PLYMOUTH – It was a second overtime win in as many home games for Plymouth’s Rockies last week and while the defense was much improved it was that side of the ball, along with cutting back on six turnovers, that were the coaching points of the week.
“I haven’t liked the way we’ve played defense but I really believe that some of that is on me. We did get better last week,” said Plymouth coach John Barron. “We continue to do some things defensively allowing some big plays and drives and time of possession. We miss Kam Vanlue, not just his skills but his leadership. We’ve had some inconsistent play. Our tackling has been up and down as well. There has been a lot of moving parts in there personnel wise and we’ve played a couple different fronts and that’s been part of it.”
“We see a lot of different types of teams,” said Barron. “We see teams that run option like Warsaw, that play power football like Northridge, that are all over the place like East Noble and we have to be prepared for everything. I hope we continue to get better. (The defense) played with more confidence last week. We just really don’t have a personality right now. It’s been frustrating but we’ve gone back to basics and now hopefully we can get the right combination of 11 on the field.”
Another point of emphasis was an explosive offense that continues to put up big numbers but one big number a week ago – five interceptions and a fumble – did not leave a good feeling.
“(Quarterback) Joe (Barron) is going to be really aggressive and maybe throwing the ball in to some tight spaces,” said Barron. “A couple of our coaching points with him this week is when you’re third and four and you’re changing the play to throw it downfield – we don’t need that. We need to be smarter than that. When you are throwing the ball into a soft coverage we need to throw to the route underneath. Or run it. I’d like to seem him pull it and run it and take some of the pressure off the receivers sometimes. Hopefully we took care of that with him this week.”
“We’ve got some really good guys up front we’ve got a really good running back and we have some guys that can catch the ball,” said Barron. “They catch it in space, they catch it over the top, they’ve caught it in traffic, they’ve done a nice job.”
While Wawasee comes to Plymouth looking for their first win of the season, that zero in the win column can be deceptive.
“When I look at film of them I see kids that play hard,” said Barron. “They have some very physical kids and they seem a little like us defensively. They’ll play really well and then all of a sudden somebody will go for 40 yards.”
“They have six or seven guys going both ways and you watch them on film against their last two opponents and they hang right in there early against Concord and NorthWood for the first couple series,” said Barron. “And then you can see them all of a sudden get tired and because of that a little sloppy, have a turnover, give up a big play and when that happens and you play those two teams they can really light up the scoreboard.”
“Hopefully we can take advantage of that too since we have less guys playing on both sides of the ball.”
“I like our team,” said Barron. “We can’t turn the ball over six times. That’s no good no matter how many points you score. We have to continue to tackle well. They will challenge us formation wise. They will have people all over the place. We’ve got to adjust to that with our linebackers and safeties and be able to play man coverage at some point. If we can do that, we can have a chance to win the ball game.”
Game time at Plymouth is 7 p.m. on Friday night.
