Northwestern’s Snyder worked through odd year

Josh Snyder leaned on the fence as he watched his Northwestern players stretch in August before their first preseason workout.

The Tigers coach was not sure how five first-year starters on the offensive line were going to perform.

The Northwestern graduate wondered how athletic ally gifted Justin Holmes would transition from wide receiver to quarterback.

He, like every coach in the fall, had no idea how the season wasgoing to unfold amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Snyder was sure of one thing, though: His players were all in. They were committed to making the best of whatever the schedule looked like and following the added safeguards to limit the chance of the program being shut down by the virus.

The youthful Tigers were challenged throughout the season by a changing schedule, courtesy of COVID-19 and mounting injuries to key personnel. But Snyder made sure they held it together with his team-first mantra and fun, ever-evolving offense.

Northwestern won six of seven regular-season games and reached the District 11 Class 4A championship game.

For that, Snyder is The Morning Call’s Colonial League coach of the year.

“We had a lot of unsung guys ,” he said .“Opportunities came up for some as junior sand seniors for the first time. They seized that opportunity.

“[None of ] the seniors are going to play football at the next level, so they took every chance to enjoy playing high school football.”

Northwestern beat eventual District 11 Class 2A champion Palisades in the season opener, then scrambled during the middle of the following week to find an opponent after COVID-19 forced a cancelation.

District 3 power Berks Catholic stepped in and dealt Snyder’s bunch a 56-35 loss.

Northwestern had a COVID-19 shutdown the following week. TheTigers then rattled offfivewins in arow, butlost star widereceiver Justin Roddawith a season-ending injury midway through that stretch.

It was the most significant of several injuries that could havederailed their season. Instead, Snyderand his staff kept finding guys to step in, even as he continued to expand the offensive play book.

Northwestern opened its district tournament with arout of visiting Lehighton, but lost leader Nick Henry to a quad injury for the second half.

No matter. Junior Taylor W ike rt had his first career touchdown catch against the Indians. Sophomore Cody Hallock added his first career catch, a 54-yard TD. Freshman running back Dalton Clymer had his first career score. Holmes and Reed Conrey added their first interceptions of the season.

That was the last of several games like that in a truncated 2020 season.

“There were always other kids stepping up,” Snyder said .“They were finding their niche. You look at us up front, our roster height and weight, and we don’t look like much.

“But you watch us on film, and we played bigger than that.”