To an average fan, it seems easy enough. Hand the football off. Pass it to an open receiver. Let the quarterback run with it.
Being an offensive coordinator for a high school football program is far from easy, however. When things are clicking and the team is enjoying success, it’s somewhat easy to call plays. When it comes time for adjustments and formulating a game plan for Friday night, the task is not always so easy.
So just what goes into deciding what plays are called and at what time during a game?
“As far as calling plays goes, it really is a game-by- game thing,” said Apalachee High School offensive coordinator Joel Miller. “We have our base seven to eight run plays that we will use every week. We will change the blocking some based on what we have seen on film. However, we run an offense that people will sometimes defend differently than they do against other types of offenses, so things can change on Friday nights.”
Last week, the Wildcats’ ground attack was in top form with well over 300 yards. One back surpassed 100 yards while another was over the 90-yard mark. Even the few pass plays that were called worked.
“We run what teams are giving us,” Miller said. “If they are taking away the fullback, then we have to run the wingbacks.Friday night there really wasn’t a need to pass. All aspects of our run game was clicking and we needed to run the clock to help our defense out some. When we did pass Friday, we were able to complete some passes in very stressful and important moments in the game.”
To be able to pass the football effectively when your offense has been running it with a high level of efficiency most of the night can actually be a difficult thing.
However, Miller said quarterback Clint Ashe, wide receiver Jermaine Smith and the remainder of the offense executed what few pass plays were called.
“At the end of the day, we are going to do what we do,” Miller said. “If you run a 100 different schemes and types of offenses, basically what happens is that you become OK at a lot of different things. Our philosophy is that we would like to have our core plays and be really good at running those instead of just being OK at running a bunch of things. We are not blessed with athletes all over the field like some teams in our region have, but we are blessed with kids who work hard and are tough and have the mental toughness to execute in tight situations.”
The Wildcat players proved that last Friday in the 35-28 win against Loganville.
Despite all the success last week, Miller knows this Friday will be another challenge and one that the players and coaches have to be ready for.
Chris Bridges is sports editor of the Barrow Journal. You can reach him at cbridges@barrowjournal.com
