MCA-Chichester......What Happened????

Mount Carmel fans who attended Saturday afternoon's game in Boothwyn are wondering what happened. The others will have to wait until Wednesday night when the see the broadcast on television.



For those of you that weren't there, Mount Carmel rallied from a 28-14 in the final 10:12 of the game only to have Chris Smith complete the winning touchdown pass not once, but twice in the final 47 seconds for the victory. Mike Brennan haters please stop reading here. It is not Mike Brennan's fault and here's why. The problem is not only Mount Carmel's.


For the past three years, I have been covering Shamokin on radio. I have seen the opposition getting deep on third and even fourth and long against the Indians and come up with receptions almost weekly. I think two things to look at are the sign of the times and defensive schemes. Weekly I drive from one of the Shamokin Area to other and do not see kids playing a friendly game of touch football out in the streets, parks or fields. Back in the old sandlot days, you had a quarterback who would drop straight back and have a rusher counting "one Mississippi". The "rusher" would attempt to tag or tackle the QB on a five count or three on third fourth down. the remaining offensive players would go out for the pass while the remaining defensive players would try to cover them. Five seconds of coverage wow......who would of thought??? When these sandlotters joined a team these skills acquired in the sandlot were refined.


Most schemes in high school involve defensive backs playing press or bump and run coverage. In most cases, kids are getting beat off the line. This takes a long time to perfect and be good at it. You can still play man coverage on not have to press. Average quarterbacks look like John Elway. Jon and Brett Veach, Nick Sebes, Dave Evans, Drew Letcavage just to name a few were great in the secondary. They also played offense too. Brennan and his staff pleaded with their team not to let anyone BEHIND them. Teach, coach, preach all of the above were done. The kids have to say to themselves one day, this is our situation and I don't have to ask coach......I already know.

PLAYOFFS

Many of the faithful are worried about the playoff chances, but three teams made the post season last season with 6-4 records. Mount Carmel will be favored in their next two games and have should have close games with Pottsville and Selinsgrove. Mount Carmel thought hasn't played well at Harold Bolig Field over the years and haven't won in Selinsgrove since 1997. The Red Tornadoes are 1-7 against the Seals since 1999.

LEN ESHMONT

Every Season since 1957, the Len Eshmont Award is given to the MVP of the San Francisco 49er's. I would like to thank the reader for sharing the article with me over the weekend on the 50th anniversary of the award. Here is the article.