Matthew: They lost 24-8 to Grand Ledge
Matthew played every down of this game…which is just completely shocking to me since he misses about half of the practices. I know he splits some time with another kid, and that kid wasn’t there, but, still. And in true Matthew form, he’s unhappy at the end of the game because he only ran the ball once (and got stuffed). I must have said ‘you only go to half of the practices’ ten times on the way home’
He would have gotten more yards on his one carry…there was plenty of room in front of him, but, the GL player made a nice grab and wrapped up his leg…Matthew did a 360 trying to escape but by then the rest of the defense had arrived.
Liked this picture; Matthew is in motion to go and block….need to mention to him that he can act like he is getting the ball at first; a little deception helps.
Of course, he does take a good kick!
He did make a lot of tackles. A lot of tackles. Thought he absorbed a lot of hits though…it was more as if he was tackling them when they got to him instead of vice-versa. The above picture I guess doesn’t how that viewpoint as much. Thought GL had definitely been taught to deliver a hit when they got tackled, and saw him get up off the ground slowly more than a few times.
He did get the ball one more time; a short kickoff came straight to him. Did a nice job on the return…the first picture is of the middle of the long-patented spin-move; you can see in the second picture the dude that was trying to tackle him is on the ground and he’s going to get another 8 to 10 yards before running into a host of GL players (and he just ducked his head an barreled forward for a few more yards at that point
Attempted an onside kick in the 2nd half too….didn’t go so well, he thought the kick was going the other way and set up the ball wrong (at least that is what he says) and while we recovered it, the ball didn’t go ten yards.
Cpher: Can’t go anywhere but up after last week’s debacle….and it as a lot better this week, even though they ended up losing to Grand Ledge 18-14.
Went back and watched the first half of last week’s game with Cpher; and found I didn’t have a lot negative to say to him…..seemed to be there on defense when he need to and while not great, he wasn’t bad at blocking either. Wanted him to hold his blocks a little longer, and we talked about that.
One of the coaches emailed asking about the video from this week’s game and said “Cpher played well” in this game. And we would agree.
He tends to line up about one extra step back on defense….not sure why. Am happy that he was not one of the kids who jumped offsides (had some problems with that this game).
Had a few tackles…and certainly held up his end of things on the defensive front. Was a lot more active in pursuit this game…
Got his hands on this guy to slow him down (didn’t make the tackle here…one of the smaller kids came up and missed the back and whaled into Cpher!…probably took his biggest hit of the game from that!)
And did a nice job blocking too…..there were more than a few plays he had some kids completely on the ground, and a few others where he had knocked them five or six yards downfield and was still blocking as the whistle blew.
Click on this picture for video…which includes the end of this play (as you can guess by looking at it, it ends well for Cpher and poorly for the GL quarterback).
