Chip Shots: Recent Tiger Football Win A Program Victory
October 22, 2022 at 3:14 a.m.
Chip Shots: Recent Tiger Football Win A Program Victory
By Chip Davenport-
The win over Northridge was a significant program victory.
It’s not a hot take.
Wins over then-fourth-ranked Michigan City (20-19 in 2019), and a sectional title-clinching 35-18 victory over Penn in the same season are likely the games fans would unanimously call program victories.
I completely understand.
The October 14 win over the Raiders, on the other hand, didn’t have the high stakes the aforementioned wins in 2019 featured. After all, the two teams were vying for an outright third place finish in the Northern Lakes Conference (NLC) ladder.
Furthermore, the program victory from Friday was punctuated by a 20-14 Saturday morning junior varsity win over Northridge courtesy of a late game, goal line stand
How does this most recent win warrant program victory laurels?
The Tigers’ most recent win is testimony to fruit borne from multiple seasons’ efforts during practice, every single non-game day when Warsaw gridders populate Fisher Field or the grass practice field behind the East side of the stadium.
Coach Curtis’s quotes – heard more than once when they suit the outcome – reflect the program’s core values and summarize why – even as severely shorthanded as they were – the Tigers still won October 14 at Interra Field.
“We coach next year’s kids this year,” Curtis has said numerous times to press in postgame interviews, usually when a gridder spells an injured fellow Tiger, or when the Tigers have a convincing lead, and the reserves play well in late minutes.
Whether a fledgling freshman or a starting senior take the practice field each gets reps in practice to ensure such success on the field. These reps serve a dual purpose: create memory motion, and condition athletes with a fast-paced practice instead of running laps. The staff verbally and demonstratively coaches all their program’s athletes.
“We’ve gotta’ play every one of those games,” is another remark Curtis made during his tenure at Warsaw when the Tigers turned on a dime to find eleventh-hour opposition for sub-varsity squads affected by the pandemic or suffering from brutal levels of attrition.
If you’re not a varsity starter, you’ll still get spot minutes in varsity and sub-varsity games. Sometimes these minutes are intentional, and sometimes these minutes are incidental (e.g., attrition from injuries). Either way, they’re valuable game reps enhancing a baller’s situational experience.
How else can a program assure it’s prepared top-to-bottom for the most extenuating circumstances?
It’s time to talk about what’s happening recently on the field among most recent Warsaw football Friday nights.
It’s been a rough 28 days for the Tigers on and off the field to this point in time, but has anyone heard any Tiger athlete or coach mutter a single excuse?
No.
The foundation for Friday’s win over Northridge was laid in the 2018 preseason when Coach Curtis took the reins of the Tiger football program.
The most recent three weeks of football were not the ideal scenario any athlete or coach wants to face, but coaching next year’s kids this year, and playing a sub-varsity game every week prepared the Tigers, and they were culminated by the varsity and JV victories over Northridge in a 17-hour span.
Whether Warsaw gridders were continuing to nurse injuries, or they were ostensibly… healthy-but-unavailable when Warsaw stepped onto Interra Field at Northridge High School the Tigers showed why coaches state-wide preach “program, program, program” while laying foundations toward future success.
Coach Curtis facetiously said – and I’ll paraphrase - during a weekly in-season YouTube show earlier this week, “There were some guys out there I hadn’t been introduced to yet.”
Here’s why I’ve unapologetically run the words “program victory” into the ground this morning.
Let’s start with pregame, where a junior linebacker - who is already a starting linebacker – was voted by peers to join three other senior captains at midfield for the ceremonial coin toss.
Warsaw’s offensive line, the collective whose moniker is the Wild Hogs, was augmented by junior varsity players either starting or ready as “twos” on the depth chart. The “team within a team” - as their position coaches describe them - had one of its most dominant performances this season.
Players switched sides among the offensive and defensive lines and backfields filling in admirably.
A starting junior offensive tackle seamlessly moved to the defensive line to play a position he hadn’t filled in eleven months.
A 16-year-old sophomore quarterback, who started half the season on the JV squad, had a ball-carrying workload more typical of a Bart Ball B-back (27 carries, 182 yards).
The ripple effect of numerous athletes called to play meaningful minutes in varsity roles Friday night opened the door for junior varsity players further down the Saturday morning depth chart to see increased playing time when the “Saturday Morning Heroes” put their 7-1, 4-1 NLC JV record on the line.
A sophomore defensive back whose name I might have mentioned once or twice all season when announcing JV games over the PA system deflected a Raider pass on fourth-down-and-goal resulting in the Tiger JV team winning 20-14, and finishing 8-1, and 5-1.
Earlier in the final quarter of the same JV fray, a small, physical freshman linebacker had two tackles for loss to disrupt another Raider drive giving his opposing offensive linemen fits.
Another tall, fleet freshman scampered to the perimeter for a big run setting up a game-winning touchdown for his only carry of the day.
What are their names, you ask?
The program is a collective effort, and the athletes’ names aren’t necessary to illustrate my point.
They’re part of the program built among five seasons to successfully meet the exact challenge levied upon them in a recent 17-hour span last weekend.
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The win over Northridge was a significant program victory.
It’s not a hot take.
Wins over then-fourth-ranked Michigan City (20-19 in 2019), and a sectional title-clinching 35-18 victory over Penn in the same season are likely the games fans would unanimously call program victories.
I completely understand.
The October 14 win over the Raiders, on the other hand, didn’t have the high stakes the aforementioned wins in 2019 featured. After all, the two teams were vying for an outright third place finish in the Northern Lakes Conference (NLC) ladder.
Furthermore, the program victory from Friday was punctuated by a 20-14 Saturday morning junior varsity win over Northridge courtesy of a late game, goal line stand
How does this most recent win warrant program victory laurels?
The Tigers’ most recent win is testimony to fruit borne from multiple seasons’ efforts during practice, every single non-game day when Warsaw gridders populate Fisher Field or the grass practice field behind the East side of the stadium.
Coach Curtis’s quotes – heard more than once when they suit the outcome – reflect the program’s core values and summarize why – even as severely shorthanded as they were – the Tigers still won October 14 at Interra Field.
“We coach next year’s kids this year,” Curtis has said numerous times to press in postgame interviews, usually when a gridder spells an injured fellow Tiger, or when the Tigers have a convincing lead, and the reserves play well in late minutes.
Whether a fledgling freshman or a starting senior take the practice field each gets reps in practice to ensure such success on the field. These reps serve a dual purpose: create memory motion, and condition athletes with a fast-paced practice instead of running laps. The staff verbally and demonstratively coaches all their program’s athletes.
“We’ve gotta’ play every one of those games,” is another remark Curtis made during his tenure at Warsaw when the Tigers turned on a dime to find eleventh-hour opposition for sub-varsity squads affected by the pandemic or suffering from brutal levels of attrition.
If you’re not a varsity starter, you’ll still get spot minutes in varsity and sub-varsity games. Sometimes these minutes are intentional, and sometimes these minutes are incidental (e.g., attrition from injuries). Either way, they’re valuable game reps enhancing a baller’s situational experience.
How else can a program assure it’s prepared top-to-bottom for the most extenuating circumstances?
It’s time to talk about what’s happening recently on the field among most recent Warsaw football Friday nights.
It’s been a rough 28 days for the Tigers on and off the field to this point in time, but has anyone heard any Tiger athlete or coach mutter a single excuse?
No.
The foundation for Friday’s win over Northridge was laid in the 2018 preseason when Coach Curtis took the reins of the Tiger football program.
The most recent three weeks of football were not the ideal scenario any athlete or coach wants to face, but coaching next year’s kids this year, and playing a sub-varsity game every week prepared the Tigers, and they were culminated by the varsity and JV victories over Northridge in a 17-hour span.
Whether Warsaw gridders were continuing to nurse injuries, or they were ostensibly… healthy-but-unavailable when Warsaw stepped onto Interra Field at Northridge High School the Tigers showed why coaches state-wide preach “program, program, program” while laying foundations toward future success.
Coach Curtis facetiously said – and I’ll paraphrase - during a weekly in-season YouTube show earlier this week, “There were some guys out there I hadn’t been introduced to yet.”
Here’s why I’ve unapologetically run the words “program victory” into the ground this morning.
Let’s start with pregame, where a junior linebacker - who is already a starting linebacker – was voted by peers to join three other senior captains at midfield for the ceremonial coin toss.
Warsaw’s offensive line, the collective whose moniker is the Wild Hogs, was augmented by junior varsity players either starting or ready as “twos” on the depth chart. The “team within a team” - as their position coaches describe them - had one of its most dominant performances this season.
Players switched sides among the offensive and defensive lines and backfields filling in admirably.
A starting junior offensive tackle seamlessly moved to the defensive line to play a position he hadn’t filled in eleven months.
A 16-year-old sophomore quarterback, who started half the season on the JV squad, had a ball-carrying workload more typical of a Bart Ball B-back (27 carries, 182 yards).
The ripple effect of numerous athletes called to play meaningful minutes in varsity roles Friday night opened the door for junior varsity players further down the Saturday morning depth chart to see increased playing time when the “Saturday Morning Heroes” put their 7-1, 4-1 NLC JV record on the line.
A sophomore defensive back whose name I might have mentioned once or twice all season when announcing JV games over the PA system deflected a Raider pass on fourth-down-and-goal resulting in the Tiger JV team winning 20-14, and finishing 8-1, and 5-1.
Earlier in the final quarter of the same JV fray, a small, physical freshman linebacker had two tackles for loss to disrupt another Raider drive giving his opposing offensive linemen fits.
Another tall, fleet freshman scampered to the perimeter for a big run setting up a game-winning touchdown for his only carry of the day.
What are their names, you ask?
The program is a collective effort, and the athletes’ names aren’t necessary to illustrate my point.
They’re part of the program built among five seasons to successfully meet the exact challenge levied upon them in a recent 17-hour span last weekend.
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