Rockie Replay: Saturday morning Q&A with Plymouth head football coach Adam Handley
Tune in to MAX 98.3 for the Saturday Morning Coaches Show and hear all the area coaches talk about their teams starting at 7 a.m.
Q — It was a strange game right from the first possession, wasn’t it?
A — We move the ball and we have a blunder on third down. Just one of those plays. Same thing next drive. Seven plays. We convert a fourth down and turn it over on the next fourth down. Next drive, convert two third downs, convert a fourth and five, and then we throw an interception. Little things like that.
A couple of plays later they go three and out. Defense gets a stop. Then we go three and out and throw a pick. The momentum is going back and forth and it’s one of those games that we score any of those drives in the first quarter it’s a 14-7, a 21-7 game at halftime, and our kids are believing in themselves at halftime rather than being 28-0.
The defense plays better because of the momentum you get from a score. It’s a complete team effort. There is no specific group that doesn’t have to play because a certain group is playing well. It’s a full team effort. Offense gets a score the defense gets the momentum and gets a stop. It’s kind of how it works.
Looking back to week three against Warsaw I have to think our kids believed in that first drive. We went down 80 yards to start the game and go up 7-0.
There was belief but then there is the small thing in the back of their mind like ‘Are we supposed to be doing this?’ instead of thinking that we’re winning so let’s score again.
It’s because we’ve lost so many games over the last couple of years. It’s a negative mindset that sneaks in because of the past. Until we can get over that hump mentally. That just takes time. Everybody would love to flip the switch and say ‘Hey, we are good to go. Let’s win every game.’ It just doesn’t work like that, when you’ve been a part of that many losing seasons.
We have guys in the right positions to get there. Finn (Holm) is doing a great job at running back. Exzander (Ramirez) is doing a great job at quarterback. We have some juniors at wideouts that are making plays. The people that we play on Fridays are contributing. We’re seeing some of these underclassmen stepping up into some leadership roles and it’s good to see that.
Q — It’s become more than x’s and o’s now hasn’t it? They seem to have that part.
A — You ask them to write the plays on the board and they have no problem drawing every play up. But when the Friday night lights hit and the guy in front of them does something crazy we can’t afford to freak out. We had guys who have been playing the same position for three years and they went the wrong way on one of our base plays. How do we get over the hump of that mental side of things? I’d like to know that.
With our personnel, we have the right offensive and defensive schematics in. We do. Obviously, we’d love a kid that runs a 4.4 forty and can run past somebody. Yes. We don’t have that. What we have is guys that are going to take a five-yard gain and stretch for seven. We have guys who will take big shots on a 10-yard hitch across the middle and get clobbered. But he’ll catch the ball and fall down for 10 yards. We have those kids in the program.
We just have to get the full focus and mindset that no matter what that guy across the ball from me does, I have to do this.
Every play has multiple plays in it. The right tackle and the defensive end are having a play within that play. You just have to go out and win your play. We get 11 guys winning their plays it’s a positive play and we may score.
It’s the mindset of taking the small things and little bites of the big sandwich that will accumulate into 11 guys doing the right thing.
