Boyd-Buchanan made a halftime adjustment last Friday, and it paved the way for a dominating quarterfinal playoff win over Wartburg Central.
“We made some adjustments to a blocking scheme,” Buccaneers coach Grant Reynolds said. “They showed a defensive front we thought we wouldn’t get, but we were able to adjust without making major changes.”
Signal Mountain also made a halftime adjustment last week, shelving its six- and five-man defensive fronts installed for Trousdale County’s run-heavy offense and returning to its base 4-4 defense. That call allowed the Eagles to slow the Yellow Jackets enough to ensure that Signal moved on in the playoffs, hosting Boyd-Buchanan tonight.
“We also put Donnie [Garner] back on defense [at linebacker] and played him less on offense,” Signal coach Bill Price said.
Reynolds doesn’t like to adapt on the fly, especially if the adjustment is something with which his team isn’t acquainted.
“I hate to use something in a game that we haven’t practiced. I like for us to be prepared,” he said.
Reverting to basics is more practical than sideline adjustments, whether those adjustments involve alignments, schemes or even single plays.
“You go into a game with certain formations and plays. You find out what works and what doesn’t and tweak [the game plan] a little bit,” Reynolds said. “You use the formations you have to counter what the defense is doing. Then you get the ball in the hands of your best players and let them make plays.”
Price would agree with that but does like to add something for each game.
“Every week we’ll change something, and we’ll have something different this week depending on what [the Bucs do],” he said. “I have been really proud of this team this year, because the guys have shown that they can do a lot of things. You tell them what you want, show it to them and they’ll do it. And making adjustments is really easier on offense than defense. Defense is more about playing hard than scheming.”
This time of year, though, teams mainly look inward.
“You really focus on what you do best,” said Baylor coach Phil Massey, whose team will meet Ensworth for the Division II-AA championship next Thursday in Cookeville.
“We really stressed being sound in all three phases of the game – offensively, defensively and the kicking game – this week,” Massey said. “I felt like last week against BGA we were about as sound in the first half as we had been all year in all three phases. Our point of emphasis now is to put two of those [halves] together on the same night.”
So how much are game plans really adjusted?
“By this time of year there’s nothing new,” Price said. “We never got films from Trousdale, but we have seen Boyd-Buchanan. Trousdale was a wing-T but a Wing-T that liked to get to the edge. Boyd-Buchanan runs right at you.”
Baylor has seen its next opponent up close and personal. The Red Raiders suffered their only loss of the season to Ensworth in Week 9.
“You have two more films to study,” Massey said, “and what we’re looking for are heavy tendencies so we can scheme toward those tendencies they have shown in previous games.”
Said Reynolds: “Sometimes you can overcoach and sometimes you out-think yourself. You think something will work and realize maybe it isn’t, so you go back to basics.”