Beware the Eye of the Tiger

Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz was famous for building up every opponent his team was about to face regardless of whether they were undefeated or winless. When he was done with his praising, you began to wonder how the other team ever allowed a point let alone lost any games.

In 1989, Time magazine described an example: "Before the Pitt game, he assured reporters that Pitt was only slightly less dangerous than Rommel's Panzers. Yet at practice he was telling his players that Pitt was more like the army of Grenada and that he expected the Irish to beat the bejabbers out of them. When this inconsistency is raised, Holtz is only momentarily at a loss. 'We just point out the problems to the public and the press. We tell the players the problems and the solutions."

As 7-1 Lynnfield prepares to face the 0-8 Ipswich Tigers this Friday night, we can safely assume that Pioneer head coach Neal Weidman and his coaching staff is busy pointing out the problems the squad will face with the Tigers, and that they are also driving home the solutions. Clearly one problem in taking on a team that has lost a mind-boggling 29 games in a row is overconfidence. The solution might be to remind the boys that this is indeed high school football and that taking any opponent too lightly can result in disaster. The Pioneers have a clear path to the CAL Small title if they take care of business in their next three games. That focus has to start with the game at Ipswich on Friday night.

Another problem the Pioneers will have to deal with is the loss of linebacker A.J. Roberto, who injured his hand in the Newburyport win and will not be playing. The junior has been immense all year, always at the point of attack and more times than not making the tackle. His loss leaves a hole in the middle of the Pioneer defense that will be difficult to fill. Understand that the rest of the defense has been outstanding as well, but a school the size of Lynnfield can not afford to lose quality players.

The Pioneers have played most of the year without starting three year center Greg Banos. Doug Ullian has moved to center and done a good job while sophomore Jonathan Roberto moved into the starting lineup and has been solid as well. The Pioneers will need to find a similar solution to A. J.'s loss.

Meanwhile, another key factor is the fact that the Tigers are starving for a victory. Amazingly enough, with almost three years of losing, Ipswich head coach Ted Flaherty has still been able to maintain the right attitude with his Tigers. They have been playing better every game and nearly upset Amesbury last week.

The Tigers came into the season losers of 21 straight after winning the Division 3A Super Bowl in 2006. they have 16 seniors and I frankly expected more from them than what they have shown. Part of the problem may have been that after nearly 40 years of running the Delaware Wing T offense, perfected by longtime Tiger coach Jack Welch, Flaherty installed a new offense this year - the Spread Wing T.

Before the season, Flaherty explained to the Ipswich Chronicle that he made the change to take advantage of the "Tigers' speed against other, larger team's size and strength." He sounded a warning bell in that same interview when he said "it hasn't been easy to install in the preseason, because it's new to everybody."

That turned out to be an understatement.

The Tigers were shut out in their first four games and were outscored 127-0. They  finally got on the board in a 34-6 loss to Pentucket (another ridiculous scheduling mismatch), but seemed to start putting it together against Manchester-Essex the next week.

Running back James Riel scored a pair of touchdowns and wide reciever Aaron Jessen (6'3" , 211 lbs) caught a TD pass from Brendan Gallagher as the Tigers built a 22-7 lead. However, M-E scored twice in the second period to tie the game at 22-22 at the half. Ultimately, the Tigers had no answer for the Hornets' Brian Ciccone who finished with five touchdowns in a 50-28 rout. Nathaniel Bocko broke a 50 yarder for the Tigers' foma; score.

The following week against Georgetown, Ipswich discovered a new weapon in running back Jake Leblanc. His 81 yard kickoff return had the Tigers tied with the Royals at 7-7 midway in the second, but this time it was Georgetown's Chris Esposito who did the damage, finishing with a pair of touchdowns as the Royals pulled away 28-13. Bocko and Gallagher hooked up for a 55 yard TD pass for the other Ipswich score.

The Tigers stepped it up another notch last week against Amesbury. They fell behind the Indians 14-0 and normally with a team that has lost that many games in a row, you would have expected a complete collapse at that point. But instead, the Tigers scored 17 unanswered points to take a 17-14 lead. Bocko and Gallagher connected on a 21 yard TD pass to make it 14-6 and Ben Michael added a 20 yard field goal to make ti 14-9 at the half. In the fourth quarter, Riel scored from seven yards out with less than three minutes to play to take a 17-14 lead.

Amesbury came back to tie it on a 42 yard field goal by Nicholas Croce and then won it in overtime.

"I scouted Ipswich (last Friday night)," said Weidman. "I'll tell you what, they outplayed Amesbury."

Again, the bright spot for Ipswich was the play of Leblanc who carried 18 times for 118 yards.

"They had a kid on the field that was fantastic who wasn't playing earlier in the year," Weidman said of Leblanc. "He's a very good player."

Friday night will be Senior Night for the Tigers and you know they will be aching to pull off the upset. They appear to have good team speed, especially in the skill positions. They also seem to be strong willed and have not let the losing crater them. That is evidenced by their ability to play competitively the last few weeks, despite not being able to get a win.

So maybe this time we should all listen to what Lou Holtz might say. Don't look at the record. Look at a hungry team growing in confidence that could be very dangerous. The Pioneers will have their hands full.


Remember 05 and 06
There might be a tendency to feel badly for the Tigers as they go through this unbelievably difficult stretch - especially for Pioneer fans who know what toll losing can take on players, coaches, parents and fans. Even in the depths of their worst struggles, however, the Pioneers have never gone through a stretch of losing like the one Ipswich is experiencing. Lynnfield's longest losing streak ever occurred in 1993-95 when the Pioneers lost 14 straight. Ironically, that stretch began with a 36-7 loss to Ipswich and was snapped a season and a half later with a 29-20 win over Amesbury.

But before you feel too badly for the Tigers, harken back to 2005 and 2006 when the swaggering Tigers had their way with the Pioneers. In 2005, the Pioneers were missing three of their six seniors and were manhandled 35-2 in Ipswich.

The following year in 2006, when the current senior class were freshmen, the Tigers rolled over the injury riddled Pioneers 34-0 enroute to their Super Bowl win. You can bet this year's seniors remember the bite the Tigers took out of them that day.

Ironically that same week, current Pioneer quarterback Gino Cohee was leading his Lynnfield Youth Football "A" team to a 28 pasting of Amesbury. Cohee ran for a touchdown, threw a pair of TD passes, one to current Pioneer Wes Sullivan and ran in two conversions. I'm sure he'll take a similar night against the Tigers on Friday.

Game time in Ipswich is 7 pm.