Inside The Huddle: Roughriders offense looking to take next step vs. stout Shawnee run defense.
The Roughriders enter Week 5 with the same record as they did in 2019, but this year’s team is coming off back-to-back losses as they travel to Shawnee Township on Friday.
And still, the biggest question remains — can the Roughriders offense find a level of consistency and continue to improve into the next week?
St. Marys coach
Doug Frye said he thought last week’s game against Van Wert had a few good matchups that would benefit his team, including running more of the wing-T offense more effectively. The Roughriders ran for 225 yards — secondmost rushing yards in a game this season for St. Marys — and two rushing touchdowns. The team averaged 4.6 yards per carry — secondmost in the game this season and rushed 49 times, which is tied for second-most in a game this season.
“I thought there were a lot of bright spots that have started to shine on the offense as far as the progress of this team,” Frye said. “It is difficult from a coach’s standpoint because we have had a high level of success here in the past for three or four years so in a way we are comparing it to that.
“In a way, this is a team that’s still trying to find its way and it is a blink or two away from being an undefeated football team.”
But the offense only converted 4-of-13 on third downs and overall on the season, St. Marys is scoring on just 68% in the redzone — which include a turnover in last week’s game.
Frye said before last week’s game that he wanted to go with a more simplified approach for the offense. That simplified approach will be needed on the defensive end as well after the Roughriders surrendered 342 passing yards and five touchdown passes through the air.
“We always simplify things and probably our best thing we do as a coaching staff,” Frye added. “We just had some breakdowns that were pretty atypical of us. Any time you talk about something, you do your best to clean it up on your own accord. But also you’ve got to give your opponent credit. I thought the way they executed — and the last two weeks the offenses we’ve seen have executed well.
“Sometimes what happens is what looks like a major mistake it is just kids trying to do a little too much instead of staying within their team concepts, they are trying to make plays and you’ve got to give the kids credit because they do want to make those plays.”
Treece, Frye added, gives a defense that dilemma.
He gave a general example of the defense covering the receivers, but Treece’s ability to extend plays allows a player to be open, which Treece will then find for a big gain.
A second-quarter play is a good example where Treece moved up in the pocket and found Ian Cowan — who had time because of Treece’s ability to extend the play to break off his shallow crossing route and work upfield
— running past Tanner Howell when Trecce found him for a 51-yard TD pass.
“You’ve got to cover but you have to be able to stop him,” Frye said. “And that is something we see at the NFL level where those multidimensional quarterbacks are creating great conflict for defenses.
“But what stood out to me about him [Treece] were the plays that we had the coverage and we had him bottled down but three or four times he dumped it to somebody in the open area. We had done our job but they ended up with a 10, 15, 20yard gain.”
The Roughriders, however, do not play a team like OttawaGlandorf or Van Wert again within the next two games and with not knowing who St. Marys will play in the postseason, it could make it hard to address the concerns on defense and know that those concerns are addressed by playing another similar team.
But Frye said his coaching staff and players self-scout over the weekend to address what they need to work on from game last week’s game before turning to the next game.
“I think that’s what the league does for you,” he said. “A good league like the Western Buckeye League prepares you for all different types of situations.”
Frye said his team shows flashes of being a good football team with plays such as Braeden Hemmelgarn’s 86yard interception for a touchdown against Van Wert or the power runs of Aiden Hinkle in the backfield, but the coach added that the team is still looking for that level of consistency heading into Week 5.
“That part I call encouraging more than anything else because we know that with some tweaks, a little more effort and a little cleaner up of things here and there, we could potentially be a pretty good football team,” the coach added.
The coach said how he measures his team’s progress and gauging if his team continues to improve is the turnover ratio, redzone offense efficiency and the number of missed tackles on defense.
The Roughriders enter Week 5 scoring on 68.8% (11-of-16) of their total redzone trips, something Frye takes into account when he looks at his offense.
St. Marys has fumbled nine times this season through four games, losing four of them while the 2019 team fumbled five times, losing three. Two of those lose fumbles have come in the redzone and another one last week against Van Wert was just outside the redzone.
“I think I would like to see it 85-90% in the redzone, especially with the type of offense that we run,” he said. “I think those are opportunities we have to cash in on. It is our MO.”
The Roughriders enter Week 5 with the same record they did entering Week 5 last season — the difference being the 2020 team is coming off two straight losses — but the 2019 team rallied off eight straight wins and advanced to their fourth straight postseason appearance and Frye is hoping for the same kind of success this season once the postseason begins.
“I believe that the schedule is tougher this time around,” Frye added. “I think there are a lot of well-balanced teams. There is good coaching in the league top to bottom, a lot more quarterbacks coming back and more experienced teams while we and Wapakoneta are in transition with younger guys stepping in.
“With the teams that have had more success, there are people and fans who think, ‘what happened to those teams’ and a lot of people dig into their own team a little bit more and don’t look into the competition or their team is involved with. As coaches, we often look at the matchup in a particular team and a team might matchup differently one week than they do the following week. But there are a lot of teams in the league that are fairly even and part of that is staying healthy and getting the right breaks.”
Speaking of matchups, Friday’s WBL game will feature the WBL’s top rushing attack in St. Marys and the thirdbest rush defense and best scoring defense in Shawnee.
The Indians limited Wapakoneta to 167 yards on the ground and forced three turnovers in the game.
“I don’t know how that will play out,” Frye added. “I thought a week ago we would be able to rush the ball against Van Wert, we did a little bit better but it wasn’t as good as I had hope for, but the amount of improvement this week will determine how that plays out on Friday evening.”
The goal will be to not take a step back against a more stout opponent in Shawnee and Frye said that hopefully, the team will have gotten better over the week to avoid taking that step back.
He added that he has seen improvement in practice and hopefully, Frye said, the squad has found its “mojo” a little bit. Hinkle could be that missing ingredient. The sophomore rushed for 171 yards and three scores as he bruised Shawnee.
“Improved,” Frye said when asked about his assessment of the offense last week. “But we still have a long ways to go. But we took a step forward. I thought that we weren’t taking steps back but we were holding our own.
“Whether that step forward will continue or whether it was just the matchup will be determined by what happens on Friday. Let’s face it, each week we reevaluate and re-assess and we will see if we can continue to move forward.”