Marty Kirkland: Lessons for losers and winners on first week

Published 12:00 am Sunday, August 28, 2011

The first Friday night of every high school football season is one worth circling on the calendar. After all the practices and scrimmages, it’s the first time fans have the chance to see what their team looks like with nothing held back.

I’d say the first “Monday after” of the 2011 season will be pretty interesting, too.

For most teams, that is the day the focus is turned inward, with the goal to correct last week’s mistakes. In some cases, there’s a physical price to pay for egregious errors — bad conduct, lack of effort or things you should just know by now. And while a loss doesn’t automatically mean your team made a lot of mistakes, it’s certainly an indicator not everything went according to plan.

With only two out of six winners among area varsity teams in the opening week, Monday will no doubt be a work day around here.

First, those who came up short:

• Dalton started well against Calhoun, but gave up a two-touchdown lead to lose 24-14. Calhoun is one of the best teams in Class 2A every year, so four-quarter football is the only way to pass that test. And you can’t expect to give a team that has beaten you three out of the previous four seasons an ounce of hope and not see it turned into a pound of confidence. That happened somewhere close to halftime, and the Catamounts paid the price in the final two quarters.

• Thinking big picture about Murray County’s loss might be too daunting at this point for Indians fans. There are no lack of reasons that could be given for the state of things for their program, and the 70-0 loss to Southeast Whitfield certainly gives occasion for those of us outside the lines to talk about that. But players generally don’t have a lot of influence beyond the field, so that’s where their focus has to be. Was the blocking good? Was the tackling sound? Were the assignments checked off? That’s all the Indians can (or should) worry about.

• I talked briefly with Northwest Whitfield coach Josh Robinson after Friday’s 28-7 loss at Lambert, and he doesn’t feel the Bruins were too far away from something much better. One of the things he talked about was getting better at pass protection to make play-action effective, which creates even more opportunities for the running game. Robinson believes the task for the Bruins involves doing some little things that can make a big difference. But just as last season, the early portion of Northwest’s schedule is unforgiving, so making quick adjustments is a must.

• Based on North Murray coach Larry Cornelius’ comments to The Daily Citizen following Friday’s 34-0 loss at Heritage-Catoosa, he’s at least somewhat in the same camp as Robinson, believing they did some things to hurt themselves in the opener. One advantage the Mountaineers have over the Bruins is two more games outside of league play before jumping into the Sub-region 7B-2A schedule, which starts Sept. 16 at Sonoraville. There are talented athletes on North Murray’s roster. There are hard-nosed players who have bought into Cornelius’ philosophy of being physically tough by being mentally tough. They still have to find a way to put all of that together consistently enough to score more points than the other guys.

And, the winners:

• Southeast had plenty to celebrate after Friday’s victory. The task this week (an off one for the Raiders)  will be to keep things in perspective. The Raiders beat Murray County to start last season — not nearly as decisively in terms of points, but nonetheless with dominance — only to lose out the rest of the way. Southeast coach David Crane is as even-keeled as they come, so you can bet he’ll do his best to balance making sure his players absorb the much-needed confidence boost without forgetting that there are nine more games. And the next one is likely to be one of the toughest as Allatoona comes to town on Sept. 9.

• Christian Heritage came back from trailing at halftime to win its first game under coach Preston Poag, topping Freedom Academy of Hunstville, Ala., 39-24. Like Southeast, the Lions are off this Friday, giving them two weeks to get ready for their Glory for Christ Football League opener at the Georgia Force, one of their biggest rivals and one of the league’s better teams year in and year out — just as the Lions have been. Poag’s task is a big-picture one as he takes the Lions through a GFCFL schedule one last time before next year’s transition to the Georgia High School Association, but he’s already shown the awareness that big tasks get accomplished with little steps. Or in the words of countless football coaches, if you’re better this week than last, that’s progress.

• Here’s another reason Monday will be interesting for area high school football.

The GHSA is holding an Executive Committee meeting, and there are several items on the agenda that will concern that sport.

One topic is making a change in the Constitution and By-Laws’ default rules for regions that don’t determine their own tiebreakers — taking out the “all-classifications percentage.” Another is discussing “heat-related issues,” which got a lot of attention during the offseason/preseason after two players died following workouts/practices.

The final item concerns more than football, but football will certainly be affected by it: reclassification.

That portion of the meeting is scheduled to include a a challenge from Region 2-A against the vote to move from five to six classifications; talk of how to handle public vs. private schools when it comes to classifications; and other matters related to moving to six classes, the breakdown of which will be based on enrollment numbers recorded this school year.

And while I won’t dwell too much on this because it’s based on conjecture and spring enrollment numbers, this past week Georgia High School Football Daily (an email newsletter you should be reading — sign up at ghsfdaily.com) took a crack at predicting what the classes might look like.

Their guess?

Christian Heritage in Class A, Dalton in 5A and everyone else (Coahulla Creek, Murray County, North Murray, Northwest and Southeast) in 3A.

It’s a process that will continue throughout the fall, and we’ll be interested to see what actually happens. I’m guessing more than a few of you will be, too.

Marty Kirkland is sports editor of The Daily Citizen. You can write to him at martykirkland@daltoncitizen.com.