot of interest. You know, they drove
• 23:34
  Speaker 12: right down on us, and we had a nice stand,
• 23:37
  Speaker 12: and they kicked a pretty substantial field goal there. And
• 23:42
  Speaker 12: then we returned the favor, but were able to punch
• 23:45
  Speaker 12: it in. And it was a little bit up and down.
• 23:48
  Speaker 12: Really proud of the defense. That's what really sticks out
• 23:52
  Speaker 12: to me. The defense and the goal line. Um, you know, those,
• 23:56
  Speaker 12: those stands, those goal line stands were just phenomenal. Um, just,
• 24:01
  Speaker 12: you know, it's almost like you never want that to happen.
• 24:04
  Speaker 12: You never want them to be there.
• 24:06
  Speaker 8: Right.
• 24:07
  Speaker 12: Um, back close knocking on the door and getting that
• 24:10
  Speaker 12: many snaps in that close, but, uh, kind of when
• 24:13
  Speaker 12: you reflect on it, you kind of, you kind of
• 24:16
  Speaker 12: cool with it happening because it was a, a growth
• 24:19
  Speaker 12: experience where these guys could really bow up and, and
• 24:23
  Speaker 12: draw a line in the sand and just kind of,
• 24:25
  Speaker 12: you know, defend it.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there was that one moment in the game, I mean,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: a first and goal at the one, Coach, and they
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: don't score. That is really tough to do on defense.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: And is there maybe a package you go to where
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: you go heavy there, or is it kind of more
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: of a base defense where you say, hey, look for
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: this and just attack?
• 24:47
  Speaker 12: It kind of depends on the squad we're going against,
• 24:50
  Speaker 12: you know. if we kind of think they're going to
• 24:53
  Speaker 12: get heavy, we'll go heavy. But it's no exact difficult
• 24:57
  Speaker 12: because they've got so many skill position guys, so many
• 25:01
  Speaker 12: weapons that, you know, you go heavy, then there's going
• 25:04
  Speaker 12: to be a mismatch on the outside. So that was
• 25:08
  Speaker 12: a little bit of cat and mouse game that I
• 25:09
  Speaker 12: think coach Bama played really well.
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: And I think the guys, the guys too kind of said,
• 25:15
  Speaker 5: you know, in this case, we don't need to go heavy.
• 25:17
  Speaker 12: We, we feel that we can defend all, you know,
• 25:21
  Speaker 12: 53 and a third just for the guys that we got.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you definitely did getting the stop there. Dawson
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Hines returned from injury and stood out playing wide receiver.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: He wasn't returning kicks, wasn't playing defense, at least that
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I saw. How has his recovery been?
• 25:38
  Speaker 12: Yeah, we're just managing it, you know, judiciously. Really proud
• 25:44
  Speaker 12: of the guys that have filled in. Blank has done
• 25:47
  Speaker 12: a great job running the offense. We have a couple
• 25:50
  Speaker 12: guys on defense that have filled in, and we trust them. Receivers,
• 25:55
  Speaker 12: it's nice to get a nice rotation. But, yeah, sending
• 25:58
  Speaker 12: Dawson out as a receiver is a matchup problem, we think,
• 26:03
  Speaker 12: no matter who's on the other side. So that was
• 26:07
  Speaker 12: the plan going in, that we would use him on
• 26:09
  Speaker 12: the field where it best presented a problem for the
• 26:14
  Speaker 12: other team.
• 26:15
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: And that's always, you know, that's what's so fun about
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the coaching part of it. You get to see everything
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: and decide, okay, I'm going to move this piece here.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: And then, and then when it happens and he has
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: big plays, it's, it's such a good feeling inside that
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: you did the right move and it's working and, And
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine how awesome that must feel.
• 26:34
  Speaker 12: You know, if you could just get more coaching, good
• 26:37
  Speaker 12: feelings of where things worked, this job would be a
• 26:41
  Speaker 12: lot easier.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: It's like, man, I might need to retire from this
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: and coach and just teach a shot complete year round.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: You know, last year's team, he went on a great run.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Obviously it was really good. good senior class and all
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: that stuff. And this year, you know, it looks very similar.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Is there, is there more similarities or differences between this
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: year or last year's team?
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: Boy, that's a good question. I think the leadership was great.
• 27:11
  Speaker 12: From last year's seniors and this year's seniors, but it
• 27:15
  Speaker 12: is different. Um, I'd say last year it was a
• 27:19
  Speaker 12: more of a, um, almost a fatherly sort of leadership.
• 27:24
  Speaker 12: And now it's a very energetic leadership. And as far
• 27:33
  Speaker 12: as skills-wise and body types go, I think there are
• 27:37
  Speaker 12: a lot of similarities. I think that we look a
• 27:42
  Speaker 12: lot the same on tape probably to a team that
• 27:45
  Speaker 12: doesn't know us very well.
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: They watched last year's and this year's.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And the great thing about both these years
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: is it's been a great team. It seems like with
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of these younger guys coming, it's going to
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: be great for a while. And one of the weapons
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: that you have that we've talked about a little bit
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: in the past, not a ton, is Jackson Yoon. And
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: you've talked about how he's stepped up to return kicks
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: and and play some offense and different things, but he's
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: the school's career record holder with eight field goals so far,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: and he's just a junior. Talk about how much of
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: a weapon that is because, you know, when you get
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: into the postseason and you're playing on turf, that's a
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: nice thing for a kicker. There's going to be close games.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: You're going to rely on him. How much of a
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: weapon is he?
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: Boy, I'll tell you what.
• 28:35
  Speaker 12: The greatest catch Friday night was when he was back punting,
• 28:42
  Speaker 12: And the snap got away from us over his head,
• 28:44
  Speaker 12: and he one-handed it over his back shoulder to snag
• 28:47
  Speaker 12: that thing.
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: And over the.
• 28:51
  Speaker 12: Communication system, I had my coaches telling me, no, no, no,
• 28:54
  Speaker 12: let's just do a quarterback quick kick. And I went
• 28:56
  Speaker 12: to full-on punt. Had that thing gone over his head,
• 28:59
  Speaker 12: I would still not hear the end of it from
• 29:01
  Speaker 12: my coaches. But that snag and getting that ball off,
• 29:05
  Speaker 12: you know, just that little thing is a great weapon, right?
• 29:08
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 29:08
  Speaker 12: Aside from his kicking. But if we reflect back on
• 29:11
  Speaker 12: his kicking, he's a guy that doesn't get nervous. He
• 29:14
  Speaker 12: loves to kick. I mean, like I said before in
• 29:18
  Speaker 12: the last interview, I think if we get stoned on
• 29:22
  Speaker 12: the 25 or 30, he's all jacked up.
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: Because he gets to go kick one.
• 29:27
  Speaker 12: He would just love to kick eight field goals and
• 29:31
  Speaker 12: win the game by field goals.
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: He just thinks that's really cool.
• 29:34
  Speaker 12: But now he's getting more involved yeah obviously with the
• 29:37
  Speaker 12: wide receiver and he wants to get in that D-back
• 29:39
  Speaker 12: so he's all around just a terrific athlete yeah.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: He's got those quick feet you're totally right about when
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: he jumped up and snagged that ball reminded me of
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Ray Guy in the Super Bowl and the Raiders against
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the Redskins same exact thing and and Ray Guy who
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: was an awesome athlete that actually had I think eight
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: interceptions his senior year in college. And then he goes
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: to the NFL and he's the first ever Hall of
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Fame punter. And it is cool to see all these
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: things that he's been doing and just a junior, which
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: is pretty incredible. This Friday night, you're back at home
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: against Mount Baker. What can you tell us about this
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: group of the Mountaineers?
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: Um, you know, they really play impassioned.
• 30:20
  Speaker 12: They, um, We got to watch them live in that
• 30:24
  Speaker 12: Nooksack game because we played on a Thursday. And just,
• 30:27
  Speaker 12: you know, you could feel their energy, their just willingness
• 30:32
  Speaker 12: to do whatever Coach Lepper asked them to do. We
• 30:35
  Speaker 12: saw that with their running back playing guard. And just
• 30:39
  Speaker 12: they love playing football. And we love playing teams that
• 30:43
  Speaker 12: love playing football because we think it makes for a
• 30:45
  Speaker 12: great night and brings out the best in both teams. And,
• 30:48
  Speaker 12: you know, we're going to really have to rely on
• 30:50
  Speaker 12: our offensive line A guy like Dylan Haskell really showed out,
• 30:55
  Speaker 12: I think, against Nooksack.
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: Just not only technically sound, just moving people.
• 31:00
  Speaker 12: And we're going to need those guys to do that
• 31:02
  Speaker 12: against Mount Baker, too. And Mount Baker is going to
• 31:05
  Speaker 12: give us everything they've got and should be a great show.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: When you prep during the week and you've been you've
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: prepped for a few of these wing T teams. And,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: you know, when I say a few, I mean, like
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: the best ones in the state. What kind of, you know,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: scout team look do you get? Do they enjoy, like, oh,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: we get to just run the ball over and over again?
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Or is there kind of some fun stuff to the
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: slight and with the scout team guys?
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, we will use a small ball. We'll use no ball.
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: We'll use a normal ball.
• 31:38
  Speaker 12: The scout team has taken this mantle, and they are
• 31:44
  Speaker 12: proud to do it well. Um, there are times where, um,
• 31:50
  Speaker 12: they'll say, man, this wing T offense works really well.
• 31:52
  Speaker 12: And I'll tell them, shut up. Don't ever say that
• 31:53
  Speaker 12: because we're not going to wing T, but they, they,
• 31:59
  Speaker 12: they think it's fun. And it is, it's, you know,
• 32:01
  Speaker 12: it's a, it's a real, uh, um, it's a real
• 32:05
  Speaker 12: difficult offense to diagnose. If you haven't seen it, um,
• 32:11
  Speaker 12: you have to be very disciplined. And if you're not,
• 32:14
  Speaker 12: you get burned, uh, And the scout team really celebrates that.
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: And sometimes maybe too much.
• 32:24
  Speaker 8: Oh, Coach.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: And, you know, I was going to ask you, too.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: I forgot to bring this up. But, you know, talking
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: about you brought up shortly about their new field out
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: at Sid Lambert Field at Nooksack. Was it, I mean, when, when,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: when a field is that new, it's still kind of spongy.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: It's not really broken in yet. Um, do you ever feel, okay,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: let's just say, let's say funds are not an issue. And, and, and, and, um,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: coach bomber came to you and said, coach, we have it.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: We can do a turf field. Are you in or out?
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: What would you say?
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: I would say I'm in, um, For this reason.
• 33:04
  Speaker 12: Now, I will say the most ideal football game is
• 33:08
  Speaker 12: played on really good grass.
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: This year, this is quite an exception. Our field is fantastic.
• 33:16
  Speaker 12: If I could choose the year, I'd say, okay, this year,
• 33:19
  Speaker 12: no turf. This year, just grass. Our field is spectacular
• 33:23
  Speaker 12: right now. It's never looked this good this late in
• 33:26
  Speaker 12: the year that I've ever witnessed. But that is not
• 33:29
  Speaker 12: a normal year. And We have Saturday morning youth kids
• 33:34
  Speaker 12: on there. We have seventh grade on there, eighth grade
• 33:37
  Speaker 12: on there, C-team, JV, us. You know, PE wants to
• 33:42
  Speaker 12: use it and that kind of thing. Cross-country meets want
• 33:46
  Speaker 12: to start and finish.
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: The races on it.
• 33:48
  Speaker 12: So, yes, it's held up this year, but I'd say
• 33:52
  Speaker 12: just in aggregate, a turf field, especially like the one
• 33:56
  Speaker 12: they've got, would be fantastic. I'd love to put it in. Um,
• 34:01
  Speaker 12: practices would be a lot cleaner. Um, but I also,
• 34:05
  Speaker 12: I'm going to sound really, really selfish here. Uh, what
• 34:09
  Speaker 12: I've heard from other schools that only have one field
• 34:13
  Speaker 12: is the sharing of that, that one field gets tough.
• 34:17
  Speaker 12: You get so many athletes on one field. Um, let's
• 34:20
  Speaker 12: say sock, this girl's soccer wants to practice on it
• 34:22
  Speaker 12: while the boys football's on it. That's a lot of
• 34:25
  Speaker 12: athletes in one spot. Um, so if you're going to
• 34:28
  Speaker 12: get one, do two. And I know, again, that sounds like, boy,
• 34:32
  Speaker 12: you're asking too much. But if you have all the
• 34:35
  Speaker 12: equipment down there, and maybe it saves you some money
• 34:39
  Speaker 12: to do all the drainage at one time, and you
• 34:42
  Speaker 12: put in a soccer turf field and then the football
• 34:45
  Speaker 12: turf field, and then if soccer wants to play a
• 34:48
  Speaker 12: game in front of the stands and a football team
• 34:51
  Speaker 12: needs to go practice on the soccer field, you know,
• 34:53
  Speaker 12: how about it?
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah, what would I prefer? I would prefer that.
• 34:56
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 34:59
  Speaker 12: Unless you could guarantee to me a beautiful grass field
• 35:05
  Speaker 12: every year, which you can't in this environment.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely up here in our corner.
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: That's a really wishy-washy answer.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: No, no, it makes sense.
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: But it is my feeling.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just curious because there's not a lot of
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: teams left that have a grass field, right? There's only, what,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: four of them now in Whatcom County, and you're one
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: of them. So I'm always curious, like, obviously they're all,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: there's a lot that goes into it. Dollars wise. I
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: just thought if dollar, if money wasn't an issue, would
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: you want it? And there might be schools that wouldn't.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: So I was just curious kind of how you looked
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: at it and, and you're right. It's something that it
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: can get multiple use and yeah.
• 35:46
  Speaker 12: Now, if you, if you go with the money aspect too, though,
• 35:50
  Speaker 12: I mean, there's irrigation, there's mowing, there's painting, there's the
• 35:55
  Speaker 12: robot painter and the paint that goes in it. Um,
• 35:58
  Speaker 12: There's just a lot of man hours that go into it.
• 36:00
  Speaker 12: And thankfully, we've had lots of great people who volunteer
• 36:03
  Speaker 12: or work for not very much to maintain it. I
• 36:07
  Speaker 12: got my cousin, Chris Leibel, who comes in and he
• 36:11
  Speaker 12: runs the painter. And he works for the city and
• 36:14
  Speaker 12: he cuts things short with his family and with his.
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: Job to go do it. We got guys like that
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: that do that.
• 36:20
  Speaker 12: And he doesn't even have a son playing. So we've
• 36:24
  Speaker 12: had those people step up. but maybe it's unfair to
• 36:29
  Speaker 12: keep asking that.
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't know.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Well, things are going well for you now, so you
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: probably don't want to change too much, Coach. Best of
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: luck on Friday against Mount Baker, and thank you for
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: joining me today on the Gatorade Game Day Podcast.
• 36:42
  Speaker 5: Appreciate all you do, Tyler.
• 36:43
  Speaker 8: Thank you.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: And the final 1A game of the weekend will also
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: take place Friday night, 7 o'clock, Bob Ames Field, Nooksack Valley.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: The Pioneers come to town to take on the Meridian Trojans.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Noxac Valley, 5-2 on the season. They started out 5-0,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: but they've dropped their last two. Two really good teams, though,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: and we'll have to see if they can get things
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: back together. They're ranked 6th in the state as far
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: as the coaches' poll goes. They're also ranked 6th in
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the state as far as Max Prep's rankings go. Meridian,
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: they've been showing a hot hand recently, and they're one
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: of the best teams, especially airing the ball out. They're
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: 4-3 on the year. They're ranked 8th in max preps
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: in the state of Washington for Class 1A. They are
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: not ranked in the top 10 in the coaches poll.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: I am now joined on the Gatorade Game Day podcast
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: by Nooksack Valley head football coach Craig Bartle. Coach, thank
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: you for joining me today. How are you doing?
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: Good, thank you. Thanks for having me again.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: You bet. Okay, you're on a road trip, at least
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: a five-hour drive. What snack do you have close by?
• 37:49
  Speaker 8: Snack?
• 37:54
  Speaker 6: Twizzlers.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, nice.
• 37:57
  Speaker 8: Twizzlers.
• 37:58
  Speaker 6: Strawberry flavor.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Oh, strawberry flavor. Now we're getting a little detailed here.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Those are pretty good. That reminds me of Wayne's World
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: when they had the red ropes coming out the light
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: fixture thing. Oh, that was awesome. Um, yeah, that, that,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: that's a good one. I'm getting a lot of different
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: answers this week with this one. And it's always, uh,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: it's always interesting. Everyone's done the, you know, the long
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: road trips and, and, um, you know, it's, uh, it's gotta,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: you gotta have something there that, you know, you can
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: rely on that. You can just go, go, go.
• 38:31
  Speaker 6: So, um, the last, the last long road trip.
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: So we were down, we picked up my daughter in
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: Texas and we went to South, I guess, kind of
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: told you this. We went to South Carolina, visited clubs
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: and got to meet Davo Sweeney. Went down to Florida.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: So on that type of trip, it's a Buc-ee's stop.
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: You've got to stop at Buc-ee's somewhere. And it's Buc-ee nuggets.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: The little popcorn things. Got to have Buc-ee nuggets. So
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: if you're down south and you can stop by a Buc-ee's,
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: you've always got.
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: To stop by a Buc-ee's.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: That's the region of the country. I'm not a big
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: traveler at all. Five years ago, I went on a
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: big trip where I did a Checked off a lot
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: of stuff off the bucket list going to all the
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Hall of Fames and everything. But the one spot in
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: the United States, well, other than like Hawaii and Alaska,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: that I haven't– the region I haven't really hit is
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: the south and the southeast there. You know, been to,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: you know, Northeast and the Midwest, you know, Michigan and
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: Ohio and stuff like that. I just haven't. So I
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: got to, I'll have to check that out sometime.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: It's a very pretty drive and it's, you know, you don't,
• 39:38
  Speaker 3: you don't realize how close things are, you know, five
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: hour drive here.
• 39:42
  Speaker 6: It seems like that to get you across the state.
• 39:44
  Speaker 14: Right.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: Once you get out of Texas, it, the five hour
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: drive gets you maybe into, two or three states just depends.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's that's one thing I really noticed about when
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: I went on my trip five years ago was man
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: it seemed like I mean there was 10 nights in
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: a row I woke up in a different state now
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: that doesn't mean I was in 10 different states but
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: I didn't I woke up in a different state from
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: the from the day before that I woke up in
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: if that makes sense yeah so it was uh so
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: it is crazy you're absolutely right when you're driving around
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: especially like in the Northeast when they're all really small States,
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: it's like boom, boom, boom. And your little, your little, uh,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: your phone is.
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: Like, welcome to Vermont.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: And they're like, Whoa, okay. I'm in Vermont. I didn't
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: know that. So, uh, yeah, that, that would be fun
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: to go out there and check that out. That's a,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: definitely a bucket list for me. And, and, uh, where,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: like you've been to Baylor university quite a few times
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: now with, with two daughters there, but what, like, uh,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: what city is that in or what, like what's the,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: what's the closest big city in Texas?
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: So Baylor's in Waco and then it's in between Dallas
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: and Austin.
• 40:51
  Speaker 13: So, okay.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of, yeah.
• 40:53
  Speaker 6: South of Dallas and an hour and a half North
• 40:55
  Speaker 6: of Austin.
• 40:56
  Speaker 10: Gotcha.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 40:57
  Speaker 8: Okay.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: I'm just trying to, in my head, I'm trying to
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: picture where that would be. So yeah, I was going
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: to say that's pretty much in the middle. So nice.
• 41:07
  Speaker 15: Awesome.
• 41:07
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Well, and, And my girlfriend, Laura, she's from Arlington. So
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: she would probably like to go back sometime and check
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: it out. So that might be happening. Plus, I want
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: to check out the Dallas JFK assassination area. I think
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: that's something I really want to see someday. But, you know,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I guess we'll talk football and shift gears a little bit.
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: So the fun part about going on the road trip,
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: just to go back to that, this is much more
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: exciting than it is. So Luke, my son and I,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: the goal was wherever we stopped if there was a
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: college stadium there was to get into the stadium. So
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: we would walk around the entire stadium and find a
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: gate or find a way to get in. We snuck
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: into LSU Stadium, Clemson Stadium. I've been into Alabama. We
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: went to Auburn. So that's Texas A & M.
• 42:04
  Speaker 6: I've been to their stadium. So that's the That's kind
• 42:08
  Speaker 6: of the goal.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: Him and I sneak around and pretend like we're construction
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: workers and somehow try to get into the stadiums just to.
• 42:15
  Speaker 8: Get a picture.
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: That is crazy because that would be fun to do.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not into college football as much as most people
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: only because my Saturdays are just crazy and I have
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: no clue what's going on. A couple years ago, I
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: went to Wyoming for a wedding with my girlfriend's cousin
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: was getting married. And Wyoming, there's just nothing there. But
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: they live in Laramie. And for some reason in my head,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: I went, Laramie? Isn't that where the Wyoming Cowboys play?
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Like that's where the stadium is? And I went on
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: my phone and it was two miles away.
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: I saw your picture.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: So I just walked over there and I walked into
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: the stadium and took pictures and I pretended like I belonged.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: And that's exactly what I did. I was like, I
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: wonder if there's a gate that's open.
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: And I just found one.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: That's the key.
• 43:09
  Speaker 6: You have to act like you belong and that you
• 43:12
  Speaker 6: know what you're doing. Just walk in.
• 43:13
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: We've actually like waved to somebody like, Hey.
• 43:16
  Speaker 9: Yeah, we know what we're doing.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And it was awesome. I mean, all I
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: can tell you is that Josh Allen played there. That's,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, I, you know, I don't know that much,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: but it was so cool to see that up close and,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: and to check that out. So that was a, what
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: a weird spot because there's nothing there. And then there's
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: just a stadium, but that's kind of college football for you, right?
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Most places on Friday, you hosted Linda Christian. They took
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: a 31 to 10 win. And tell us about the game.
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: So I'll talk about the game kind of like how
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: we talked about the game with the kids.
• 43:52
  Speaker 8: We didn't.
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: You know, it's one of those, we didn't.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: Watch film on it, and we kind of took a
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: weekend off. You know, normally we do something on Saturday,
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: and we, as a team, we just took it off.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: So it was time to... kind of just sit back
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: and just take a break. And, you know, I think
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: sometimes we forget that these kids have been going since August.
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: And for us, I mean, you get a Sunday off
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: for the kids, and usually it's lifting or film or.
• 44:24
  Speaker 6: Some Saturday games.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: So I think it was just time for us to
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: take a break and just kind of relax and just
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: get back to– Try to remember.
• 44:36
  Speaker 6: When we're having fun.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: I saw a video from the Brewers manager, Pat Murphy.
• 44:46
  Speaker 6: He said his job, and this.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: Relates to us as well as the high school coaches,
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: basically our job is not about wins and losses.
• 44:55
  Speaker 6: It's how do we impact players.
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: Sometimes we put a lot on wins and losses, but
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: our job is to get these kids to believe and
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: do things better than they think they can and to
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: push them to be the best versions of themselves.
• 45:12
  Speaker 6: In everything they do, whether it's schoolwork or football or
• 45:15
  Speaker 6: whatever it is.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: And, you know, sometimes you get lost in just kind
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: of the everyday stuff of the season. And we thought
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: this was a good time to kind of just take
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: a step back and kind of reflect on that from top.
• 45:30
  Speaker 6: To bottom, from me all the way down.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, We had a good discussion, good team
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: meeting yesterday, and we'll see what practice is like this
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: week and what happens on Friday.
• 45:42
  Speaker 6: But I think it was much needed for us.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such an underrated thing that probably a lot
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: of coaches don't think about is maybe at the end
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: of the season, you kind of just wipe your brow
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: and go, man, it would have been nice to take
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: a break at this point or here. And when you
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: have a veteran staff and it was probably, everyone probably
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: agreed and said, you know what, this would be a
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: good time. And so for it to work out well
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: like that, you know, I think that's, I think that's
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: really wise. And I think a lot of young coaches
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: might hear this and go, man, that's, there's definitely something
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: to that and it's kind of finding the right spot.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: So I think it's, I think that's a, that's, that's
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: well put. You have a new offensive coordinator this, this year.
• 46:24
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: In a Tyler Dubuque. who has been the offensive coordinator.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: He's won state championships as an offensive coordinator out of Anacortes.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: How has that worked out, and what has been the
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: biggest change in your offensive philosophy this season?
• 46:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah, he's doing a great job. The kids are getting
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: used to him.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: The hard part when he first came up is how
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: do we marry the two lingos? How do we marry
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: what we call plays and what we call stuff into
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: what he's used to calling stuff, and how do we
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: make it easier for for him and the kids. So
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: we kind of worked out a system and, um, you know,
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: we kind of morphed both of them into, you know,
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: a common language. Um, he's, he's brought, uh, you know,
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: similar offenses, but he, he, he, he brings a little
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: bit of a different dynamic as far as, you know,
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: trying to get guys in motion and, um, just some
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: of the things that he sees is, is beyond, you know, what,
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: what a lot of people see. And so, We call
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: him Mini Sarkeesian. If you ever listen to Steve Sarkeesian
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: talk about offense especially, that's Tyler.
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: That's how he thinks of things.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: I think one of the biggest differences that he's had
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: to probably adjust to is the 2A level, you have
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: a lot.
• 47:46
  Speaker 6: More kids than you do the 1A.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: It's easy to substitute guys in and out in that
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: 2A level and he had some pretty.
• 47:57
  Speaker 6: Good players as well.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: But we don't, you know, you don't really.
• 48:04
  Speaker 6: Have that luxury at times to just sub guys in.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, we have a lot of kids
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: that are going, you know, offense and defense and all
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: special teams, and they just don't have a break. And
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: so I think that has been a little bit of
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: an adjustment for him. But the kids have, you know,
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: gotten to know him, and he's very passionate at what
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: he does.
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: We're lucky to have him.
• 48:29
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: And it's been it's been fun to watch this offense
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: because you can see the little changes here. You know,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: and it's it's you know, it's a big change with
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: a sophomore quarterback. But, you know, having kind of these
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: double tight ends and stuff, it's a little different. And
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: then you kind of see, you know, things that. that
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: have the old offense. You see those, you see staples
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: of those with the quick outs and different things. And,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: and so it's fun to kind of see how it's
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: changed a little bit and, And then each week, I mean,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: you know, watching that end around pass was awesome. I mean,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: that was like, hey, look at that. Like that was
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: that's something we haven't seen yet this year. We'd seen
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: it in years past. But that was a that was fun. And,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: you know, and, you know, talk about Ty Barron's a
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: little bit, because I really thought this was probably his
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: best game. uh, offensively and defensively caught a pass as
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: well through that past, uh, got a sack on defense.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: And this is a kid that this is a, it's
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: a tough situation to be in when, you know, the
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: starting quarterback is you're, he's a quarterback. The starting quarterback
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: is younger than you. So you have to find a
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: place to, how can I help the team? He's been
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: great at this kind of outside linebacker spot. So how
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: has he taken to that, and how has that gone
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: so far this year?
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: I cannot say enough about Ty Burns. He, across the board,
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, in August, he's fighting for a starting job
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: as quarterback.
• 49:57
  Speaker 6: Right.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: And, you know, we're going to, you know, Jamboree, and then,
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: you know, we had to make a decision on– who
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: is going to start and Ty really hadn't been in
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: any other spots. And so, you know, we had that
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: conversation with him that we were going to go with
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: Lucas and it took Ty's credit.
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: He, he, he took that and said, okay.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: And, you know, we talked about the importance of, you know,
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: just being ready in case something happens to Lucas. And
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: he has been unbelievable. His attitude, like, he comes out
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: to practice every single day and he works hard. He's
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: always asking, what can I do? He's, he's playing kind
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: of our H back role now. So he still, he
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: still has to understand all the quarterback stuff, but now
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: he's playing kind of a hybrid running back, hybrid receiver
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: type position.
• 50:49
  Speaker 6: Um, so he's had to, to learn that. Um, and
• 50:53
  Speaker 6: you're right.
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: He, he's playing defense and, um, you know, I'm not
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: going to jinx him, but he has, uh, he, I
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: would agree with you. Last game was, was probably his
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: best game, but he's been really consistent lately. Just said
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: that defensive position and just, he hasn't complained once. He
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: didn't complain once about, about not being the quarterback and,
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: you know, he worked hard. So, and that's, that in
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: itself is really tough. You're coming into camp and you,
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: you're fighting for a spot and then.
• 51:26
  Speaker 8: You don't get it.
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: And how do you react to that? And so, I
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: can't say enough. I mean, overall, he has been what
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: we want all of our kids, not taking anything away
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: from anybody. But he has been that guy day in
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: and day out. And it's really, really cool to see.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's probably one of those things where it
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: can start to rub off on other players where they
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: want to do, hey, coach, what can I do to
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: help the team? Or how can I do this? How
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: can I do that? And so that's really nice to
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: have that. And he's a presence. I mean, he's a
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: big 6'4 kid that, you know, stands out when younger
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: kids are seeing that. Then they're going to go, wow,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: that's how you that's how to be a Nooksack Valley
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: pioneer right there. And he boots that 31 yard field goal, too.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's doing so many things. And and so
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: that's what's been so fun to watch. And and I
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: love that because it's especially in 1A, like you were
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: talking about, if you know you want your best 11
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: out there and. And even if you lose the starting spot,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: we're going to find a place for you. And you
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: definitely have in all three phases. This Saturday night, you're
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: back on the road against Meridian, Bob Ames Field. Tell
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: us about this year's Trojan team.
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: It's Friday night, right?
• 52:45
  Speaker 9: Oh, I'm sorry.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: I'm going to have to look to make sure.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: No, no, it is. It is Friday night. I still have,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: I'm still looking. I had to edit my questions that
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: I had with, with the Wateco Layton. His game is Saturday.
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: So I was going to have to adjust my practice schedule.
• 53:05
  Speaker 9: You know what?
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: Meridian has got some athletes out there on the field and,
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: and you know, Trey Alexander, he's, He's a weapon.
• 53:17
  Speaker 6: He can run.
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: He's really dangerous. Not only do you have to defend
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: the pass, but you have to defend him running. They
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: have a running game. They haven't used it a lot,
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: but we'll see.
• 53:33
  Speaker 6: They're good. They throw the ball a ton.
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: Last year, they threw it 67 times against us, and
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: then When they played it on Alaska, they threw it
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: 60-something times.
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: And so they're going to be– they're tough. And so
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: we're going to have to play really, really good just
• 53:50
  Speaker 6: to kind of keep it close.
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: You know, when you play a team like this where
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: you know they're going to air it out quite a bit,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: you know, you've made adjustments defensively where a lot of
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: times against pass-heavy teams you might go three-man front, kind
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: of like a 33 instead of a 42. Do you
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: look at where– man, we're going to have to play
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: dime the whole time? Or do you look at different
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: personnel based on that? Or do you go with kind
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: of who you've been and they just have to play
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: in a different spot?
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: A little bit of both. In playing against Marini, it's
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: tough because they can do everything. So, yeah, you have
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: to drop people back, but you also have to try
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: to get a pass rush because if Trace is back
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: there all day, he's going to pick teams apart. And
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: so how do you get pressure but not enough? but
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: not too much pressure where, you know, you flush him
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: out and then he can get you that way. And,
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: you know, Leonard Christian has a really good defense. And
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: I think he had, what, 200 yards rushing or something
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: like that. And so it's– they're hard to defend.
• 54:58
  Speaker 8: And, you know.
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: We'll kind of do what we normally do, but, you know,
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: maybe have a couple wrinkles in there and kind of
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: see what works, if anything.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: And the big thing that a lot of coaches talk about,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: and this might be something you'll work on in practice,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: or I don't know how you have to nail it
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: home to your defensive guys, but Meridian might have 60
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: offensive plays and they might have 40 different formations when
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: they really only ran 20 different plays. You know what
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: I mean? And so they do these little things to
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: kind of confuse 16-year-old players. They'll have a diamond of
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: receivers on one side and then the tight end leaks
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: out on the other side or something like that. So,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: you know, how do you knock that home? Is it
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: just a lot of film study and say, look at this,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: look at this, look at this. These are all different formations.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: They all did the same thing. Or is it, or,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: you know, on the field and during practice, like how
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: do you kind of knock home this, this stuff where
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: they're trying to make it tough for you, but really
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: it's simple.
• 55:57
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 55:58
  Speaker 7: Yeah.
• 55:58
  Speaker 6: Exactly.
• 55:59
  Speaker 9: Right.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of film.
• 56:01
  Speaker 6: You know, we'll watch with the kids. We'll watch the film.
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: A little bit today, a little bit tomorrow, a little
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: bit Thursday.
• 56:08
  Speaker 6: But you're right. It's trying to figure out, okay, what
• 56:12
  Speaker 6: are they exactly trying to do?
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: And trying to identify that, which they do a good
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: job of hiding that.
• 56:19
  Speaker 6: But it's trying to figure out.
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: Okay, they have guys running all over the place, but
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: what is it exactly they're trying to do? But the
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: problem is when you figure that out, if you don't
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: adjust to all the exterior stuff, then they'll burn you out.
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: That way as well, they'll get you outmanned or outmatched.
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: And so that's the game of just trying to play,
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: trying to simplify it for the kids so they don't
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: get overwhelmed in the game when you're playing that.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one that I'm really excited about. It's
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: always a great matchup. It's a good rivalry game. And
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: as the season has progressed, you know, in my eyes,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: and this is just me, I look at, you know,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: the best passing attack in the county against the best
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: secondary in the county. So that's what I personally am
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: really looking forward to. I know it's going to be
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: a fantastic game, Coach. Best of luck on Friday, everybody,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: at Bob Ames Field. Thank you so much for joining
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: me today on the Gatorade Game Day Podcast.
• 57:19
  Speaker 6: I appreciate it.
• 57:20
  Speaker 8: Thank you.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: I am now joined on the Gatorade Game Day podcast
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: by Meridian Head Football Coach Patrick Ames. Coach, thank you
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: for joining me today. How are you doing?
• 57:29
  Speaker 7: I'm well, my friend. Happy to do it.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, good. You're on a road trip, at least a
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: five-hour drive. What snack do you have close by?
• 57:41
  Speaker 7: Trail mix.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems to be a pretty popular answer. Yeah,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: you have a little bit of everything, right?
• 57:47
  Speaker 8: Yep.
• 57:48
  Speaker 7: Yeah the downside of trail mix though if you miss
• 57:51
  Speaker 7: right if you miss hand to mouth now you're picking
• 57:53
  Speaker 7: peanuts out of the cracks of your seats.
• 57:55
  Speaker 16: Forever yeah no especially if those trail mix are also
• 58:00
  Speaker 16: in the hand if that trail mix is also in
• 58:01
  Speaker 16: the hands of any of the kids then you know
• 58:03
  Speaker 16: that's 10x the number of peanuts you got to pick out.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah and raisins and all sorts of who knows what's
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: his but uh Yeah, I do know that. Yeah, that's
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: just a disaster at that point. I mean, with kids
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: in a five hour drive, that's tough enough as it is.
• 58:19
  Speaker 8: Sure.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: And, you know, so I get that. On Friday, you
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: hosted Sehome and took the 51 to 14 win. You
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: got on a roll there offensively and. One of the
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: things we were talking off there, you got everybody in,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: which is a cool thing to do, especially at home.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: A lot of kids maybe for the first time underneath
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: the lights, which is fun. Tell us about the game.
• 58:43
  Speaker 7: It started out a really tightly contested first couple of
• 58:50
  Speaker 7: drives where they drove down the field and we were
• 58:53
  Speaker 7: able to get a stop deep in our red zone.
• 58:56
  Speaker 7: We went three and out and punted and Got another
• 58:59
  Speaker 7: stop and then quickly we found a little rhythm offensively
• 59:04
  Speaker 7: and we stayed pretty sharp after that. And we played really,
• 59:08
  Speaker 7: really well on defense. the rest of the first half
• 59:11
  Speaker 7: um and coming into the third quarter and uh i
• 59:15
  Speaker 7: think they got on the board with a really good
• 59:17
  Speaker 7: play on defense from them they knocked a screen pass
• 59:21
  Speaker 7: up in the air and another one of the guys
• 59:22
  Speaker 7: you know picked it ran for a And I know
• 59:26
  Speaker 7: we gave up another touchdown a little bit later in
• 59:30
  Speaker 7: that game, but we played really, really well for, I
• 59:35
  Speaker 7: guess the middle, you know, three quarters, a little rocky
• 59:39
  Speaker 7: at the beginning and then maybe not as sharp at
• 59:41
  Speaker 7: the end. But that is also, you know, as, as
• 59:45
  Speaker 7: you mentioned, the opportunity we had to be able to
• 59:47
  Speaker 7: get some, some, some newer guys into that game. And, and,
• 59:51
  Speaker 7: and they played really hard also with the opportunities that
• 59:54
  Speaker 7: they had. So yeah, it ended up being a, a
• 59:56
  Speaker 7: pretty satisfying victory for, for our program.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: You know, it, it's always interesting. I mean, everybody remembers
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: the first time they ever go onto the field for
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: their first varsity snap or kickoff or whatever it is.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: Were there any, uh, did you see any wide eyes? Like,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know if, I don't know if I should,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: or was everybody pretty pumped to go out there for
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: the first time?
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 7: Oh, no, there's some, there's some wide eyes. And I'll
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 7: tell you about this one because this is a, and
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 7: I don't think he'd mind me saying, but, um, my
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 7: son who's a freshman on our team has not been
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 7: in a varsity game before. And, you know, we got to,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 7: I think we got to 44 nothing, um, and initiated
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 7: the running clock in the third quarter. And, you know,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 7: I turned to our, our two freshmen running backs. He's
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 7: one of them. Um, and I said, okay, you guys,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 7: you know, the next time we've got the ball, you know,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 7: you guys are on alert. Uh, and we ended up
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 7: driving down, uh, Pierce, uh, Brasowski makes a big run
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 7: down in their territory. We ended up with a, uh,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 7: personnel change. And I turn around and look for the
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 7: two running backs. And the only guy I see there
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 7: is my son. I'm like, okay, this is your play.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 7: You're going in. It ended up being a run to him.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 7: And then after the game, you know, talking about it
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 7: with him, he's like, well, yeah, it happened really fast.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 7: And it was too fast for me to get like
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 7: really scared and nervous. And Um, I think that's probably everybody,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 7: most everybody's experience the first time they get in the game.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 7: And I'll, I'll tell you the first time I'd been
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 7: in games, maybe a couple of times my sophomore year,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 7: but I was going to start the first game of
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 7: my My junior year, it was against Nooksack on the road,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 7: and I was really nervous, right? I'd grown up as
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 7: the ball boy for a team. I wanted, you know,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 7: in the worst way to play. And all that pressure
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 7: I put on myself, man, it made me sick before
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 7: the game. And I'll never forget, my dad walks up
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 7: to me on the sideline, and he's like, how are
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 7: you feeling, boy? I said, dad, I'm so nervous, I
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 7: think I'm going to puke. And he just kind of
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 7: looks at me, he's like, Well, puke and get it
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 7: over with. We kick off in 30 seconds. And he
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 7: walks away. It's like, oh, I guess actually that's probably
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 7: what I needed to hear. I didn't need an arm
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 7: around me. He's like, well, you're going to go out
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 7: there anyway. There's nothing else you can do at this point.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 7: So I remember that moment from the first time that
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 7: I had some prolonged Friday night action. And I kind
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 7: of try to keep that perspective with most of our
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 7: guys also. It's like, is this a football game? Just
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 7: go in and play. Have fun.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've been playing football for years. It's just a
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: different type of football. That's all right.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: Do you like to say that?
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you remember your first carry in college?
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 7: First carry in college.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: I'm just curious. I'm just curious if that is similar
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: feel to like starting for the first time on varsity
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: of the juniors.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 7: You know, I thought, I think I caught some balls
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 7: maybe the first time. Oh, actually, you know what? I
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 7: remember the first time I handled the ball in a
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 7: college game, we were playing Western. Um, and they were really,
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 7: really good. And I can remember the guys that were,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 7: I was on the kick return team and I can
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 7: remember the guys running down to cover this kick. It's like,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 7: and some of their talented running backs are on, it's
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 7: like Ryan Wiggins. It's, uh, It's Orlando Steinauer. I remember
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 7: the guy who tackled me. His name is Kevin Palmer.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 7: They were just legit dudes. And I remember it was
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 7: kind of a high kickoff. I was in the middle row.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 7: And I remember like, oh, you know what? I think
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 7: I want to kick this ball. And I think he
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 7: even took two steps back into our kick returner who
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 7: just kind of backed off. Um, and I remember, you know,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 7: field in that one and just going straight ahead, thinking, okay,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 7: who knows what the next time is that I'm going
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 7: to touch the ball. So I better take advantage here.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 7: So I do remember that the first time I handled
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 7: the ball in a college game, I was, I don't know,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 7: freshman or sophomore.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: Was that at civic?
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 7: Uh, no, that game was at UPS.
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 13: Okay.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 8: Okay.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: Oh, I love that. That's so cool. Um, Yeah, I
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: want to talk about you kind of brought up your defense,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: you know, playing pretty well. And I want to talk
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: a little bit about your senior linebacker, Ethan Valich. And
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: he's a kid that if he gets his hands on you,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: he's tackling you. And when you faced these big running teams,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: he seems to have his best games. I know he's
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: getting the most opportunities in those games, but he's making
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: the plays. What makes him such a great football player?
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 7: I think you probably would, this wouldn't shock you if
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 7: you knew him or watched him play, but he's a
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 7: really good wrestler. And, you know, when he's got his
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 7: arms around you, like, chances are he's going to take
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 7: you down, right? Because that's what he does during football season.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 7: That's what he does during wrestling season. And so he's become,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 7: you know... that's his greatest strength probably is just the
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 7: way that he could get guys to the ground. Um,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 7: because he's undersized, right. Uh, for a linebacker playing in
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 7: our league. Um, so taking the right angles, um, using leverage,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 7: those kinds of things are part of his game. And
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 7: you're right, like in a lot of these games that
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 7: we've played where he's going to have lots of opportunities,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 7: he's made the most of those chances, right? And he's
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 7: become a really important part of the middle of our
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 7: defense as we're trying to stop all these great teams
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 7: that we've played who run the ball right at you.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: And this Friday night, you're back at home against Nooksack Valley.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: What can you tell us about this year's Pioneer team?
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 7: Uh, they look pretty sharp and I, I know they've played,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 7: you know, Lynn and Christian and, and Mount Baker, the,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 7: the last couple of weeks, um, and played pretty competitive games,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 7: even though they haven't come out on the winning end. But,
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 7: you know, before that, like they hadn't lost obviously. So, um, they've,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 7: they've done a lot of really good things. They, they
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 7: look a little differently than they do on off on
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 7: offensively than they have, um, for the last several years.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 7: And they've kept the things that, you know, they've, they've
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 7: liked over the last 20 and kind of filtered out
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 7: some of the things that maybe don't fit them as well. And,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 7: added some things, and it makes them really dangerous to
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 7: try to defend, and they're just super, super solid on defense, right?
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 7: You really like the way that their linebackers tackle, the
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 7: way that their two safeties come downhill and tackle. That's
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 7: really impressive.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I'm really looking forward to is I
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: really think it's, you know, I think it's the premier
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: passing attack versus the amazing secondary, right? I mean, this
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: is the great, great matchup. for a, from a fan's
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: perspective and, and how does this, how is this going
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: to balance out here? And, and speaking of balance, you know,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: Nooksack is very balanced on offense. What's the biggest difficulty
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: in preparing for a team that can run as well
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: as they can pass?
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 7: Um, I don't know if there's a, the biggest, right?
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 7: Like at that point, and it just comes down to
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 7: being sound, right? You can't, maybe you can't quote unquote
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 7: cheat as much, right? You don't have to, sometimes when
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 7: you're playing people that, um, that are going to be,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 7: you know, are going to lean heavily toward, toward running
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 7: it versus throwing it. And, and that's not easy, right?
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 7: I'm thinking about like when we played on Alaska a
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 7: month ago, when we knew they were going to try
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 7: to run it 60 times and throw it three, maybe right. That's,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 7: that's different because they're obviously going to be really, really
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 7: good at, at, at running the ball, but playing somebody
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 7: who is balanced, um, you, you just try to prepare
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 7: your kids, especially the ones who are, who are standing
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 7: up your linebackers and your DBS, um, to be fundamentally sound,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 7: try to get it prepared for, you know, the, what you,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 7: you think the looks are going to be for, you know, the, um,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 7: the shifts and emotions that we know, uh, Nooksack is
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 7: going to, to attack us with, um, on top of
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 7: then the balance that can come out a lot of
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 7: those looks. So I don't, I, I wouldn't know what
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 7: to tell you as far as like what the biggest
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 7: challenge is other than, yeah, you're right. It is, it
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 7: is a challenge. Um, and the time that you, you
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 7: have to spend in practice to get ready for it is,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 7: is significant.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: It's, it's kind of, I guess maybe the way I
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: should have phrased it is how big of a challenge
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: is it to face it?
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 7: Because it, because you're right.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: It all kind of goes into, it all kind of
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: goes together where, you know, let's be honest. A lot
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: of high school teams are, are not as balanced as Nooksack.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Usually they lean heavily or quite heavily and you face
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: some teams going kind of back and forth with that.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 9: Yeah.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: Blaine is very pass heavy and, So it's interesting, you know,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: and when you have a game like this, and obviously
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: two staffs that know each other very well are probably
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: not going to be a ton of surprises. And it
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: really makes for a big, big game. And, you know,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: not going to say all the details, but there's a
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: lot on the line in this one, too. So it's
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: going to be a really fun one, Coach. Best of
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: luck on Friday against the Pioneers at Bob Ames Field.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: And thank you so much for joining me today on
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: the Gatorade Game Day Podcast.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 7: Always a pleasure, Tyler. Thank you.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: All right. Thank you very much to both coaches. We're
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: going to jump up to 3A right now for our
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: lone 3A game in the county. Of course, that involves Ferndale,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: the Golden Eagles, who are 5-2 on the year, coming
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: off a tough loss to Stanwood. They're ranked 18th in
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: the Class 3A rankings, and they will be going down
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: to take on the cedra woolley cubs in a great
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: matchup both teams five and two cedra woolley is ranked
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: 13th in max preps rankings i'm now joined on the
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: gatorade game day podcast by ferndale head football coach jamie
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: plankovich coach thank you for joining me today how are
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: you doing good how about yourself doing okay You're on
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: a road trip, at least five-hour drive. What snack do
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: you have close by?
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, man.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 17: Well, if I'm riding with my wife, it's something healthy.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 6: So nuts or.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 17: vegetables or something if i'm riding by myself it might
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 17: be cheetos.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: I love that answer and it's about as honest as
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: it gets right there so uh you know and uh
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: coach plankovich understands that i don't have many listeners so
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: this won't get back to his wife so this is
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: uh that's fantastic um Well, on Friday, you traveled down south,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: not a five-hour road trip, but a little bit of
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: a road trip to take on Stanwood and the undefeated Spartans,
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: and unfortunately, they remained undefeated as they picked up the
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: 31-7 win. Tell us about the game.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 17: Well, got to give a lot of credit to them.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 17: They came out. They are a very good football team.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 17: Their quarterback is exceptional. We held them down under 100
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 17: yards rushing, but They were able to get some big
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 17: plays in the passing game and did a really good
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 17: job against us on defense. And, again, we turned the
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 17: ball over a couple times, which against a good team
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 17: you just cannot do.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you were right on the money about their quarterback.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: A lot of these teams that you play, I don't
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: see them very often, so I really listen closely to
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: what you say. And then when I watched the film,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: I kind of see how that goes, and boy, scouting
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: report was dead on with that. And like you just said,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: I also felt like their defense was extremely impressive, limiting
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: the big plays, which seems like nobody has really done
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: against you until that point. Did they scheme well? Did
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: they execute well? Was it both? What do you think
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: it was?
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it was a combination of both.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 17: Obviously, they loaded up the box against us, but their
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 17: kids– They're athletic. They're not super big, but they've got
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 17: really good speed on that side of the ball and
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 17: their kids are coached well. And yeah, they limited us
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 17: from having big plays, which like you said, we've got
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 17: big plays in our run game really every game this year.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 17: So yeah, credit to them for making it really hard,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 17: making us to have to chunk it down the field
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 17: and And, and again, like I said, we, we can't
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 17: turn the ball over and expect to beat good teams.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 8: Sure.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: I'm always curious about that with loading the box. I mean,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: I understand the concept, you know, against a run team
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: and everything like that, but there's gotta be plays that
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: you have, like, you know, you have a running play
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: called and they, and they do load the box. And
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: it's almost, wouldn't that sometimes be a good thing depending
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: on the run play? Cause you're like, man, they're all
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: right here. this specific play can really break it. Is
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: there some truth to that?
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there's some truth to that.
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 8: And, and.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 17: Although what it does is you got, everybody's got to
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 17: do their job. We had some breakdowns in that area
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 17: where you can see, as we go back in film,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 17: if we, you know, if we get one guy to
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 17: finish what he was supposed to do or pick up
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 17: a guy, we were going to have a much bigger play.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 17: and again, they did a good job of making that play. Oftentimes,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 17: even when you're not perfect, Elliott was able to make
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 17: guys miss or run through tackles, and they just did
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 17: a really good job tackling in the open field and
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 17: getting guys to the football.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This Friday night, you're back on the road once again,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: and it's going to be another tough one against C.J.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 5: Woolley.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: It seems like every year, there's just something about them
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: that's it's kind of a mirror image of you guys, right? It's,
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: it's hard nosed. It's a little misdirection here and there. Um,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: but just good sound football. And I, and is coach
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: Ward still there?
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 8: Oh yeah.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, it's, it's part of that continuity, right?
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: Just like with you guys. So, um, what do you,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: what do you know about this year's cub team?
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 17: Well, you kind of hit a lot of it on
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 17: the head there. They're going to be really disciplined. Um,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 17: They are a physical football team on both sides of
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 17: the ball. Their kids play really hard. They have a
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 17: good plan on offense. They do a great job in
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 17: their screen game, so kind of an extension of their
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 17: run game. They're going to make you defend a lot
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 17: of different screen styles that they like to deploy. So
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 17: they're a challenge to defend, and again, We've got to
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 17: get guys to the football and tackle well in space
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 17: when they stretch you out that way with their screen game.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting you mentioned that because I remember
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: going to a scrimmage in July out at Linden and
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: Cedro was out there, Baker, I think Mount Vernon and Linden,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: of course.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 6: And it was like the.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: Third play and Cedro did a screen and I was
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: standing with Coach Kamink and a few other people down
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: at the goal line and And he goes, wow, already?
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: That's like a week four play. That's not a July play.
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: Defending a screen, is it about seeing it early, especially
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: for the defensive linemen? Because all of a sudden they're
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: coming free and they have to realize, why is this
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: so easy to get to the quarterback? Is it about
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: timing and how quickly you can read it?
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's really hard for D linemen.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 17: They're so built on getting to the quarterback, and, you know,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 17: all of a sudden you're through the line of scrimmage, and,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 17: you know, there he is.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 8: There's the quarterback.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 17: So it takes a while for them to be able
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 17: to– you almost have to feel it, right, and understand, yeah,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 17: the O-line got his hands on me for a second,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 17: but something's up here, and it's difficult to– get high
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 17: school guys trained to react to that pressure.
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 7: Of a screen.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 17: And then you're largely on the perimeter and you've got
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 17: to be aggressive out there at the point of attack
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 17: and defeat blocks so as to not give up a
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 17: big play. All the while being able to defend, you know,
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 17: all of them are going to have some sort of
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 17: concept which looks like screen and then is screen and
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 17: go or something downfield. So you've got to be really
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 17: disciplined in your reads and trying to get guys to
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 17: identify the screen. Cedar Woolley does a good job of
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 17: mixing in motion and play action away from where the
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 17: screen's going.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 8: So they do.
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 17: A really good job of messing with your eyes on
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 17: defense and setting those plays up. And it's their base offense.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 17: That's why you're seeing it in a scrimmage. July, because
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 17: that is just part of their base offense and another
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 17: way for them to essentially run the ball.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they do it so well, and you're right.
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, it would be like you guys running crisscross, right,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: in July. I mean, it's part of what you do,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: and yeah, it's one of those things where, I mean,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: we used to see Cedric Woolley all the time against
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: the two-way schools and then You guys both jump up
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: to 3A. So now I just see him once a year.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: And it's kind of all these reminders of coming back
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: to me as I'm talking to you like, oh, yeah,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: there's this, there's that. And man, it makes for a
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: really good football game, but a tough one. And as
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: of now, your week nine game is not scheduled. I
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: believe it's based on results and all that stuff. So
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: help me out. When will you know who your opponent
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: will be next week? Is there a timing for that?
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 17: Yeah, we'll know Saturday morning. So the West Coast will
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 17: get seeded between all three divisions, number one through number 16.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 17: And one will play 14, two will play 13, three
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 17: will play 12, and so forth. So we will know
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 17: pretty early Saturday morning who our opponent will be in
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 17: that crossover game.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, so none of the week these week eight games
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: are being played on Saturday for Westco. They're all playing
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: Friday night.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 13: Okay.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: So then you'll know everything. Is it, is it one
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: of those things where each divisions champion or whatever gets one, two, three,
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: no matter what, or is it, is it a complete
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: seated thing?
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 10: Oh, okay.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 17: So the division champion can't be worse than a three.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 11: Right.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 17: And then everything else is a straight seat. So you
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 17: could have two teams from the same division at four
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 17: and five.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 8: Sure. Right.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 9: Okay.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: So, and then the, higher-seeded team or the better-seeded team
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: would host.
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 10: Correct.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: On Week 9. Okay, well, we'll keep an eye out
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: on all that, Coach.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 8: It's a.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: Lot riding on this, but you know that better than
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: I do. So best of luck on Friday against the Cubs.
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today on the
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: Gatorade Game Day Podcast.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 8: Thanks, Tyler. Anytime.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: All right, now let's go to the Northwest Conference to
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: a classification where we have the Bellingham Bay Hawks who
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: are two and five going on the road to Kirkby
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: field in Burlington Edison to take on the tigers. They
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: are four and three, always a tough play place to
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: play down in Burlington. You know, a lot of fog,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: usually this time of year, we'll have to wait and
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: see what the weather will be like right now. Max
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: preps has Burlington Edison ranked 17th in the state in
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: class two way. Although I would imagine they're going to
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: do pretty well, I think, in the round of 32
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: and get into that state tournament. So only 16 teams
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: get into that. And right now they're ranked 17th. So
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: it's going to be a tough game for Bellingham, who's
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: ranked 47th going into this game with Max Preps. I'm
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: now joined on the Gatorade Game Day podcast by Bellingham
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: head football coach Adam Leonard. Coach, thank you for joining
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: me today. How are you doing?
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 8: I'm doing all right. How are you, Tyler?
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: Doing all right as well. So you're on a road trip,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: at least five-hour drive. What snack do you have close by?
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 13: Oh, gosh, there's so many options here. See, the thing is,
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 13: my favorite snack in the world are chips and salsa.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 13: That's my favorite snack in the world. We can't go
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 13: chips and salsa when you're in the car.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: Right, that's a little tricky, yeah.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 13: Yeah, you know, I try to get the little McNuggets. uh,
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 13: sauce containers in a certain row so I can dip,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 13: but that's also messy too. So, um, you know, I'm
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 13: going to go, I'm just going to go with the
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 13: tortilla chips and a soda, you know, you know, I'd
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 13: love to have the salsa there. Maybe if I have
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 13: a co-pilot, one of my kids or something that can
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 13: just be, you know, passing me the salsa, I'll do that,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 13: but that can just be messy. But I would say
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 13: chips and salsa, my favorite snack in the world. Um, and, uh, yeah,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 13: I'll just go with tortilla chips and a soda.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: You know, and you're from Las Vegas, and I know
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: you go back home quite a bit. Is that ever
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: a drive, or is it a flight most of the time?
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 13: Well, the cool thing about living in Bellingham is we
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 13: have Allegiant Air, and it's the direct flights, you know,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 13: that are inexpensive down to Vegas. When I first moved here,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 13: I was a little homesick back in 2006, so I
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 13: would probably go down two or three times a month.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 13: And my oldest was a little kid, so, you know,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 13: a baby, so it wasn't too bad of a, you know,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 13: getting away out of town.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 8: But I've done my... a funny story.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 13: My, my son was, my son, Josh was down there
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 13: at the end of summer before he started back up
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 13: at college. And we needed to bring a vehicle up
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 13: for my parents. And he drove the truck up, a
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 13: truck up for me. And he stayed in Boise on
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 13: the way. And I visited some friends at Boise state.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 13: And he's like, dad, that's a long drive. I go,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 13: I've done that driver. You know, so many times, you know,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 13: you get, you start to piece it together. You're like,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 13: all right, I got four hours here. I got four
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 13: hours here. And you kind of place it together and
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 13: you're home in about 16 to 18 hours. But, done
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 13: that very many times, but jumping on the flight from
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 13: Bellingham to Las Vegas is a pretty quick trip.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. And you're right with the Legion. It
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: makes it great. And I kind of learned about, you know,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: I went, I flew a few times in high school,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: you know, with a buddy to Colorado and I flew
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: to the, my, to a band trip to Disneyland and
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of flying. And then all of
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: a sudden I didn't fly for 20 years. And then
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: the next time I actually was on a plane was
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: I flew, I really want to go down to spring training.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: And I was looking at all these options and same
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: type of deal. Allegiant goes straight to, well, to Mesa,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: which is a little ways away. But, you know, you
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: get on the loop and you go around and you
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: go over there to the other side for spring training.
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: And I've made that flight a lot now and same
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: thing with Vegas. And so I am very happy with
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: Allegiant that they are able to do that.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 13: Legion's great. It's been great for me, too, being a
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 13: Las Vegas native, being able to go back home, visit family.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 13: My sisters live down there and my parents. So it's
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 13: great for me. I love it. I just don't, I
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 13: hope it never, Legion never goes away.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: I know. They've canceled some of the flights. You don't
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: see flights to Oakland or L.A. anymore on there, I've noticed.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: And so, but they still have Vegas. They still have Mesa.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 9: So.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: That's what I need. On Friday night, you went down
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: to Anacortes and they did what they do. You know,
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: Ryan Harrington threw for over 300 yards, six touchdowns in
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: the first half. And you know, going into the game, that's,
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: it's an extreme uphill battle. So what do you tell
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: your kids in pregame?
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 13: You know, we had this mentality this week. It was
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 13: pulled up from a clip from Nick Saban from when
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 13: he was coaching in Alabama. You know, you want to live,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 13: actually it wasn't when he was coaching in Alabama. He
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 13: was at michigan or michigan state michigan state yeah state
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 13: and at that time they were kind of an underdog
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 13: program in there and he was saying you know you
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 13: gotta live you gotta live within this these six seconds
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 13: at a time and we we want to we were
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 13: preaching you know live play by play you know six
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 13: seconds at a time within the game and try to
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 13: win those battles try to win those battles each one
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 13: you know regardless of the score at the end of
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 13: the day we want to you know, we're going against
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 13: some of the top teams. I mean, we've played Archbishop Murphy,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 13: we've played Lyndon, we've played Anacortes. I mean, these teams
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 13: in many polls, these three teams are in the top
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 13: five in the entire state in most polls. And we've
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 13: played them all and we knew it was going to
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 13: be a battle. And Ryan Harrington, you know, I've seen
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 13: him play since he was in middle school. He's a
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 13: tremendous quarterback, tremendous athlete, Division I commit at Washington State. And,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 13: you know, we also had, you know, we had a
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 13: lot of guys out and so some other younger guys
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 13: had to step up and some of our freshmen that
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 13: had to play corner were like, wow, this guy's really,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 13: really good. I feel like I'm covering, I feel like
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 13: I'm covering these receivers for 10, 12 seconds. And, you know, um,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 13: he's a special talent. And, uh, it was, uh, for us,
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 13: it was like, Hey, let's win the battle. We got
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 13: down big at halftime. You know, we went in the
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 13: locker room and said, Hey, let's go out there and
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 13: win this half. And actually we did win the half. So,
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 13: you know, obviously they're going to put some backups in,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 13: but we got to keep grinding and we need to keep, uh,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 13: you know, battling until the final whistle. And I was
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 13: proud of the guys for getting a couple scores late and,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 13: you know, getting a stop. You know, we had Bryce Shupak, freshman,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 13: got an interception at the goal line on a tip play.
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 13: So there's some positives to pull out of that game.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 13: But when you're on the lopsided, you know, end of
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 13: a game like that, it's tough. But I thought for
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 13: the most part we came out mostly healthy and moving
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 13: on to next week.
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I want to talk about Matthew Steele again
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: for a second. It seems like we talk about him
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: every other week, if not every week, and eight receptions,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: 116 yards. He leads the defense with eight and a
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: half tackles, two for loss. You kind of told me
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: coming into the season, like, hey, he's been starting at
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: corner the last couple years, but just the way he's
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: such a good downhill tackler, moving him to strong safety
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: was going to be effective in the run game, which
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: he was. I know he's been battling injuries all year.
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: How tough is that kid?
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 15: He's tough, but I mean, you get up close, he's
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 15: not super big, but he's physical, he's athletic, he's very athletic,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 15: you know, huge vertical, he's quick, he's a great route runner.
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 13: He and Ben Leonard have just tremendous chemistry this year.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 13: And defensively, he loves to come downhill and hit, and
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 13: he really packs a punch for his size. And, you know,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 13: you look at him offensively, and I was looking at
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 13: the other receivers in the Northwest Conference 2A, he's right
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 13: in the top three in the conference defensively. receiving, and
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 13: most of those guys are coming from Anacortes, too, with
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 13: that passing attack. But defensively, you know, leading our team
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 13: last week in tackles, and he just kind of sets
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 13: the tone at that safety position. So he's had an
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 13: amazing senior year so far. We have some games left,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 13: but he's on pace to break some offensive records, too,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 13: as we finish out this year.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just been such a joy to watch, and
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: You know, he did a little bit of stuff on
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: offense last year, and I kind of was thinking, well,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: he's probably going to be that go-to guy. And then
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: the spring game, he has a great game offensively, and
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: I thought, okay, maybe he will be that go-to guy.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, it's been boom, boom,
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: boom every week, and he's just been able to put
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: up big, big numbers. I also want to talk about
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: Lucius White. Here's a kid that I admit I didn't
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: know that much about coming into the season, and he's
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: been a really reliable player for you all season. Tell
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: us about what you've liked about him with his development.
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 13: So, yeah, Lucius, you know, it's kind of been Lucius
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 13: was a defensive player primarily. And we were like, we
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 13: need to look at offense. You know, we start bringing
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 13: some freshmen up from our varsity team. And then I
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 13: think kind of it kind of motivated Lucius to say, hey,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 13: wait a minute. You know, here I am.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 5: I'm a junior.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 8: What about me?
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 13: I can play offense, too. I think he started getting
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 13: into the playbook, started understanding Coach Nixon's offense a little
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 13: bit better. And, you know, he had an electric return.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 13: I believe it was against Sultan earlier this year. We
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 13: were like, man, he's showing off the wheel, showing off
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 13: the speed, his ability to cut and move, and getting
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 13: him caught up to speed on the playbook. You know, he's,
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 13: you know, he had a great game against Anacortes in
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 13: that second half. And, you know, we think he's, you know,
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 13: he's kind of emerging as kind of into a starting role.
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 13: He is a slot receiver as we go into this
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 13: next week. And definitely, you know, he's been a staple
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 13: for us on defense.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 8: He's a junior.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 13: I like to see him a little bit bigger and
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 13: stronger for the linebacker position, but I think that's something
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 13: he's definitely want to work on in the offseason. But
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 13: he's a tremendous athlete. He's a big part of what
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 13: we're doing now and in the future.
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good, you know, it's interesting because once
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: you get near the end of the year, you do
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: have to look into the future a little bit. And
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: when you look at, although you don't have a ton
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: of seniors on your team, you're kind of linebacker senior
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: heavy with Van Hoffwagen and McGurr. And so you got
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: to look at, that's a spot where you're going to
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: have to replace some guys. They're going to graduate. And
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: when you watch, when you watch Lucius White tackle, he's.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 9: A good tackler.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: So, you know, that, you know, he can move up
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: from the secondary and play that linebacker spot. That's always a,
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: I'm always curious how coaches are looking into the future
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: a little bit to see that. And that's a, that's a,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: that's a keen observation on your part because I think
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: he could fill that role pretty well. This Friday night,
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: you're back on the road against Burlington Edison. What can
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: you tell us about the Tigers?
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 13: Well, you know, we think Burlington's a very physical team,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 13: and they are a very physical team. They're well-coached. They're,
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 13: you know, they execute really well. You know, you look
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 13: on their team, it's like everybody just, you know, they're
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 13: very good players across the board in offense and defense.
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 13: I don't know if anybody really stands out as a, hey,
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 13: there's a superstar. They're all very, very, very strong football players.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 13: And like I said, just an extremely well-coached team. I
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 13: know they were on a lopsided 35-0 lead. lost to Linden,
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 13: but I watched that film 10 times, and I'm telling you,
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 13: it was a lot closer than 35-0. And they're going
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 13: to be, you know, they're a playoff team. They're scheduled
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 13: right now with some key wins they have in the
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 13: conference right now to be a playoff team. And I
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 13: believe they're a top 10 to 15 team, the 2A
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 13: in the state.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 8: So they're going to be a.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 13: Really tough challenge for us to come Friday night. It's
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 13: their homecoming game on the road. I've said this before
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 13: to you, Tyler, at Burlington, Around Halloween, near Halloween, is
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 13: a spooky, weird place to play. And, you know, our
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 13: kids are going to have to understand what a grass
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 13: field is on Friday. And it's going to be a
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 13: challenge for sure, but we feel like we have a
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 13: good game plan. And we're going to have to master
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 13: physicality if we want any chance in this game because
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 13: they're going to be a very physical team.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they, you know, they have kind of that two-headed
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: monster in the backfield. They like to run the ball
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: quite a bit. And, you know, you've kind of said
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: in the past that, you don't have necessarily the size
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: on defense and you're gonna have to rely on speed
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: on the defense. And this is one of those games where, boy,
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: you probably really wish you had size on defense because
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: they're going to try to just, you know, just push
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: it in the middle and just go, go, go. And,
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: and there's not a lot of, uh, razzle dazzle. It's
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: more kind of in your face and just, and go downhill.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: And so, um, you know, how, how can you use
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: your defensive speed to combat that kind of offense?
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 13: Well, you know, we need to get our guys in
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 13: the right spot in the right space. We need to
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 13: come up with some schemes to combat their physicality and
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 13: size up front, you know, on both sides of the ball, too.
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 13: You know, last week watching Burlington, you know, they're trying
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 13: to out-bully a bully, which is Linden. You're not going
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 13: to out-bully and be physical over a Linden team. They're
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 13: just too strong, too well-coached as well. And we're going
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 13: to have to come up with some things to just
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 13: negate their strength, give the ball away. outside, get the
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 13: ball out quick. You know, we played them last year
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 13: at Civic. They were dropping eight in the coverage and
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 13: making things really difficult on Ben.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 8: The windows were tight.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 13: So if they do approach us that way again, we're
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 13: going to have to be able to run the ball.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 13: I know with Linden, they loaded up the box, tried
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 13: to stop their run game. And, you know, that was
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 13: just two really, really strong offensive and defensive lines going
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 13: against each other last week. For us, you know, we'll
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 13: see how they approach us. If they try to bring pressure,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 13: which they love doing, You know.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 8: We're ready for that. We'll get the ball out quick.
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 13: If not, we're going to have to establish the run.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 13: And I think we have a freshman running back coming
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 13: back this week. We might get some opportunities. Keon Rich,
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 13: he's a very strong running back for the future. I'd
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 13: like to see him as he's coming off a torn
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 13: hamstring from week one in sub-varsity. See him maybe get
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 13: some carries and get some other guys some opportunities. We'll
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 13: see how they play us, but I'm expecting they're going
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 13: to try to bring pressure. We're ready for them.
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: Awesome, Coach. Best of luck on Friday against Burlington Edison,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: and thank you so much for joining me today on
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: the Gatorade Game Day Podcast.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 13: Thanks for having me, Tyler.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 8: Have a great week.
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: And now we move on to the Sehome Mariners, who
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: took one on the chin last week at Meridian. They
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: are 2-5. They'll be back in conference play, and it
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: doesn't get any easier as they will have to defend
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: the pass once again, going on the road to take
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: on the Seahawks of Anacortes. Anacortes is ranked 6-1 on
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: the year. They're ranked 5th in the state as far
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: as max preps goes. And as the coaches poll goes,
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: they are ranked third in the state. You know, the Mariners,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: they have to, the big thing about them is they
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: really want to run the ball, although they definitely can
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: throw the ball, but they've really found an identity running
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: the ball. And so that's going to be the tough time,
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: the tough task, I should say, against Anacortes. When you're
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: going against a really good team, it's really easy to
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: fall behind early. You know, if you're down 14-0, 21-0,
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to depend on the run at that point.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: So we'll have to wait and see, see home, you know,
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: if they can have some long sustained drives, put together
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: some good things, and then they have to, you know,
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: hope for some big things to happen in special teams.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: We've seen what Nikki Smith can do in the return game.
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: Ollie Johnson's another great returner. You know, I mean, you just,
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: you just never know. And hopefully the secondary will be
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: up for the task going against Ryan Harrington. Look for
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: Callum LaPlante, you know, Nikki Smith, Gunnar Anderson, Ollie Johnson,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: Avery flag, all those guys, are going to be tested.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: You might see some of the linebackers drop back in
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: coverage too. Devin Bankson, Evan Hatzell, Elgis, Lada, Elias Lada,
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: I should say. And Lada had a pick six last week.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: Now he wasn't dropping back in coverage. That was a
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: great tip by Logan Rogers. Ball goes up in the air.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: Lada snags it out of the air and goes 16
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: yards for the touchdown. So the defense will be tested.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: I think that they, you know, had a pretty good
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: test against Meridian. So They should be used to this
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: passing attack. It's just going to be a little bit
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: more efficient against Anacortes, and it's going to be a
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: tough one. They had a great game there last year,
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: but again, a lot of big-time changes, a new cast
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: of characters on both sides, but the big one that
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: remains is Ryan Harrington at quarterback for the Seahawks. So
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: the Anacortes Seahawks, 6-1 on the year. Seaholm ranked 35th
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: as far as max preps goes. They are 2-5 on
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: the year. The last game on Friday night has the
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: Linden Lions coming to Bellingham to go take on the
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: Squalicum Storm at Civic Stadium. That will also be a
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: 7 o'clock kickoff, as are all these Friday night games.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: Linden is 6-1 on the season, and they're really riding
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: high right now. Things are going pretty darn well. They're
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: ranked third in the state in max preps. They're ranked
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: second in the state as far as the coaches' polls go.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: And I do believe– I really like the coaches' poll.
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: They only do the top 10. And Max Preps says
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: the entire state. But these coaches kind of know what's
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: up right now. And Linden is just one spot behind
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: Tumwater for the best in the state. Squalicum's on a
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: little bit of a winning streak, though. They've won two
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: in a row. They're ranked 27th now in the Max
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: Preps rankings. So this should be a pretty good game.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: The first quarter will be really telling. Squalicum played them
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: tough last year. I think got out to a two-touchdown
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: lead over Linden last year. And that was a little
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: bit of a surprise. But Linden was able to close
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: the deal. And we'll have to wait and see what
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: happens this year. I am now joined on the Gatorade
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: game day podcast by Linden head football coach, Blake Van
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: Dalen coach. Thank you for joining me today. How are
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: you doing?
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 11: Awesome.
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 10: I'm actually enjoying a day off today. We have no
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 10: power at school. So you're my only appointment today.
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm sorry to be that a little stick in
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: the mud right in the middle of the day, but
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: hopefully it's enjoyable. And, um, Speaking of long days, if
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: you're on a road trip, let's say at least five-hour drive,
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: what snack do you have close by?
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 10: Usually the peanut butter M & Ms. I just kind
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 10: of pop one of those in my mouth every so often,
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 10: and then I can drive forever. It's like my power pellet,
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 10: I guess.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: I love peanut butter. You know, I feel like I
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: don't see them as much as I used to, or
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: am I just not looking hard enough? Are they out
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: there still?
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 10: My wife gets them regularly, so I benefit from her
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 10: favorite snack, I guess.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: I guess that works out. Another thing that worked out
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: was Friday when you hosted Burlington Edison, came out with
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: a 35-0 shutout win over the Tigers. Really impressive. First
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: shutout win over Burlington since 2009. Tell us about the game.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, from an offensive standpoint, initially it was
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 10: a little frustrating, you know, kind of banging your head
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 10: against the wall, so to speak. We knew they were
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 10: going to be really tough. We knew they were going
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 10: to be really physical. At one point, I give Coach
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 10: Whitman credit. He's on the headset, and he goes, hey, Coach,
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 10: we're fine. They're not going to score, so just take
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 10: your time. And so I give him credit. He felt
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 10: very confident in what we were doing and our matchups.
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 10: And so that's exactly what we did. We kind of
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 10: found a formation that we liked. And I think you
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 10: noticed that on the first scoring drive, we were pretty
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 10: conservative and got down and just basically got some points.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 10: Then it was kind of fun because we kind of
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 10: got into our two-minute offense. We used our timeouts on
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 10: defense to stop them three and out. They punted, and
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 10: I think we had like a minute eight, and we
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 10: had to go like 80 or 75 yards, something like that.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 10: And I just thought Gordy, you know, we practice that
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 10: every Thursday night. And we've got a great sequence that
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 10: we go to. And I think the kids feel comfortable
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 10: in it. But in the end, they got to run
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 10: the routes. They got to make the plays. They got
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 10: to hurry to the ball and spike it. And so
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 10: to go down, I think there was still 20 seconds left.
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 10: So we went, yeah, 75, 80 yards in under a minute.
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 10: And only I think might have used one time out,
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 10: but maybe not. So I was really proud of the kids.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 10: You know, because then that kind of broke the ice.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 10: Now it's a two-score game at halftime. And I felt
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 10: like in the second half, we had one or two
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 10: little hiccups. But for the most part, we got dialed
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 10: in and really, you know, this is a good football team.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 10: I keep telling everybody, you watch Burlington. When they get
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 10: in the playoffs, they're going to beat people. And it's
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 10: just unfortunate for them. They're in a conference that's just
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 10: loaded this year once again. But they'll make the playoffs.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 10: And they'll do a great job. And Dalton Schwartz does
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 10: a great job with those guys. So very, very satisfying win.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: I loved that two-minute drill. And I thought it was
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: a good thing. I mean, I saw you taking the timeouts,
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: and I thought, okay. And knowing the final score when
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: I'm watching the film, but I don't know when the
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: touchdowns happen. So I was really intrigued watching that. And
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: then to see how well it was executed. You know,
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: that first pass to the left, to Dawson Van Dalen,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: if he doesn't step out of bounds, it doesn't matter, right?
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: He's going, he's going all the way. That was a,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: that was a nice play there, but were there, are
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: there moments in, in, in, in drives like that, where
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: are you calling maybe two plays at a time saying, Hey,
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: if you get a first down that do this one next,
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: or how does that work? How is this different than
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: just regular calling plays?
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 11: Yes.
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 10: And no, um, um, like that place specifically it's, it's,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 10: it's two. Yes, it is two plays in one. You know,
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 10: the right side is doing one thing that not the line,
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 10: the lines all on dialed in. They know what they're doing,
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 10: but for Gordy, he gets a pre-snap read and he
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 10: knows that he's working one side or the other, other plays. Um,
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 10: you know, our goal is to get the playoff quickly.
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 10: And that way, if it's, if it's successful, then, um,
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 10: we get some yards. If it's unsuccessful, the clock stops.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 10: So you kind of have those plays dialed in. Um,
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 10: If you know you're going to be– say you get
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 10: a second and one, you can actually run the ball
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 10: in high school football because they stop the clock to
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 10: move the chains. And we can usually get our offense
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 10: set and another play called before they wind the clock.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 10: So for us, it really, you know, get first downs.
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 10: It's kind of what I tell the kids. I go, yeah,
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 10: getting a home run would be great, but getting first
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 10: downs is almost like getting an extra time out. If
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 10: you're organized and you know what you're doing now, this
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 10: comes back to we use hand signals. Well, there's an
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 10: upside to using hand signals and a downside, obviously. The
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 10: upside is we can go as fast as we want,
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 10: you know? And so it's kind of funny. My wife's like,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 10: why don't you do that all the time? And I say, well,
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 10: when it works, it looks really great. When it doesn't work,
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 10: now you just punted the ball after only one minute
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 10: of Time went off the clock and you're kind of
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 10: putting your defense in a bad spot. So, yeah, I
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 10: think for me it's a lot of fun because it
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 10: reminds me of the good old days when I would
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 10: do JV football and there was no script and you're
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 10: shooting from the hit and nobody cares what the score
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 10: is at the end of the day and you just
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 10: get to have a lot of fun.
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it looked fun. It looked organized. And, you know,
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of times, and, you know, correct me if
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong, but when it's a normal part of the game,
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: not a two-minute offense, you're calling a play. And, you know,
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: Gordy or Austin or whoever is barking out numbers and stuff,
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: but then they look over again, and then you might
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: change it or you might say, go ahead and go
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: with it. But I would imagine in a two-minute drill,
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: you're just giving a play and saying, go, right?
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 10: Yes, but you also understand if you've done your film study,
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 10: most teams, when they're in hurry-up defense, they're not able
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 10: to get in all of their stuff either. So a
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 10: lot of times, once you get them locked into something–
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 10: You go, OK, we lined up like this. And so
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 10: that's where the coaches in the booth are very helpful
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 10: because they'll see, OK, they're in this. Most likely, if
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 10: you go hurry up, they'll be in that again. And
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 10: now you start to get a feel for what plays
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 10: will work if you speed it up.
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: Coach, your defense, you know, I love what Coach Whitman
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: said to you. Hey, don't worry about it. We're not
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: going to score. Take your time. You know, you're good.
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: you've been in that spot with Coach Cramie. Has there
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: been moments where the offense just wasn't working and you
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: had to kind of relay to him, hey, don't worry,
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: we're good, or he just kind of had a different mindset?
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 10: It's so funny because I think you mentioned that 0-9
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 10: was the last time we shot Burlington out. Is that right?
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 8: Yes.
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 10: That was my first year as defensive coordinator, and we
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 10: had seven shutouts that year. And there were times where
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 10: literally after the first drive– I would be in the
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 10: booth and I didn't always say it to coach just because,
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 10: you know, then you're putting a target on yourself. But
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 10: you feel it. You're like, wow, they are going to
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 10: have an extremely difficult time scoring on us tonight. You know,
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 10: the kids are playing great. The scheme is dialed in
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 10: really well and it's a good matchup. That's also a
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 10: big part of it. There's times that 09 year where
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 10: we were in dogfights with people because their offense didn't,
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 10: match well with our defense. And so you're not going
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 10: to just totally change your defense every week. So, but yes,
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 10: I do remember having moments where I remember one year
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 10: we had Zach. This was a safety for us and
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 10: we played Ferndale and we have a little call. We
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 10: call it blood basically where, where Zach gets the blitz
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 10: and I must've called it 10 times in a row.
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 10: And it was just kind of for that one night,
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 10: it was kryptonite. And it was working, and so I
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 10: just kept calling it again and again and again. So
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 10: we often have a lot of jokes about that one.
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: That's crazy because you hear a lot of times that
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: offensive play callers will go to something over and over again.
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: Maybe it happens a lot on defense, but you just
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: don't hear about it a lot that you'll go to
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: something over and over again on defense when something's working.
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: So it's pretty cool. Speaking about something that was working
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: on defense, Landon Tolsma, my goodness, he just tackled everything.
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: And when he gets his arms around you, you're going down, period.
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: He had a great game. He's really come on strong
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: this year. What has been that big strength for him
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: so far this year?
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 10: You know, I'm really proud of Landon because he was
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 10: part of– there was actually four of those seniors were
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 10: all linebackers their freshman and sophomore year. And he was
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 10: identified right away, Malachi Kane and him, Adam Holman, Dawson
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 10: Van Dalen. So we moved Dawson to safety, and Adam
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 10: and him rotated at the other spot. And Malachi ended
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 10: up being the 2A Defensive Player of the Year last year.
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 10: And he never once complained or said, why not me, whatever.
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 10: But when Malachi moved, he was one of the– remember
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 10: I always talk about these eight players that I called
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 10: in– He was one of the ones that I called
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 10: in and said, hey, this is a great opportunity for you.
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 10: And he went right to work. He's always been a
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 10: hard worker in the weight room. He's always loved football. And,
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 10: you know, he's putting up some amazing numbers. And he
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 10: was in a groove Friday night where there was times–
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 10: He was just on his own. He was following our rules,
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 10: don't get me wrong, but he would see it a
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 10: step quicker than everybody else. And when that happens, that's
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 10: a pretty special feeling. And anybody who's played linebacker will
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 10: tell you the whole game slows down. And you're just
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 10: moving at normal speed. It just feels like everybody else
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 10: is in slow motion. And that's kind of what you saw.
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 10: He got dialed in. He felt comfortable and he was
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 10: all over the place. It was pretty fun.
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a lot of fun to watch. And boy,
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: you've had some great inside linebackers over the years. And
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 1: it seems like there's just never a drop off. And
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: it's awesome to see a couple of seniors in there
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: doing their job. And this Friday night, you'll be back
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: on the road at Civic Stadium against Squalicum. They've won
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: two in a row now and they've got a key
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: player back last week. And so things are kind of
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: trending up for them. Tell us about the storm.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 10: Yeah, it's a Nick Lucy team. And that means that
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 10: if you don't prepare for everything, they'll figure out what
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 10: you didn't prepare for and they'll make you pay. Just
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 10: I mean, remember last year with Anna Cordes, they had this.
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 10: huge win and, and they're, they're on the up and
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 10: everything's going great until it wasn't. And they didn't take
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 10: Squalicum seriously enough. And so they're a team that if
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 10: you go through those two years, we won the championships
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 10: both years. We beat Squalicum by three points. I mean,
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 10: it was, those were, yeah.
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 10: I think it was 10 to seven and nine to six,
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 10: I think was the two scores, you know, and they
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 10: had Schlembacher and those guys. And it was, um, It's
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 10: just always Squalicum finds a way to make sure that
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 10: they don't hurt themselves. And so, you know, for us,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 10: it's the same thing. Our goal is to go in
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 10: and have a great game plan and then match the
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 10: intensity of the moment. They're playing for their lives and
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 10: they want to get into the playoffs and they want
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 10: to finish their season the right way. And I think
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 10: that's almost every week. Everybody's season can be made or postponed.
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 10: make it or break it if you beat Linden kind
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 10: of a deal. And so for our kids, you know,
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 10: no letdown. You know, we're not worried about next week's game.
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 10: We're worried about this week's game. And we'll give them
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 10: a ton of respect because they deserve it.
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: You know, that's a great point you brought up about
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: how teams in Linden week for them is a big thing.
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: So it's not something you have to deal with every
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: single week. How do you, I mean, how do you
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: keep your guys kind of, you know, focused on just
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: the task at hand, because for that, for the other team,
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: it's the Superbowl every single week. So it's, it's an
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: interesting thing that, you know, you, you go into it with,
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: there is a certain expectation at Linden. And so there's
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: this added pressure, but they don't seem to play like
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 1: there's an added pressure. Why is that?
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 10: Well, you know, hopefully it's because we're mentally prepared for
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 10: the situation. You know, I'd like to try and relate
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 10: it to something that we understand. You know, think about
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 10: when we played Anacortes this year, these seniors had never
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 10: beat them in a varsity game. And so I said,
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 10: now you need to transition and think about how motivated
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 10: you were, how prepared you were for Anacortes. That's how
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 10: Squalicum feels. These kids have not beat Linden. And so, so,
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 10: I try and make a connection that way. Also, the
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 10: way we practice. I hope that if we're doing our
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 10: job as coaches, that we're practicing in a way that
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 10: prepares them for what they're going to see on the field.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 10: You know, we never want to beat ourselves. You know,
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 10: if someone's going to beat us, I would like to
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 10: think it was because they physically beat us. They outplayed
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 10: us in every aspect. not because we were aligned wrong
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 10: or missed keys or things like that. So if we
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 10: practice the right way all week and mentally prepare, you
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 10: limit the opportunity for a letdown or maybe not taking
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 10: someone seriously. And then we go back to playing to
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 10: a standard. We watched film Monday of our Burlington game. Well,
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 10: we erased the score and we say, would you accept
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 10: this play if we had lost the game? And the
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 10: answer is yes or no. And obviously it's no if
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 10: you didn't do something good. So then we address it
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 10: and work on it and try and fix it. And
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 10: so I think I guess the mindset would probably be
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 10: the number one thing. And then the attitude and effort
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 10: both during the week in practice and in the game.
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's I love hearing that. And I hope hopefully
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of coaches, even not even from Whatcom County,
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 1: but from around the state, hear that and understand because,
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: to get to a certain level, it's hard to get there,
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: but once you're there, it's hard to stay there. And
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: you guys have been able to stay there and there's
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of good points there to point to why
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: you've been able to stay there. So best of luck
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: on Friday against the storm coach. Thank you so much
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: for joining me today on your day off at the
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: Gatorade game day podcast.
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 8: Thanks.
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 10: Have a great day.
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: You too. And then finally the Darrington loggers who have
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: a six and one record and they will come to town.
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: to take on Lummi Nation. That will be a Saturday
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: kickoff at 5 o'clock, so be ready for that. That
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: was a change from Friday to Saturday. Right now, Darrington
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: ranks 6th in the state in Max Preps rankings in
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: 8-man football, 9th in the coaches' poll. Lummi Nation has
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: the 10th ranking in Max Preps. They are not ranked
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: in the coaches' poll. This is going to be a big,
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: big test. Lummi Nation coming off A really just tough
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: loss against LaConner last week. They had that one in
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: their minds. They scored the game-winning touchdown with less than
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: 10 seconds to go, and they end up losing the game.
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: So a lot of highs and lows from that game,
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: and it's going to be how they recover from that
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: that we'll have to wait and see how that will
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: happen because you've got to face a really talented Darrington
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: team that's coming into town. I'm now joined on the
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: Gatorade Game Day podcast by Lemmy Nation head football coach,
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: Watiko Layton. Coach, thank you for joining me today. How
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: are you doing?
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 9: Doing pretty good. Thanks for having me, Tyler.
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: You bet. You're on a road trip. Let's say at
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: least a five-hour road trip. What snack do you have
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: close by?
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 9: I got to get the white cheddar Cheez-Its.
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 14: I need an energy drink, so I'd say a Lotus.
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 14: And then probably... Oh, I would say just some water.
• 1:51:22
  Speaker 14: I can live off that for five hours.
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. White cheddar Cheez-Its. I love Cheez-Its. I grew up,
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: my dad loved them, I loved them. I've never tried
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: the white cheddar Cheez-Its.
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 5: What?
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do the extra toasted.
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 9: Oh, okay.
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: Those ones, because back in the day, you know, when
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: I was a kid, they just had Cheez-Its.
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 7: And that was it.
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: And every once in a while, there would be that
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: one that was a little burnt. And I was like, oh,
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: that's the one I want. And my dad and I
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: had to fight over it. And now they make a
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: whole thing full of just those ones. And I'm looking
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: at a box right now, actually. But I'll have to
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: try those white cheddar. That's the way to go, huh?
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 8: Yep. Yeah, they're delicious.
• 1:52:02
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 10: All right.
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: Well, on Friday, you hosted the Connor in a wild game.
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: They got off to a quick start. It just kind
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: of went back and forth. And, you know, without talking
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: about the last 15 seconds, because we'll get into that,
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: but tell us about the rest of that game.
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 14: So it was a real nice disciplined game on our end.
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 14: You know, we had our few hiccups, but when it
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 14: comes to eight-man football, if one person has that hiccup, it's...
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 14: you know, open field for that offensive team. So we
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 14: had our little mistakes that resulted in big plays, but
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 14: our kids stayed real resilient and battled that adversity for
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 14: the whole game and was able to, you know, stay
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 14: in there with a real tough physical La Conner football team.
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 1: I mean that, like you, I mean, you hit the
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: nail on the head that they, they don't throw the
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: ball very often. They are double winged. And that kind
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: of offense with so much sleight of hand and deception
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: and misdirection, boy, that's kind of a good way to
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: go in eight-man football if you can pull it off, huh?
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 8: Right, right.
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. I mean, you know how it was playing
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: in that. And so in eight-man, it really opens that up.
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: And all right, so let's get into it now. The
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: final seconds of the game. Okay, so the game's tied, 34-34,
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: with 15 seconds to go in the game. You have
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: the ball at the 10-yard line. and it's fourth and five.
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: So it's, it's such a crazy scenario because you can
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: get a first down without scoring a touchdown. I believe
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: a timeout was called before the play. Did you guys
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: call that or they call the timeout?
• 1:53:40
  Speaker 9: I believe we called it and burnt our last timeout.
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 14: Um, I wanted our receivers and quarterbacks to be on
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 14: the same level, um, for the passing around. We kind
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 14: of had a real good game with our passing, uh,
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 14: this week, um, with the mismatches that we had.
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 9: Um, So we're just getting the quarterback and receivers on
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 9: the same level.
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: So you call the timeout. Like I said, it's fourth
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: and five. It's tied at the 10-yard line. What do
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: you tell your team? Are you kind of designing the
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: play at that point, kind of saying you want to
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: make sure to go through every single thing and kind
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: of go through that with, like you said, your quarterback
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: and receivers?
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 14: Yeah, so we're aiming for the bottom of the goal line,
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 14: so hopefully we can get the touchdown.
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 9: If not, we're going to get that first down.
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 14: But really– Letting Landon LaFontaine know where he's aiming for
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 14: that throw and where the receivers need to end up
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 14: for that route for it to work. And Landon LaFontaine
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 14: just put a perfect pass right in the pocket for,
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 14: I think it was Anthony Solomon to take the lead.
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 9: But yeah, it was a real good play.
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: It was crazy because we're kind of following it live
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: on the show. I mean, at that point, that's the
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: game right there that has the most, you know, weighing
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: on it. And so we're dialed in on that. And
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: what I thought Landon did a great job of, too,
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: is that he was looking his left the whole time
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: and then he went to his right. Was that a
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: design thing? He did a great job of kind of
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: looking off everybody on the left and then going to
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: the right. Was that, like I said, is that a
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: design going in or was that just him playing quarterback?
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 9: That was just his natural instinct.
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 14: He's a real good pocket reader, so he's good at
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 14: reading the defense. But we had a good mismatch on
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 14: Mason Revy and his defender the whole game, so I
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 14: think he was trying to key on that. But once
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 14: he saw that closed up, he looked to one of
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 14: his best friends, Anthony Solomon, and saw him. From what
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 14: I saw from my angle, it was a small area
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 14: to throw.
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 9: It to, and he hit it perfectly.
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know how. I mean, once I saw
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: the ball go up, I kind of put my hands
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: up and went, Oh, because I thought there's no way
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: that can be caught in bounds and get a touchdown
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: out of it. And then he did. And I, I
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: looked over at my partner, Jim calling it. And I
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: was like, how in the world? Because it was, it
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: was just crazy. We couldn't believe it. You score the touchdown. Um,
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: I think at that point there was eight seconds, maybe
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: something like that. You go for two, you don't get
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: the two point conversion and it ends up being a pretty, uh,
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: pretty big deal you get so now you're up six
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: and and you know eight seconds left and I looked
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: over at Jim and I said man I think this
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: is when Hooper brings out the sand wedge again because
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: it's been it worked previously I think it worked like
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: right before that right to go in and so now
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: the ball goes up help me with this now because
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: a flag gets called now can it not be touched
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: before the ball hits the ground is.
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 14: That the penalty Correct. I was unaware of that. I
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 14: thought if it's in the air past 10 yards, you know,
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 14: it's a free catch. But I was informed even after
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 14: the game, we had to look it up. But the
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 14: ball has to touch one of the people on kickoff
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 14: return or touch the ground after 10 yards.
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: That's so great. We'll see. I'm wondering if it's. Because
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: Hooper does it different, right? Most kickers will kick it
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: into the ground, and it takes like the second hop,
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: it goes up in the air, and then you can
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: catch it after it goes out for 10 yards. I'm
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: thinking because he scoops it up and it never hit
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: the ground at any point, I guess that would be
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: the penalty?
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's just crazy. And you could see somebody
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: during kickoff is pointing like, kick it there, kick it there.
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: Like somebody on the sideline, I don't know if it's
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: an assistant coach or a player that was, that was not,
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: not in uniform. And I'm, and I'm, and I'm calling it.
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: I'm like, they're, they're instructing him to kick it there.
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: And it was just crazy. So at that point, is
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: it the opposing coach has the, like he can say
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: re-kick or we'll take the ball at this place. Was
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: that kind of the, how that went?
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 9: So it's supposed to go like that.
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 14: So it's either supposed to be a penalty where they re-kick,
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 14: where we move back, which would give them better field position,
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 14: or they can just decline it. But the refs didn't
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 14: give them the option to do that, and they just
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 14: they just gave him the.
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 9: Ball right yeah.
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: Okay so that was because that was another interesting thing
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: and then uh and then uh and that was it
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: right that was no i'm just kidding there was one
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: more play unfortunately it was just and they went back
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: to pass and which you know you got 58 yards
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: to cover but the quarterback takes off and runs and
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: man he had a couple receivers downfield that made some
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: big blocks they swore which ties the game. And, you know,
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: what's too bad about that is obviously that they tie,
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: but now there's no time left, and it all comes
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: down to the two-point conversion, where this team is kind
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: of built for two-point conversions, right? They're a running team, and,
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: you know, talk about that two-point conversion. Was there a
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: little bit of a hangover from the touchdown going into
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: the two-point conversion, or was it just a good executed
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: play by the Braves?
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 14: So, you know, their offense is that double wing.
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 9: So they're they're always looking to guarantee a three yard run.
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 9: So that's that's real hard to defend.
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 14: But I think our kids were kind of like you said,
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 14: we're hung over on that that big touchdown. And some
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 14: of them are ready for the extra point. But you
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 14: could tell a lot of them are still just thinking
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 14: about that big touchdown and not trying to convert it
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 14: into overtime.
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: It's just a crazy, the emotions back and forth because
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: you rode the highest of highs, the lowest of lows.
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: And it's, and it's such a, you know, as a coach,
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine, you know, what you're feeling going,
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: going through that. And, and even though you're a young guy,
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: you've been coaching for a while now. And so you've
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: seen a lot, but it is, it is pretty crazy. So,
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: you know, you have to bounce back and how do you,
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 1: how do you kind of wash that away going into
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: this week? Is there a, do you just talk to
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 1: your team and say, Hey, we can't change the past
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: or how does that work going into this week?
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 14: So we tend to not to look in the past. We,
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 14: so when we have our films and our early practices
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 14: throughout the weeks, we just, we focused on the small mistakes,
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 14: you know, we, we uplift them with their, their positive
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 14: plays and all their good responsibilities. So we try to
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 14: avoid the past and the bad and try to look to,
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 14: grow and get better each week.
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah absolutely and that's just the that's the way you
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: got to go forward because uh you know you only
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: get one chance at high school football and it goes
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: so fast and so when they're going to remember a
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff obviously they'll remember losses as well as
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: wins but um it's it's good to reinforce the positivity
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: like you said and and this this saturday night you're
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: back at home against derrington uh six and one record
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: man uh what can you.
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 14: Tell us about the loggers Um, so they're another, uh,
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 14: power team. They got, they run their, um, I formation with,
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 14: or split back under center. Um, they do space it
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 14: out a little bit and air it out. They have
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 14: a nice quarterback that has a pretty good arm. Um,
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 14: but another just disciplined physical team. Um, they, they were
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 14: neck and neck with the Connor throughout the first half.
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 14: And then the Connor had multiple injuries, which, um, which
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 14: Darrington took advantage of and, uh, aired it out and
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 14: took those leads, but just another physical discipline team.
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: I did notice too, that I, you know, against Tulayla Paradich,
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: who's obviously a really good team. They, they weren't, they
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 1: were not able to get on the scoreboard. You guys
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: were able to, is there something you can take from
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: that and say, Hey, you know, you could tell your guys, Hey,
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: you know, we were able to score against this team
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: and they, they weren't. So you try to pick them
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: up and show things or maybe see things that, uh,
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: on film that made that happen.
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 14: Yeah, so I think you're reading my mind, but I
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 14: was thinking that exact same thing. So I've been watching
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 14: their film against Tulalip and see what they did differently than.
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 9: How we execute our defense and offense.
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 14: So I was trying to mismatch and find some little
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 14: tendencies that Darrington does that we could use against them.
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is.
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 8: Huge, right?
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: They're a pretty highly ranked team, and you got them
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: at home. It's kind of like, man, it's almost like
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: the perfect storm because after a game like you just had,
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: your guys are probably really hungry to get back on
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: the field and prove themselves. And at the same time,
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: you know, you get, you get an extra day, right.
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: To recover from everything as well. So there'll be kind
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: of probably a little extra hungrier because they have another
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: 24 hours to wait. Darrington comes to town. Yeah. They're
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: riding high.
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: And then all that. And then it's, it kind of
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: works as this is the perfect time to get them. And,
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: and yeah, I just, I really think it's going to
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: be a great game. And it's going to be, and
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: it's the only game in town Saturday night. So pack
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: the house at alumni nation high school. It's going to
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: be awesome. Best of luck on Saturday against Darrington coach.
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me today on the
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: Gatorade game day podcast.
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 8: Yeah.
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 9: Thanks for having me, Tyler.
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 8: Take care.
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 10: All right.
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: I want to thank all the coaches for joining me.
• 2:02:58
  Speaker 1: And it's a, it's another great week to be on
• 2:03:01
  Speaker 1: the lookout for all these football games. Of course, Friday night,
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: you'll be able to check out the Gatorade game day
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: live on broadcast on the Wacom Preps YouTube channel where
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: myself and Jim Bring will bring you all the action
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: going on with all six of the Friday night games.
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: We'll also preview, we'll also preview all the games in
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: our pregame show that starts at six o'clock. We'll preview
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: also the Saturday game and show you highlights from Thursday
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: night's game, Sultan at Blaine. So a lot of stuff
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: going on. Be sure to check that out. You can
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: follow along with all the live scoring and And tell
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: them this has been Episode 460, the Week 8 Gatorade
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: Game Day Football Preview. I am Tyler Anderson of Wacom Preps,
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: and I will talk to you next week.