As impressive as Greensburg’s 74-28 first-round playoff win over Minneola Tuesday night might have been, Coach Clint Young knows full well the second round typically ratchets up the level of competition. Saturday afternoon should prove no exception as 9-1 Clifton Clyde comes to town for a 4 p.m. clash to determine who advances to the Sub State round the following Friday against the winner of Saturday’s Quinter vs. Macksville Regional game.
“They’re (Clyde) really big,” Young said Wednesday night. “Bigger than Minneola and they run an inverted wish bone 90 percent of the time. That’s their bread and butter. They rotate a couple of backs in and out. The backs aren’t really big but they’re tricky and wiry.
“Their defensive ends are the most solid we’ve faced since Ashland. They’re a legitimate 9-1 team.”
Asked which team of the season Clyde most reminds him of Young answered “probably Ashland…They’re similar in size, but maybe Clyde’s a little bigger and they (Clyde) run a 3-2 defense much like Ashland did.”
As for his overall approach defensively Saturday, Young said, “We’re rethinking some alignments on defense to try take them out of the bone. If you as a defense can neutralize that big front of theirs you have a chance. If you can’t stop that bone then that’s all you’re going to see the whole game and that’s going to be tough. We can’t match scores with them and expect to win. We’ve got to get some stops defensively and put up some numbers ourselves.”
Not likely to help Greensburg’s defensive effort is the loss of 315-pound sophomore Lymon Morehead to a recently suffered spiral fracture in his hand. “That takes away our option of throwing a big body in there to clog things up in the middle,” Young said. “But Billy (Stensland) does a nice job in the middle, so we need him to last the whole game.”
On the offensive side of the ball, Young noted that of the four Clyde opponents he viewed in the game tapes he watched not a single team tried to run straight at the Eagles—a trend he plans to reverse Saturday afternoon.
“The four games I watched the others ran spread mostly against them and tried trick plays,” Young said. “But we match up better with them than any of the other teams I saw. That’s not to say running against them will be easy. They flow to the ball well and get off blocks. We may feel them out the first couple of series to get a sense of what works best against them, but we’ll definitely take a crack at running it right at them. But nobody from what I saw attempted this season to line up and say ‘here we are, we’re going to power it right at you.’ We aren’t afraid to do that.”
Acknowledging that Clifton Clyde is “probably a big name in their part of the world,” Young added, “To our kids that name doesn’t mean much. They’re (Clyde) supposed to win. It’s great to still be playing November and so we’re going to go out and enjoy this game. We earned one more opportunity the other night for me to coach these boys in another game and we’ll work hard to earn the right for another game next week. It’s been a long time (22 years) since Greensburg’s played football this far into the fall and we’re going to make the most of the opportunity.”
>Quick facts and stats…
Through 10 games Clyde has outscored its opponents 562-158, while Greensburg’s scored 432 points to 312 for its opponents. Clyde played one playoff team in the regular season, a 34-32 loss to Division II number one ranked Hanover. Greensburg, meanwhile faced three playoff teams during the season—Ashland, Haviland and Macksville.
Clyde’s record thus far is:
W Blue Valley 74-28
W Axtell 52-6
L Hanover 34-36
W Linn 64-18
W S Cloud 56-6
W Lakeside 56-8
W Lincoln 52-6
W Pike Valley 52-0
W Rock Hills 66-26
W Hill City 56-24 (Bi District)
One other thing, the cumulative record of Clyde’s 10 opponents is an unimpressive 41-50 while those of Greensburg add up to 54-37, similar to the opposition disparity between the Rangers and Minneola heading into Tuesday’s game.
