Congrats to CB South - mixed emotions for a West guy, happy that a second place SOL team has broken through and won the district championship. All of us in the district, kids, parents, fans... have a lot of friends in Warrington, happy for them and the league today. A few observations:
D-West never seemed to get in a rhythm offensively. They'd move the ball on the ground for a few plays in a row, hit some quick screen stuff, but always then come back to the deep post which they weren't converting. QB has a rocket of an arm but just couldn't connect on the deep balls. South had him moving around in the pocket a lot and he could never get comfortable back there. They were trying to take advantage of the smaller South corner (and that's how they scored their one TD) but most of the deep balls were significantly overthrown.
D-West is really big up front offensively but not on the D-line. More long and lean on D and the South players were able to lean on them a bit. They had the same situation against CB West last week so they've been prepping for a smaller, fast defensive front that moves for two weeks in a row.
D-West was lucky the score was as close as it was at halftime and into the 4th quarter with the number of turnovers. The long Leonardi run to put South up two scores came when D-West started bringing everyone downhill hard... safety picked a bad angle into the line of scrimmage and when Leonardi pierced it there were no defensive levels... all 9 box defenders were flat across the line and so there was no catching him.
In the 4th quarter, a D-West defender lowered his head as South QB Pinkerton was going down on a short run and there was a nasty head to head collision. (flagged for the targeting) Pinkerton didn't return to the game, and the D-West player was knocked out cold. Officials, D-West players and South coaches all gestured wildly to get the trainers out immediately. Went into spasms on the ground at one point, he was down for a while. Eventually came to and then jogged off the field. On their next defensive series, a few minutes later, HE RETURNED TO THE GAME. That's not being tough, that's not "old school" football, it's stupid, it's dangerous, and put that young athlete in danger. Someone's head should roll for that.
When you get into the cold nights of November, defense and a strong run game still wins championships. Recent success in the SOL has come from teams that have moved to that model.
