Sweetwater Coaching

[swildcatfan]

I heard coach Rhodes say on the radio why they lost but I did not once hear him say it was bad coaching. I have been watching SW football for many years and tonights game was the worst coached game I have ever seen them play. I think they ran the same play about 30 times. And the defense lord help them. Alcoa smoked you at least three times on a short pass in the middle and not one player back there with the speed to catch them. You had the fastest player(moore)on the bench who could have easly caught the reciever preventing the big play. You were playing the best passing team in the region and you had two young freshmen playing db's. Alcoa passed the ball with ease. Its no secret that moore is one heck of an athlete and its like he did not even play. I also bet that Latham could have helped put pressure on the qb to but did not get a chance. In high school ball your best players have to touch the ball. You made no adjustments what soever to stop the pass. Its a shame for the players that worked so hard all year and the coaches loose a game like that. So players hold your head up you did not get out played you got out coached.

[ramtough]

I agree with catfan 100%. That was a real shame. If I was a parent of Moore I would move to another town were the coaches would know how to use him.

[goob5804]

It is very easy to blame the coach but whatever they did it worked pretty good in the first half. It was a battle and we(Alcoa) just had a few big plays that broke it open. I want to congratulate sweetwater on their great season and send my condolences to the seniors because i am one too and i know how you feel. Go Tornadoes!!!

[catsfan84]

While I will agree with some of your statements.. were you watching the game at all ??? That play you talked about us running about 30 times... well it worked !! We gained about 6 yards every time we ran it. The fact that we had 7 turnovers is what happened in this game. I will agree that Moore should have been in there on defense... but all in all... turnovers were the difference. In the fourth quarter with 11:54 left we had the ball only down 20-13.. then it was 6 stright turnovers.. I am not the biggest Rhodes fan in this town... but he didnt fumble one time that I saw. God Bless all of you that wear blue !!!! I love the wildcats !!!

[TankTalk]

I will talk about coaching all the time, if I think it is deserved. But my God, seven-straight possessions with turnovers? That's not the coaching. The offense was great and Sweetwater was able to pound the ball all night. They had 18 first downs and ran for 308 yards (unoffical Tank stats.) If you were to tell me they would do that before the game, I would say we would be on the winning end. We had a meltdown in the fourth...turned the ball over...and a potent Alcoa offense capatalized on it.

 

Sweetwater hasn't been able to stop the pass all season, and I may agree with you about Moore needing to be in there on defense some. Physically, it was no contest. But all that pushing around we accomplished meant nothing when the final horn sounded.

 

If I were Alcoa, I would be very concerned about how soft you are up the middle. Some teams can play pass defense and rush the QB. Other than that, Alcoa is flat out loaded and will be a monster for two or three years.

[ramtough]

Tank was you awake down on the sidelines? The one turn over in the fourth was the one that hurt. The others were from being behind trying to make something happen. The fact is Alcoa done the same thing to us tonight that they done in the season. They threw in the flat and we made no adjustments to prevent it. Heck one time there was not even a safety in the middle and that was 6 points. Alcoa found our week spot and kept on it and we did nothing to stop it. How many times did the reciever out run our dbs. Everytime they got in the open while Moore watched them run by from the sidelines. I mean heck man that was the playoffs you have to use whoever it takes to stop them and the coaches did not do that. There reciever burnt our secondary over and over again. Just be glad they dropped alot of passes.

[swildcatfan]

catsfan84- It worked,ha! I guess thats why we had so many points. We were inside the 20 atleast three times and it did not work then. When you get in the red zone you have to do something different. In case you did not noticed they beat us bad. If it worked we would have had more points. Also inside the 20 on fourth down why not kick a field goal?

[TankTalk]

Tank was you awake down on the sidelines? The one turn over in the fourth was the one that hurt. The others were from being behind trying to make something happen. The fact is Alcoa done the same thing to us tonight that they done in the season. They threw in the flat and we made no adjustments to prevent it. Heck one time there was not even a safety in the middle and that was 6 points. Alcoa found our week spot and kept on it and we did nothing to stop it. How many times did the reciever out run our dbs. Everytime they got in the open while Moore watched them run by from the sidelines. I mean heck man that was the playoffs you have to use whoever it takes to stop them and the coaches did not do that. There reciever burnt our secondary over and over again. Just be glad they dropped alot of passes.

Bah, won't argue with you...but do you think Moore could have covered all of their weapons at once? Could he have prevented the screen pass? It was just called at the right time, in one of our many blitzes...we got out-played, I am not so sure about out-coached.

[swildcatfan]

Tank-I did not say Moore could cover them all. I said he could have easily ran them down. And yes on the screen pass the safety was not blocked he had an open shot to catch the guy but did not. Yes if Moore would have been on the field he would have caught the guy stopping the big play. My gosh man Alcoa had atleast four long tds with no one even close to stopping them. Sweetwater ran the same defense all night. Except they would blitz a linebacker ever now and then. So yeh I am still point at the coaching, mainly defense, but yes also the head coach for not putting in his fastest player. They got beat on defense the entire game and never made the firts change to try and stop it. They were playing the run and Alcoa was passing almost every down.

[TankTalk]

I just think with Alcoa you have to pick your poison. You have to blitz a lot, take chances, especially when you just don't have a tested secondary.

 

If you drop back and try to take away the pass, they could have run the ball. I think the coaches just decided to at least take away one of their offensive aspects, because they knew they didn't have the personel in the secondary to handle the pass. No question, Moore could have got some more snaps on defense, but I just don't know if that would have totally prevented most of those big plays.

 

And I still say the turnovers had to be considered the key. I don't care what situation you are in, you must execute if you want a chance to win. Alcoa forced Sweetwater into a passing situation and when that happened, we all knew what would happen.

 

I still have to go back to giving Alcoa the credit, instead of pointing fingers. They are a great football team and out-played Sweetwater. Finger pointing never helped a thing, in my opinion. But great season by the Wildcats. The players could have easily folded their tents after the tough start, but they kept plugging away, proving people wrong. The five seniors were part of some special football during their time and I want to congratulate them on fine careers.

 

The seniors are: Jam Ferguson, Phillip Mitchell, Jewel Burton, Chris Meier and Corey Tallent.

[swildcatfan]

Tank-So your your saying when you are playing Alcoa(probably the best passing team in the regoin) you should stack the line and forget the pass. Well maybe a few times but when you see you can't get the qb its time to drop back. I may be wrong but I don't think we sacked him all night so our game plan was not working and they changed nothing. You need to watch the film there recievers out numbered our dbs in the secondary and they was wide open the entire game and catching passes while we were blizting trying to get the qb. My gosh the qb was taking a two step drop and throwing a quick out. You can't sack him on that. Bottom line is you have to make adjustment during a game to win the big ones and you have to play your best players. Another thing we had the ball with 2 and half minutes before the half and our coaching staff was happy with a tie and let the clock run down. Whats up with that go for the endzone. After there sorry performance last night I am glad I have a whole year before they coach again.

[TankTalk]

I just don't think we could have stacked our secondary with enough guys to do much against all of their weapons. Am I saying I would have stacked the line as much? Maybe not, but I don't know if a nickel or dime package would have really helped to be honest. Now, I am not an expert by any means, but the blitz and taking away one aspect of their offense is probably the way I would have tried things as well.

 

I still haven't seen anyone give Alcoa the credit they deserve, which kind of troubles me. They are a good team and even if we make some secondary adjustments, do you think it would have made that much of a difference? You may be right, but I just don't see it. I just think they had too many weapons for us to matchup with and they were able to give their QB just enough time for him to do his damage. And we had one sack.

 

As for the end of the first half, after we got the fumble recovery. I do not think us going for the end zone was something to do. You saw what happened when the 'Cats tried to pass. We were inside our own 20...no throwing game at all, and you think we should go for a score? I think you run Dustin and Jam and hope to break a long one, like the coaches did.

 

If they had went for a score and threw a pick, then Alcoa scored...and then turned around and got the ball to start the second half, the game is over before we explode with turnovers in the fourth quarter.

 

Just an opinion, that we do not agree on, which is cool. I had a good time watching the Wildcats this year and look forward to next season.