”A Closer Look” with Mark Miller
Our 80 th season is under way! As usual, Stark County teams gave us a lot of excitement and great plays to report on.
The theme of the opening week of games in my mind was mistakes. No surprise as the opening week of the season always provides messy play that seems to clear up in the weeks to follow. More than a normal amount of penalties, turnovers and mistakes found their way into most every game I heard or read about. I know this drives high school coaches nuts but it isn’t just a high school thing, college and pro teams follow the same path – non-efficient first game or two then play gets cleaner.
This didn’t used to be the case with the NFL. The first game was usually played very well due to the fact that teams were in camp for 5-6 weeks with 4 preseason games. On top of the amount of time spent getting ready to play, the starters played in most, if not all of the preseason games and more than a series or two. In my personal experience with the Cleveland Browns, our starting QB, Brian Sipe, was very adamant with the coaching staff that he got a lot of reps in those exhibition games so he was ready for the season. Now many of the star players don’t play at all before the season opener. No wonder they are not ready to play! Not playing in the preseason causes another problem, at least in my opinion. And that is injuries. Players are not ready to be hit so once the regular season games commence, more injuries occur. Seems counter-productive doesn’t it? Hold guys out of preseason games so they don’t get hurt only for them to get hurt the first few weeks of the season because their bodies were not
prepared for contact. Oh well, I am just a fan.
One area that was especially messy this past weekend of high school games was special teams. The McKinley-Harding game had 2 blocked PAT’s and 2 missed PAT’s. The Hoover-Buchtel game had 2 blocked field goals that decided the game. I am sure these coaches are spending more time on the kick game this week.
Our radio game this week is Massillon at GlenOak. My first time to do a game at GlenOak since my return to Canton in 2018. Other than watching a Walsh game there a few years ago, I have never been in Bob Cummins Stadium. When I was in high school we played both Glenwood and Oakwood at Glenwood’s Stadium. Cummings Stadium is one of the few new locations for stadiums since I played in the 70’s. Listen in, it should be exciting!