CLEMENTS FOOTBALL

It does not seem as though it should be week three of the season!!! We have had a fast start to the school year and football season is flying by. In case you haven't heard we have started the season 0-2. We lost at West Limestone 28-12 and lost last week to Lexington 24-14. We are also 0-1 in the region. If you attended both games you noticed two different teams playing. Defensively against West we played as bad as any team I have ever coached. It was a poor effort tackling. West is greatly improved, but we did not tackle well at all against them. Offensively we were a strong run team against them. We rushed for 221 yards.  When week two rolled around if you attended that game, you noticed we played much more upbeat and the defense swarmed to the ball. We also threw the ball for several school records. We were 37-52-1 for 315 yards and a touchdown last week against Lexington. The completions, attempts and yards are all school records. However, we would have swapped a record for a win any day of the week. We only rushed five times for minus five yards.

One might ask what would prompt a coach to make such a radical change in only a week. In high school football, especially small schools, a coach has to do what he thinks gives his team the best chance to win the game. Last week, we were struck with the flu pretty hard. Therefore, we had some very young linemen that would not match up in a run blocking scheme with Lexington's size and strength. Pass protection however, was a lot easier. We have a good quarterback and good wide outs. So it just made sense to me to practice the pass and hope for the best. We did get some of our players back from the flu to play in the game.

Sickness, more than the injury bug, has really been a problem. I know that nationwide the flu is hard on everyone. In our case we have had 16 of our 39 players sick this week. Either flu, sinus infection or other sickness has invaded our team. Our players that have been playing less of a role have done a great job in stepping up and helping make our team stronger. We hope that will help us this week and down the road.

Phil Campbell will present a huge challenge for us this week. They are a younger team, but they have improved each week of the season. They have a new coach this year and have had to learn terminology and methods he has put into place. It will be their home opener and I expect them to be very excited about being in front of the home crowd. We must play with the same intensity we did last week on defense and score when we have the ball to even have a chance at winning. We hope to see all of you over at Phil Campbell this Friday!!!