Red Rovers can clinch the East Penn championship with a win tonight over a white-hot Nazareth team. Cottingham will be rocking for the regular season finale. Couple notes.
-a win gives Easton their first conference championship since 2014. It would break the longest drought in school history. Previously, the longest Easton had gone without winning its league in football was between 1978-1984
-Easton’s current turnaround is tied for the biggest change in wins in school history, with the jump from 4-6-1 in 1976 to 9-2 in 1977. A win flips them from 3-8 to 9-1, which would tie them for the biggest jump in raw win total, when they went from 5-6 in 2002 to 11-3 in 2003.
-Easton can grab their first 9 win regular season since going 10-0 in 2014. That season capped a run where they won at least 9 regular season games seven times between 2001-2014. That stretch included ten seasons with double digit wins (six in a row from 2009-2014), which would be in reach in districts for this years group.
-Dorian Thomas is 120 yards away from a 1,000 yard regular season. He’d be the 9th Red Rover to hit that mark in the regular season. With Will Day at 774 yards, a playoff run would set them up to be the fourth pair of 1,000 yard backs in Easton history, I’m finish some research on how they fit in with other dynamic duos through the years.
So that’s all in reach with a win tonight. Nazareth has been on fire, with Marquez Wimberly rushing for over 500 yards in their last four games. He’s the most talented skill player in the Lehigh Valley, and Easton will have to be gap sound and super physical up front against a smaller Nazareth offensive line, or Wimberly will hit explosive plays. Peyton Falzone also has over 600 yards rushing, and has an outside shot at a 2,000/1,000 season if Nazareth can make a playoff run.
The other storyline here is Easton welcomed back former offensive line coach Scott Byrd, who now runs the o-line at Nazareth. Byrd’s addition to that staff has been what took Nazareth from frisky to legitimately great over the last ten years. On the Easton sideline will be two of his brightest pupils. Mike Fleming was one of Matt Senneca’s first hires, and he’s done a tremendous job with the Easton offensive line. Fleming was an All State lineman for Byrd on the 2014 team and went on to an All American career at East Stroudsburg. On the JV staff is Bob Stroble, who was a PFN All State pick in 2001 for Easton, who then got the ultimate Lehigh Valley o-line education, going from Scott Byrd at Easton to the legendary Bob Heffner at Lafayette, where Stroble played center for back-to-back Patriot League champions. Fleming and Stroble is about as you’re going to get in the upcoming generation of position coaches up here, and you can see the difference they’ve made in Easton up front. It’s the engine that makes them go. Scott has a lot to be proud of. But he might be regretting how well he taught his pupils from 7-9 tonight at Cottingham.
Should be fun.
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