Faithful readers of my blog are well aware of how open head coach Neal Weidman is with his thoughts and feelings regarding everything Lynnfield Football. But this past summer he went above and beyond.
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| The Lucy Plan |
To provide as realistic a feel as possible, I will present the transcript of the meeting without any editorial comment. Here we go:
Head Coach Neal Weidman: Welcome gentlemen to our first meeting of the year. I think we have a really good chance to have a special season this year and I'm really looking forward to it. And tonight I'm going to tell you about a special game plan we're going to be using in all our games this season.
Assistant Coach Chris Sakelakos: Season game plan? What do you mean? Aren't we going to develop a specific plan for each game like we always do?
Weidman: Well, sure of course. But this will overlay the individual game plans. Think of it as The Big Picture plan.
Assistant Coach John O'Brien: Big Picture plan?
Weidman: Yes. I've named it "The Lucy Plan."
Assistant Coach Gino Fodera: Lucy???
Weidman: Yea you know Lucy. From the Peanuts cartoons?
O'Brien (rolling eyes): Of course. That Lucy.
Sakelakos: What does she have to do with football?
Weidman: You remember, don't you? Lucy always holds the ball so Charlie Brown can run up and kick it?
Fodera: Right! Then at the last minute she pulls it away and Charlie Brown ends up flat on his back!
(Laugher all around)
Weidman: Exactly. That's exactly what we're going to do to all our opponents this year.
(Puzzled looks)
O'Brien: And how are we going to do that?
Weidman: Well, we'll start every game a little slowly. Let teams hang around - just for a bit. We'll let them drive really, really close to the end zone so they think they're about to score and BAM…
Fodera: We pull away the football!
Weidman: Right! We dial up the defense to stop them and take over on downs.
Sakelakos: Then what?
Weidman: Then we hit them with some ungodly long pass play - say 80 or 90 yards for a quick score. Then we blow it open from there!
O'Brien: Flat on their backs!
Weidman: Right! What do you think?
All: Brilliant! Let's do it!
End of transcript
Okay, so I made that all up. The Lucy Plan probably doesn't exist, but it sure looks familiar. "The Lucy Plan" pretty much happened in all three game with the big stop and long bomb acting as the catalyst to blow open the three wins.
Let's review.
Pentucket:
This one was only slightly different since the Pioneers waited for the second half to put it in play. With the Pioneers holding a precarious 14-7 lead, the Sachems opened the third quarter by driving down to the Lynnfield four yard line headed for the tying score. But "Lucy" kicked in forced a fumble on fourth down which David Adams recovered. Two plays later Sullivan hit Jon Knee, who spun out of a would be tackle and sped 90 yards for the score to make it 21-7. The Pioneers scored on their next possession to pull away for the 28-7 win.
Newburyport:
Trailing 3-0 midway in the first, the Clippers marched the length of the field picking up a first and goal at the Pioneer six yard line. Lucy time! The Pioneers held and took over on the five yard line. Five plays later, Sullivan lofted one to a streaking Cam Rondeau for a 82 yard TD to make it 10-0. Per the plan, the Pioneers scored on their next two possessions to take a 25-0 halftime lead and never looked back.
Amesbury:
This one was the full Lucy. After a weak three and out and a short punt, Amesbury took over on the Lynnfield 45 yard line. Per the plan, the Indians drove deep into Pioneer territory, picking up a first and goal at the eight yard line. Time to pull away that football! Two short runs and two incompletions later, the Pioneers took over on the Indian five yard line. On the first play after the stand, Sullivan found Rondeau for a 95 yard TD to take the lead. They would score two more times in the first half to take a 19-0 lead and open the second half with another TD drive to blow it open.
The Lucy Plan. It's worked every time.
After the Amesbury game, I asked Weidman if he saw something on film that led him to believe they could throw long on the Indians.
"We weren't necessarily thinking down field," he responded. "We just thought that they wanted to keep seven in the box and they've been real aggressive off the edges. Anytime someone wants to keep seven in and play four against four in pass defense you have to do something."
Aggressive-Lee
The Pioneers unveiled another threat against Amesbury with unleashing of Kevin Lee. The senior was running tough all night and was the Pioneers' second leading rusher with 61 yards on nine carries (6.8 yards per carry) and a touchdown. He had another touchdown called back on a penalty.
"He's been so valuable to us defensively that we haven't used him on offense," Weidman explained. "We talked about it after the last game on how we really didn't get him in at running back. He played great in the scrimmage running the ball and we hadn't used him so I thought it was time."
When I mentioned he was running like someone upset at being overlooked, Weidman responded, "Yea like 'the coach finally gave me the ball.'"
Big Night for Rourke
Speaking of running backs, Jake Rourke had a career night running for 125 yards and a pair of touchdowns. It was the first time the senior has cracked the 100 yard mark in a game in his Pioneer career.
Flag Day
The one sore spot for the Pioneers was the number of penalties in the game. Lynnfield was flagged six times for 60 yards.
"We didn't look too rusty except for the 18,000 penalties we had," Weidman joked after the game, but he wasn't really laughing. "Every time we got a big play it was called back. We lost two touchdowns and another play that was inside the five yard line."
Weidman is correct about the penalty situation trending the wrong way. The Pioneers had four penalties for 35 yards in the opener against Pentucket, five calls for 45 yards against Newburyport, and the six for 60 yards against Amesbury. That's 15 penalties for 140 yards in the first three games. For comparison, last year through three games the Pioneers had 13 penalties for 123 yards. They finished the year with 47 calls for 451 yards.
"We have to fix the penalties," Weidman summed up. "It wasn't very clean."
Amesbury had zero penalties on the night.
Sullivan Update
The Pioneers' quarterback had his best game of the year against the Indians completing 61% of his passes (11 for 18) for 248 yards, two touchdowns, and no interceptions. Using the NFL passing formula, his rating for the game was 99.9. His overall rating for the year is 103. 4.
Just for reference, the average NFL passer rating through five weeks this season is 88.9.
First Turnover
A bad pitch and catch late in the game resulted in the first Pioneer turnover of the year. They have forced nine opponent turnovers giving them a 9:1 turnover advantage. Last year it was almost 2:1 (16 for Lynnfield to 29 for opponents.
Amesbury Streak
With the win, the Pioneers have now beaten the Indians seven straight times. That ties the longest active Lynnfield winning streak against a single opponent. The Pioneers also have a seven game winning streak going against Ipswich. The longest winning streak for Lynnfield against a single opponent in school history came at the expense of Masconomet. The Pioneers beat the Chieftains nine straight times from 1983 to 1991. They are 1-13 against Masco since. The teams haven't met since 2005 but the Pioneers current losing streak to the Chieftains is…nine games.
That's it for now. Check back later in the week for my Around the League post.
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