Memorable Week 2 Games

I am really missing be out under the lights on Friday's. This week we would be having our first home game vs. Oak Lawn and hopefully heading into our conference slate at 2-0.

Week 2 games are never as memorable as week 1 games but there are two that standout.


2016 - Wilmington @ Manteno - this was my first big game at Wilmington and we were taking a very power offensive team in Manteno. It was a battle in the first half but we had the ball with 15 seconds left in the half and we were facing 4th and 4, clock is running, we were just going to run a play and head into the half up by 6. Manteno calls a Timeout to give them time for a few plays if we do not convert the 4th down. We run our play and our RB goes 52 yards for a TD, we the the PAT and now up 21-6 and we cruise to victory.

2013 - Peotone vs. Seneca - in my 13 years coaching, only a few time have I seen one individual kid refuse to lose but this was probably one of the single best performances I have ever seen as a coach. We were down 20 - 6 on the last play of the 3rd quarter, Seneca punts and our SS returns it for a TD. We were playing at home with no energy and this play changes the whole atmosphere. As Seneca is driving up 20-13, they run a play action, our SS doesn't bite, he intercepts the ball and returns it for a TD, we convert 2 point conversion and now up 21-20. Seneca drives down the field and kicks a FG with going up 2 with about 2 minutes left. On the ensuing kickoff, the same kid returns it for a TD and we win 28-23. Unbelievable performance by this kid who later went on to have a pretty successful 4 years at Millikin.

I tried to think of a good game or something positive that happened over my 20 years of coaching. I couldn't come up with one. I did immediately remember this game though-

2013- CGB @ Westville. We had just beaten Lena Winslow the previous Saturday without our starting fullback who sat out for disciplinary reasons. He was back this game. Westville was not good this year and going in it figured to be a one half game for our varsity. Go out, throttle them, put in the JV 2nd half. It was not.

We played terribly. Very sloppy, lots of penalties (also partly because the refs were TERRIBLE- we had a 95 yard Int return by our MLB who was also a guard called back for clipping. I asked for a number- they said our safety. He was 10 yards from the play. When we watched the film the only person he hit on the play was our corner. I think we had 4-5 TDs called back in the first half). One of our kids took a cheap shot punch at a Westville player that was missed by the crew, but I saw it so we pulled him. It was hot, we had a really long bus ride as our driver refused to go over 55mph on the interstate. I think we led 28-0 at the half. Very uninspired, we were showing all our character defaults. Before the season we had a talk about not reading the press and getting the "big head". It worked for week 1. We threw it out week 2 apparently.

Last play of the half, a backup DT tackles their RB and the half ends. DT goes down with a cramp. As I'm walking out to check on the kid one of my assistants is barking at the officials. I tell him to shut up as I never said crap to officials because it isn't going to do anything but piss them off. He continues and glares at me. I tell him to stop. He says something to me and I tell him he's fired, take a hike, get the hell off my sideline(he's now a HC). As I get to the kid, I ask if he's OK. He responds with "Dod I get credit for that?" Credit for what? "That tackle." I don't know. I think we have bigger problems. Kid says something smart to me. I latr kick the kid off the team the next year.

At the halftime talk (which is outside in the west endzone/tree area at Westville) I lose it. Tell them they may have beaten LW, but they look like trash this night. Cheap, lazy, big headed trash. Say that Westville is one of the worst teams they'll play all year and they're playing to their level of ability. If you want to do something this season you better pull your head out of your asses. I throw my stopwatch. I leave the huddle to sit on the sideline and drink Gatorade. Without my stopwatch.

The team comes over, warms up and I go over and look for my stopwatch by myself in a bit of embarrassment. We throttle them in the second half. Play business like football and dispose of them quickly. About the end of the 3rd quarter my RT who my assistants always joked was my son walks up to me when we're on D and asks me if I could check my watch and tell him what time it was. I tell him it's not the time for jokes and kind of laugh. 5 minutes later, a guy I've never seen in my life walks onto our sideline and goes "Coach- I think you lost this" and hands me my lost stopwatch. I say thanks and he disappears.

After the game, I talk to my assistant, rehire him and walk out of the stadium. One of the concession workers comes up to me and asks me if I'm OK. I said yes, why? He said they heard my halftime speech and wanted to make sure I wasn't going to commit murder.

I won a couple Coach of the Year awards for 2013. I did not deserve them for any coaching things or wins or losses. If i deserved them for anything it was for holding that team together and getting them to function. Hardest year of coaching ever for a team that ended up 11-1.

Was that the year you played Camp Point in the playoffs?

Teetime wrote:Was that the year you played Camp Point in the playoffs?

No. The following year. Lost to Auburn in a quarterfinal fumble fest the day before the Washington/Gifford tornadoes.

That season took a lot of years off my coaching career. Had we made the championship to get destroyed by Newcom, I probably would have gotten out that year.

2012's team was a lot of fun. I loved coaching them. Most talented team I ever coached. If we'd have cooped the year before, I think we actually beat Althoff in the semis. That team was LOADED. Most of the 13 quarterfinal team were scout team players in 12.

Week 2 must be a tough one to think of specifically. Only one that comes to my mind is from when I coached at Mt. Vernon in 2005. We went up the Chicago-area to play someone and we actually stayed in a hotel the night before. It was a limited travelling party because in what has to be a rarity our varsity, JV, and freshmen teams all played that Saturday...in three different locations against three different programs. The varsity was the only one to make the trip to Chicago.

Anyway, we ran a double tightend, fullhouse backfield at Mt. Vernon and we spent the whole week trying to figure out how the other team was going to defend us because they played nothing but 4-3 Cover 2 the week before. Well, they actually stayed in that look the whole first half and we struggled as they were more physical than us. We finally woke up and ran over them in the second half and won 41-14, or something close to that.

Cheap post, but I finally had to look it up: Bensonville Fenton was who we played that week.

Not a great memory as far as the result of the game but in 2011 we hosted Center and the Oregon program in week 2. We were very offensively challenged that season. We were decent on defense that year finished 5-5 played Newman solid for a half in Round 1. Lost to Oregon that day 26-7 threw a pick 6 on the final play of the game to add salt to the wound. I remember it most because it was beyond hot that day. I think Temps towards 100 that day. Lot of beer to rehydrate after that one.

Week 2 was brutally hot in 11. We traveled to Salt Fork. One of only like 6-8 games in the Chambana area to go off at the scheduled time. Lost 20-8. Went down 20-0 in the first 6 mins of the game. At halftime I was personally distraught. I thought we would be pretty good that year and were staring 0-2 in the face with a 4-7 record in my first 11 games. One guy in the community would actually submit a letter of application and resume after this game to be HC.

One of my assistants asked what was wrong and I was brutally honest- I said I was worried I was going to get fired. I really liked my job and I didn't want to lose it because I thought we were close to turning it around for a very special run. He told me I wasn't going to lose my job. He was the school board VP at the time.

In the second half we abandoned the no huddle hurry up offense and just ran our talented wing and fullback. We "won" the second half 8-0. I figured if I was going to get fired, I was going to do it with my own style and to hell with making people happy and spreading the ball around.

The next week we officially switched to the I and RTFB was born. We lost to a quarterfinal Arcola team 17-14 at their place. My curmudgeonly offensive play calling that fit my personality took hold and after week 3 of 2011 we wouldn't lose a regular season game again until Week 1 of 2014 (by 1 in OT on the road to a future playoff team Oakland).

I believe my do it my own damn way hard headedness really benefited us in 11 and 12 and part of 13. It probably cost us a little against Auburn in 13. It definitely hurt us in 14 and 16 and probably eventually expedited my exit from CG.

EDIT- we lost 25-8 to Salt Fork in 11. We had lost the week before to Bismarck Henning 20-6. We trailed 25-0 @SF after 6 mins. Had also forgotten that BH would go 9-2 that year, SF would end 9-1 and Arcola would end 8-4.

Bighitter11 wrote:Not a great memory as far as the result of the game but in 2011 we hosted Center and the Oregon program in week 2.  We were very offensively challenged that season.  We were decent on defense that year finished 5-5 played Newman solid for a half in Round 1.  Lost to Oregon that day 26-7 threw a pick 6 on the final play of the game to add salt to the wound.  I remember it most because it was beyond hot that day.  I think Temps towards 100 that day.  Lot of beer to rehydrate after that one.

Hitter I think that was the hottest game we ever had. Two things I remember;

Spoon got your AD to get kiddie pools full of ice water on the sideline for the game.

Not a single kid on either team getting a cramp or lying on the ground the whole night.

I would have drank some beer that night also but it was too damn late when we got back home.

The only other game week I remember close to that hot was week 2 in 2000

wolverine55 wrote:Cheap post, but I finally had to look it up: Bensonville Fenton was who we played that week.

We played Fenton Week 2 my senior year. Longest game ever. Very warm night, tons of kids cramping. One of our kids was taken away in an ambulance. I got my first career carry that night. My wife was in the stands that night and vividly remembers their PA announcer saying "and he's tackled by a herd of bison"

Week 2 of 2011 was brutal. That's the year I didn't coach, actually, but my brother and I went to Jacksonville to watch them play Rochester and the coaches at my current job who were around then still talk about how brutal that night was.

I'll still put it as second hottest game I ever coached in. That Saturday afternoon game Week 1 of 2013 was BRUTAL.

I remember Week 1 of 2004 being especially humid and just stuffy. Really hard to breathe. Thunderstorms to the NW of Sullivan. I think our game (Shelbyville vs Sullivan) was the only Okaw and Decatur area game to get played to completion. One of those night it's seemingly dewy but it's still 90 degrees at 9pm.

Week 2 always seemed to be the cut off for the super hot games. There's been a few exceptions (2017 seemed hot for the whole season. Maybe because we were just getting killed every week), but Week 2 seemed the meteorological end to hot football.

center wrote:

Bighitter11 wrote:Not a great memory as far as the result of the game but in 2011 we hosted Center and the Oregon program in week 2.  We were very offensively challenged that season.  We were decent on defense that year finished 5-5 played Newman solid for a half in Round 1.  Lost to Oregon that day 26-7 threw a pick 6 on the final play of the game to add salt to the wound.  I remember it most because it was beyond hot that day.  I think Temps towards 100 that day.  Lot of beer to rehydrate after that one.

Hitter I think that was the hottest game we ever had. Two things I remember;

Spoon got your AD to get kiddie pools full of ice water on the sideline for the game.

Not a single kid on either team getting a cramp or lying on the ground the whole night.

I would have drank some beer that night also but it was too damn late when we got back home.

The only other game week I remember close to that hot was week 2 in 2000

I remember the Kiddie pools that day and that was the first game that we started taking Shots of Pickle Juice before the game. Going on almost 10 years of doing it now it seems to be doing the trick.

Week 2 2006: JCA @ Morris:

Coming off the undefeated 2005 season, 2006 was the most bizarre year I've ever experienced. Lost our #1 TB on the last day of summer workouts to a severely torn hamstring, went into week one up at Geneva and got thrashed 37-0. One of those games where we shouldn't have even gotten on the bus to go, let alone get off it to play.

JCA comes to our house for week 2, centerpiece of their team that year was Coby Fleener, who would have a decent little career in the NFL. We go back, make a number of personnel & schematic changes and come out in a spread offense and stunned JCA 27-21. I was OC at the time and I remember thinking we SHOULD be able to do some damage against them offensively, but I had no idea that we would play as well as we did.

We would go on to beat JCA again in the first round of the playoffs that year, registering our third straight victory over the Hilltoppers. I don't believe there's ever been another public school that has accomplished that feat.

After the game, one of our starting DT's started having some numbness in his fingers. By the time he got to his car, he couldn't even grip his car keys to start the motor. Within 6 hours, he was seeing the start of paralysis in his extremities & rushed to the hospital. He was diagnosed with Guillan-Barré Syndrome, and had to have a massive blood transfusion, which saved his life. He's now the defensive line coach for the Saskatchewan Rough Riders of the CFL.