Defend the run is this week’s mantra for Rockies

PLYMOUTH - The task is another daunting one for Plymouth’s Rockies as they come back home to face undefeated NLC foe, Class 4A No. 7 Northridge.

The task is more difficult having dropped their first NLC game to Warsaw last week.

“We were able to try to point out the good things that our kids are doing,” said Plymouth head coach John Barron. “We are off to a rough start, but our guys are still engaged. They are excited about coming to practice. We are trying to do the fail-forward thing. We got beat, but what can we learn from it so we are better the next time we play. We changed some things up in practice as far as how we do some things.”

For Plymouth, the core problem is a simple one.

“We are trying to emphasize some things about getting to third down and getting them off the field,” said Barron. “It’s run defense. If you throw all the statistics out there, we have had the inability to make people punt the ball and we are going against

another great program this week.”

Northridge comes in with another solid team averaging 34 points a game and giving up just four.

“They will throw the ball down the field a little bit more but they really don’t do anything any different,”

said Barron. “They are very talented. They’ve had a lot of success. We know that we have our hands full. They like to run the football. You have to stop their guards. They love to pull and you can tell that they are well-coached. They are a handful.

“They like to run the old iso play sometimes. It’s like the old pro set. They have a tight end in the game a lot of the time but he’s athletic enough they can just split him out to run some of their spread passing game. It’s option football but it’s just four yards off the line of scrimmage.”

The game plan is a simple one for the Rockies.

“We have to make them punt the ball,” said Barron. ‘We never saw Kokomo’s punt team. I don’t think we saw Warsaw’s punt team. We saw East Noble’s twice. We have to get to what we’re calling ‘money down’ getting them to think about getting a team to third down and then somebody make a play. We have to get them to punt the ball. We have to stop the run. We aren’t going to beat people if we don’t stop the running game.”