Raiders present Rockies with air attack challenge
PLYMOUTH — A loss at Goshen on the road a week ago left some mixed feelings.
On the one hand the Rockies looked impressive moving the football and had clearly their best defensive performance on the year.
On the other, Plymouth lost a game they dominated all the way up to the final drive.
“It’s good in the way you know this is what it’s like to be in a game for four quarters,” said Plymouth coach Adam Handley. “This is what it’s like to be in a dogfight, a very emotional and physical game. Then you go back and rewind. What did you do this week? Really, what have you done this season to prepare you for this night? Were there days where you missed practice where you could have taken an extra rep or two in practice? We have to do that self-evaluation of where are we now and where we want to get to and what can you do as a player to prepare yourself for that.”
This week that preparation will be key as Northridge comes to town with the top passer in the NLC in Qade Carrington.
“It’s a challenge for our defense as far as this is the third week now in a row we’ve seen more of the spread offense,” said Handley. “This week of practice has been a lot of 7 on 7 stuff and a lot of extra passing drills and because it is a difficult job to know that you are on an island with a really good athlete.
One of the things that the defensive staff has been working on is just being in position and using that to your advantage. You know they’d like to throw the ball deep. It’s nothing special, nothing fancy. It’s just a vertical route that says ‘our kids faster than yours and we’re gonna get it’ so we’ve been doing a lot of stuff this week about getting in position and making a play”
Getting the first ‘W’ of the year for the Rockies will depend on the defense.
“They’d like to throw the ball. That’s obvious. So getting pressure on them early, making the quarterback uncomfortable early (is important). Our defensive backs and safeties are going to be on islands so we have to put pressure on them to make them feel uncomfortable. It’s gonna come down to who wants it more and who’s in a position to make plays.”