Ray Nitchke: Old School Toughness
I love this old photograph of Ray Nitchke taken in 1966. In this picture, it looks like Ray is trying to rip off the opponents helmet. In today's game, this would have been AT LEAST called a personal foul, and maybe he would be ejected from the game. Back then, the referees tended to let players play a little more.....especially when it involved Nitchke or Butkus from Chicago. I think maybe the referees were intimidated by them along with everyone else.
On Monday, we had a pretty good practice to open the week. On offense, we put together the game plan (on Sunday) at Randy's house late in the afternoon. These Sunday meetings are informal, and it generally involves just the offensive staff. We script the first ten plays we plan on running to open the game. These plays are really a 'fact finding' mission for us. We want to see how the defense is going to react or adjust to the formations we throw at them. From there, we know what plays we should be running, and what plays we need to stay away from. I know people in the stands often wonder: "What in the hell are they doing?" Well, now you know. I am not going to talk anymore about what we are doing this week.........don't miss this game!
I think the defense prepares in much the same way; however, they do not script the defensive plays. The defense prepares with film study, so they have a pretty good grasp on what they need to be running to start the game. Our defense is pretty simple and experienced this year, so not much is going to surprise them. Occasionally, they will get caught out of position, but this is very rare. The defense plays extremely fast because they know exactly what they are doing, where they are going, and they follow their rules. Football 101 states: Players who are unsure of what they are doing tend to play slower!" Our defensive line is awesome. Gage Moak-Senior, Pork Chop-Senior-, Brandon Jones-Senior, anchor this awesome front, and it almost takes an act-of-god to move the ball on them. Mason Wilborn and Bubba Martinez are BIG linebackers (both Juniors) who stand behind the senior dominated front three, so the inside gut game is pretty rugged for any team. With our defensive backs patrolling in the back, I would hate to be a receiver trying to catch the ball over the middle.
Funny thing. I never remember being taught how to catch a ball. It is something which I grew up doing, so it came natural to me. Either you caught the ball or you got hit in the face....just that simple. Today, it seems like some kids do not have any sort of hand-eye coordination at all. In my day, we all grew up playing ball (of some type) all year long. It never stopped. In the rare occasion that a player (especially a Tight End or Receiver) could not hang on to the ball, by Dad (a former coach) had a unique way of teaching him how to catch. We had this player named Mark Maphis. Mark played Tight End (TE) and generally he was a pretty solid player; however, Mark had an issue with dropping the 'POP' passes my dad used to run. A 'POP' pass is a very quick throw right off the line off scrimmage (in heavy traffic) which usually was a big gainer for us. My Dad LOVED to use the tight end in his offense, so he had better learn how to catch. After one especially bad practice, Dad decided to teach Mark a lesson. Dad stood Mark up against a wall and drilled passes at his chest until he decided to start catching a few. After a while, Mark was catching everything coming his way. After this hard lesson, Mark did not drop a catchable ball again that year. LOL. Brutal huh? Hey, it worked!
I'm done for this evening!
GZ
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