Final game, end of the season

Well our season ended with a loss to Saukville, 19-0. But our guys played with great effort...we were missing a large group of players and a lot of guys had to play positions that they have not played in a game before.

We also tried some new things for fun...some trick plays, and some plays that we made up during timeouts to try. Some were successful, some weren't. But it was fun to give it a shot.

All in all, I would say this was a successful season. Every year our goal as a youth team is not driven by winning, but by teaching fundamentals and improving as the year goes by. I think it was pretty evident that our team at the end of the season was a lot better than the team that started the season, and by the end we were playing with a lot more confidence.

This team also did a pretty good job of avoiding mental mistakes, especially the last half of the season. Most of the problems that we had towards the end were physical things, and as a coach you know that those issues will always be there in some form.

I encouraged all of the players to stick with football next year and beyond, and I hope that they do. Hopefully they all had fun this season, I know I did.

I'll see you at the banquet.

Final practice; Saukville on Saturday

Last night's practice was the pizza party, contrary to what I told the players earlier in the week. It's a nice way to end the season with a practice that is all fun and games, and for once I don't have to yell at the players for goofing around.

The final game of the season is at Saukville. Here is a map:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?t=h&ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=204409029196823913827.0004a37b8e23690d42a66&ll=43.375296,-87.94281&spn=0.011277,0.013175&z=16&iwloc=0004a37b9070736d1d590

It will be a difficult game (we will be missing all of our quarterbacks, so some players were willing to step up to the challenge of playing a new position) but winnable as long as we play well and continue the momentum that we have built the last few weeks.

See you Saturday!

10/29 game will be at Saukville

I received word during practice last night that our final game of the season will be at Saukville, the normal noon time. Players can arrive 11:15-11:30 for warmups.

Our final practice of the season will be on Thursday. I encourage all players to be there, even if they will be out of town for the Saturday game. There will be a reward for all players that show up to practice, even if coach told the players last night that there wasn't........

10/24 practice

Another offensive practice tonight led to a little bit of creativity. We have a lot of players who will be missing this week's game due to family trips and the like, and so we will be short at a number of positions. But that's ok...we always tell the players that situations like that also present opportunities for other players to shine.

I do not yet have our opponent for this coming Saturday, which will be our final game of the season. I will let you know once that determination is made.

Thanks and we'll see you Tuesday.

Oconomowoc Purple; week of 10/24

Another solid effort leads to another victory as we defeated Oconomowoc Purple yesterday, 25-12. This was probably our best all-around effort of the season, and we played well in all phases. We kept mistakes to a minimum and were able to make a few big plays on offense, which is something that we struggled to do all season long. So the coaches were very pleased with the effort.

Final week of practice this week. I don't know our upcoming opponent as of the time of this post. I know a group of players will be missing the final game for a variety of reasons, but I still urge those players to stick around practice this week (especially Thursday).

Thanks and we'll see you tomorrow.

Oconomowoc Purple - Important Note

Hello parents,

This morning I received an email indicating that our game against Oconomowoc Purple will take place at 10:30AM on Saturday, not the normal noon time. I will have a handout and map for the players to take home.

I have also seen some resistance to this...essentially the 8th grade game was switched to a night game, but with little notice to our 8th grade teams. This is causing a potential problem and I'm not sure how things will play out.

In essence: As of now, OUR game is at 10:30am on Saturday. My handout will say the same thing. If that changes in the next 48 hours I will of course let you know ASAP. Thanks!

10/17 practice, Oconomowoc Purple

Hello everyone,

Last night's practice was a little sloppy - I think the players were still pumped up from their first win of the season and our focus wasn't so great. Hopefully tonight is a little better.

Saturday's game has been determined. It will be at Oconomowoc Purple. The map is on the website, I will also try to provide maps to the players.

Thanks and we'll see you tonight.

Nicolet game

A very satisfying effort today leads to the first victory of the season, a 14-12 victory over Nicolet in a very exciting game for the second week in a row. Glad we ended up on top in this one.

A lot of things made me happy about our effort today. First, our defense outscored Nicolet's offense, 8-6, due to a defensive touchdown (for the second week in a row) and a safety. Second, we moved the ball extremely well, and if not for a few mistakes inside the ten yard line, we could've scored 2-3 more touchdowns. In the second half, it became clear: we were going to do the same thing over and over, and I'm not sure we were going to be stopped unless we stopped ourselves. I might've called 2 or 3 different plays, at the most, the entire second half. Nicolet knew what was coming, and we knew that they knew...we just didn't care.

But I think what I liked most about this game was the way we closed the deal. 4th and 4, just a minute or two to go, and we were able to get Nicolet to jump offsides with a hard count to pick up the clinching first down.

We preach to the players in practice over and over and over that we will not be too hard on them for physical mistakes, because those will always happen. However, we want to eliminate mental mistakes because those are the things that are always within your control. The team demonstrated that they were up to that challenge in today's game, and with the game on the line, our players were mentally strong, and that's a huge reason we won.

You also have to give Nicolet credit for their effort. They didn't quit, and had they recovered their onside kick (and they almost did), who knows how this game turns out. Sometimes the ball bounces in your favor, and fortunately the ball bounced in our favor today.

As good as it feels, there's still plenty to work on. We gave up another special teams touchdown, and we stalled our drives way too deep in Nicolet territory several times today. We always tell the players not to get too high when things go your way, or too down when they don't...and we still have plenty of work to do to finish this season out right.

Practice at Monday at 5pm, as usual. Practice will end around 6:30pm (or when it gets too dark). See you then.

Nicolet

A rainy pregame practice last night ended up with a victory for the linemen in the "linemen challenge." Always fun to end our pregame practice with a little competition.

To confirm to parents, our game Saturday is against Nicolet at noon, warmups at 11:15pm as usual (warmups may be delayed if the 7th grade game goes late). Please see the youth football website for a map to Nicolet. Should be a good game - hopefully we start this game as strongly as we finished the previous one.

See you Saturday.

P.S. It's starting to get pretty dark pretty early...I would recommend parents start arriving to practice at 6:30pm or earlier to pick up your child, as practice will be ending earlier and earlier. Thanks.

10/10 practice

Offensive practice last night went pretty well. Our theme was to play hard the entire time. Against West Bend East, we got off to a slow start. Against other teams, we have not finished strong. We need to work on putting together a complete effort.

A note to parents: Our practices will continue to start at 5pm, despite what other grades may be doing. However, our practices are ending earlier and earlier as it gets dark faster. Right now I would advise parents to arrive around the 6:30pm mark, as practice will typically end shortly after that, at least for now.

Thanks and we'll see you tonight.

West Bend East

Another loss today, but we certainly gave everybody a show.

We were down 16-0 with only a few minutes to go in the fourth quarter (West Bend East successfully kicked two extra points, which are worth two points instead of one at the youth level). Our offense started to get something going, and we were able to drive down the field and punch it through for a touchdown to cut it to 16-6.

Then, after West Bend East recovered the kickoff, we were able to use our timeouts to force East to run several more plays. We forced a fumble and ran the fumble back all the way for yet another touchdown. We threw the extra point in to make it 16-13.

THEN, we successfully recovered the onside kick and had a chance to win the game with about a minute or two to go. Unfortunately we finally ran out of magic.

I told the kids after the game to think of the game as 2 touchdowns scored for each team, and to carry the momentum from the end of this game into next week. Hopefully that's just what we do.

See you Monday.

10/3 and 10/4 practices

Sorry I've missed a few practices on the blog here, it's been a busy week. Monday's practice went very well, we installed a new offensive play and looked very sharp. Last night's practice was solid too...hopefully a good sign going into this weekend against West Bend East.

Just a reminder, warmups start at 11:15 (hopefully they are not as far behind as they were last week). Please check the website for a map to the West Bend East games, as they are not played at the high school nor are they played at Badger Middle School, which is where they were in the past.

Looking forward to tomorrow's pregame practice.

Milwaukee Custer

Looking at the scoreboard, this week would seem like it is deja vu as we dropped another one to Milwaukee Custer, 19-0. That's the second week in a row that we lost by that score.

However, this game was definitely a different story. We moved the ball ok on offense, just had a few turnovers that killed some of our drives. Defensively, we had some missed tackles but some late touchdowns by Custer makes the score look more lopsided than the game really was.

I'm looking forward to this coming week, as we will play West Bend East. It will be interesting to see how much progress each team has made since we scrimmaged back in August.

See you Monday at 5pm (other grades are starting at 4:45pm; we realize it is difficult enough as it is to get there by 5pm, so 6th grade practices will continue to start at 5pm and go until about 6:45 or so).