PLYMOUTH – Plymouth’s Rockies are on strange ground this week after taking their first NLC and regular season loss in nearly three seasons and in need of a big rebound for Homecoming week against Goshen.
It was a rare night that saw Plymouth’s explosive offense flat and Concord able to take advantage.
“We just didn’t play very well up front offensively,” said Plymouth coach John Barron. “We didn’t get a hat on a hat. We talked to our lineman, got a lot of their input on Saturday. Hhopefully we’ve got things taken care of. There wasn’t any ranting and raving. Our players should know that we trust them enough to ask them a question.
“I don’t think we’re arrogant enough to say it’s ‘it’s all your fault and not our fault’. We did a lot of soul searching this weekend as a coaching staff. Part of that loss on Friday was us. You can’t have that many kids not play well and not take responsibility for it. We looked in the mirror and said ‘What are we doing and what do we need to do to get back to playing Rockie football’.”
Turnovers have really been the only negative in the Rockie offense, but Concord has been the only team to make them hurt, taking advantage of the short field and a pick six to run up 21 of their 35 points.
“As we rolled on I think Jack (Barron) got a little frustrated and tried to do too much,” said Barron of his senior signal caller. “Am I concerned with turnovers? Yeah. Any coach is concerned with turnovers. I’m equally concerned we didn’t cause any turnovers.”
Helping the team bounce back became a point of emphasis in practice this week.
“We started the week the way we always do,” said Barron. “We livened it up on Tuesday pretty good, we went back to some full padded practices. I’ll be honest with you it’s a mental thing. You can’t accept losing. It isn’t a punishment but you want them to get the clue a little bit that the ‘old man’ is angry.
Especially with Goshen coming to Plymouth. The Redskins won their first four games but have now dropped their last three and are hungry to get back in the win column under second year head coach Kyle Park. The son of former Redskin coach Brad Park he’s brought renewed energy to the program.
“One of the smartest things he’s done (Kyle Park) is he’s brought back that coaching staff – guys that in the past – when Goshen was dominating our conference in the early ’90’s they were there,” said Barron. “They are a multiple offense – they’ll run spread, they’ll run tight end sets, double tight end sets – something we haven’t seen since Rochester. They have a good running back (Jeff Stoll) who runs hard, Brady Bechtel is a really good player, a good athlete.
“Their defense will be well coached. Steve Swihart is a good defensive coach. It’s like I told our coaches if you think we’re going to see anything but a 4-3 your crazy. It’s what New Prairie has run, it’s what Concord runs now and those are the last two teams that have beaten us.”
The formula for the Rockies is a simple one.
“We have to run the ball,” said Barron. “We have to get our fullback going. We have good offensive lineman, we need to let them do what they do best within their skill set. We’ve had time to look at our deficiencies on both sides of the ball hopefully we’ve got them corrected.”
