Game of the week discussion #12

seen a stat that Eldon threw for over 300 yards against ava. imo thats gonna be key with our workhorse RB out. we gotta be able to throw the ball. as Ava can run with any of their 3 RB and not miss a beat

Most of those yards were against our JV/freshmen. They never scored on our varsity. Our varsity defense sacked their QB 8 times in the game when they were playing.

If you get down 2 or 3 scores you’re not going to make a comeback with 3 yards and a cloud of dust. How many Ground and pound comebacks you seen? I’m not saying it’s impossible. But very improbable. If we need to score quickly I don’t think it’s probable that Ava is going to allow Estep to score 7 long td’s. We are going to need to try and balance it out. And nowhere did I say we need to only throw the ball. We need to try and find a balance and keep Ava from stacking the box and keep them honest.

If you go by the computer, the only potentially close game on the list is McDonald County vs Bolivar. And while I agree, that will be a good one, I can see others being closer than expected as well.
No doubt, all league eyes will be on Ava-Grove. I dont think there is much of a doubt Ava is the better team. They take care of the ball and they win the ballgame. Yes, that is likely oversimplification, but still. They have a high powered running attack and can control the clock. Grove has seemed to improve each week. If they play this thing 10 times, in my completely worthless opinion, Ava wins 7 or 8 times, but as they say, it only takes 1. I will pick Ava to win, but will continually say this "You better not overlook the Panthers"

If we get down 2-3 scores the odds of us making a comeback are slim and none. Heck in high school football being down 2 scores makes the odds of a come back very unlikely statistically.
To beat Ava we have to shorten the game and not commit turnovers. Look at the games we have lost and analyze how many points our offense gave up in INT’s! Our offense can’t give the opposing team points and when we have passed the ball to try and generate offense instead of running punting or turning it over on downs it has not worked out well for the panthers.

Our greatest chance to win is to Keep the game close going into the 4th qrt by utilizing our greatest weapon our QB and capitalize on any Ava misque or mistake. If we come out and try to force balance by throwing too much it will be a disaster. Ava plays an attacking gap penetrating defense with man coverage. Their DBs are more talented than our WR and they get pressure with their Wide DE and #44 up the Middle.

I’m not saying we should never throw it, but to try and be balanced or even 60:40 is a recipe for disaster. To throw it effectively we will have to pick our spots very carefully after we have forced the Def. Into certain situations.

And why do you think Ava will be able to stack the box? Being a man coverage team 3:4 wide sets will remove those extra players from the box. Even our Nasty sets can allow nice edge angles for running while needing to be covered for the pass.

Teams that try to force a round peg in a square hole and go against what their talent can execute successfully in an effort to adhere to some talking point idea of being balanced will undoubtedly fail.