2007.08.20

Mini-Mattis in youth football action.

It was a football weekend. On Friday evening, my junior high team was on the road. We faced off against a team of comparable size. I won't say it was it was a train wreck. But, it wasn't good. We had 2 offensive plays installed. The defense our opponent lined up in completely nullified one of our two plays. So, we ran the same play over and over for an hour.

On the plus side, the other team was equally ill prepared. Neither offense was able to move the ball. Between the two teams we probably had 100 yards of offense. Sadly, I know that our defense is not nearly as good as that statistic would lead you to believe.

On Saturday, the 8th grade football coach and I sat down to review game film. It will be nice to show this film to the team later this week. We need to get better across the board.

Mini-Mattis had his first football game of the year on Sunday. Mini-Mattis is multi-talented. He may have recorded a 'first' in football history...

Mini-Mattis was the quarterback under center on the first play of the game. Offensively, he served as quarterback for the entire first half. For the first offensive series of the second half, Mini-Mattis was the center. Over the course of the game he played safety, cornerback, outside linebacker, center, tight end, wide receiver, quarterback, fullback, and halfback.

To put is simply, Mini-Mattis did an excellent job. He did a solid job leading the offense as quarterback. He rattled off runs of 10 and 20 yards. He reached the end zone on an extra point attempt. It was a great day for Mini-Mattis.

In a day or two, after the excitement dies down, we will more surgically review the game the film and talk about ways we can improve. Mini-Mattis could have scored a touchdown on one play if he would have cut to the outside instead of inside. Little things like that can make a huge difference.

I will say this I chuckle every time I watch the footage. Mini-Mattis was headed to the outside, a defender was pursing to the outside, Mini-Mattis came back inside, the defender fell to the ground trying to stop and change direction. Mini-Mattis juked him out of his jock.

Sunday was a long day. I was at the stadium from 9:30 am until 6:30 pm. I did sneak out for an hour to have post game meal with family. Aside from that, the day was all about football.