The beauty of halftime adjustments
Polson goes to the drawing board to beat a confusing Whitefish defense
By CARL HENNELL
The Daily Inter Lake
It's a beauty within the world of sports, within the all-important game itself.
Good coaching staffs work hard to implement it. And when it works, most of the time it goes unnoticed by fans.
It's the art of adjusting your strategy on the fly.
Sometimes it can be a simple tweak in a game plan. Sometimes it could mean throwing an entire playbook out the window. Sometimes coaches have multiple backup plans ready to put in place in any given situation. And on rare occasions in prep sports, every play has an audible based on an opposing lineup.
The top-ranked Dillon high school football program has that last strategy down pat.
Some coaches have an innate ability to relay information to teenagers in a way kids can understand. Nearly every coach, whether they've had time to iron the process of adjusting on the fly through experience or not, has probably gone through stages of banging his head against a wall.
At any rate, the Polson High School football team is capable. Coach Scott Wilson and Co. proved it Friday on a cold night on the south shore of Flathead Lake against Whitefish. But it may have gone unnoticed because not only of the play of the spectacular Whitefish defense, but because the game was decided by a botched punt.
Ahead just 3-0 at halftime in an intense defensive struggle for home field advantage in the Class A playoffs between two of the top three defenses of the Northwestern A, Wilson had to go back to the drawing board.
"Our defense had their backs to the wall," Whitefish coach Patrick Dryden said. "We just put our defense in horrible position all game long because of our offense's inability to move the ball."
The Pirates defense was doing such an outstanding job that Whitefish managed to run just 18 offensive plays in the first half compared to the Pirates' 63. But Polson was only averaging 2.3-yards-per-carry running the ball and competing only 29.4 percent of its 17 passes.
"It's a fun defense," Dryden said. "It's kind of our own little invention. Ross is the only one who really, truly understands it. People would call it a 3-5, but it's not. It's a bastardized 3-5, but we are never in a three (man front). If that makes sense. The only time we'd ever be in a three-man front is if the offense had no backs."
Indeed, the Whitefish boys were doing an awesome job carrying out defensive coordinator Chad Ross's game plan. The Polson passing game, which came in completing 53 percent of its passes, seemed confused and running back Bryce Picard was pounding the ball, looking like a first-team all-conference back while averaging only 2.8-yards-per-carry.
"The first half we were struggling running the ball up the middle," Picard said. "They were coming out in a different defense every single play. So we pretty much just ran a base and I had to pick a hole and find a gap and get behind a blocker. We made a couple of adjustments and our line did a great job.
"I guess it was working. We were only getting a couple yards at a time, but we were getting first downs and eating up that clock. Those couple little things made the difference."
Picard and Ted Morigeau combined for 96 yards in the second half on a 3.8- yards-per-carry average and finished the game with 175 yards on 47 carries.
… And Wilson knew all-to-well exactly what he had to do to get his boys to succeed against the confusing Whitefish defense.
"I went to my full-house backfield, to my T-look, and that was the biggest change that worked," Wilson said. "They had to balance up and that gave us a chance with one-on-one football. They had a great defensive plan. They were mixing it up between stacking to the tailback side and basing to where Morigeau went and also slanting the guys up front and bringing the middle backer. They had a great game plan."
Both teams will be on display this weekend with more at stake than any regular-season game.
Whitefish has to travel to play Frenchtown, which lost to Dillon in last season's state championship and barely made the playoffs this season. But because the Broncs capped the regular season with a large 45-14 victory over previously-No. 2 seed Anaconda, they not only earned a playoff berth but claimed Southwestern A's No. 2 seed.
The Pirates will host that Anaconda team.
Northwestern A's No. 1 seed Libby, who laid a smackdown on winless Bigfork to end the season, awaits the winner between Hardin and Belgrade.
Class A football playoffs
Byes: Libby, Dillon, Havre, Billings Central
First Round
Friday or Saturday
Whitefish at Frenchtown
Anaconda at Polson
Belgrade at Hardin
Butte Central at Miles City
NOTE: MHSA will announce game dates/times today