Cardinals end of season evaluation
By Eric Arnold 10/22/2011Newton misses the playoffs for the fourth year in a row, another huge disappointment this season with being the largest school in Class 3A and starting the season 4-0 with wins over 3A power house Pella and Oskaloosa. After 8 seasons as Head Coach Ed Ergenbright has a 39-33 career record and 4 winning seasons to his credit.
Newton was not able to put games away this year with touchdowns. Although we had the luxury of a great kicker in Matt Easley, I think we used his leg more times than we needed to when we should have been aggressive to get touch downs. Hind sight is 20/20 though.
In the first four games the Cardinals out scored their opponents 120-42 (30-10 average). The last five games of the season the Cardinals were outscored 146-103 (29-20 average).
The team that showed up to play the first game in Pella this year never did show up again all season.
Newton had to resort to a couple of big breaks to pull out a win against Oskaloosa in game two.
An ugly win against DCG saw almost no offense but the Cardinals had just enough for the win. Newton then clobbered a horrible Saydel on on Homecoming to have a 4-0 record.
The turning point was at Perry when the Cardinals were held to 56 rushing yards on 31 attempts after averaging 239 per game through the first four games. Roskilly entered Friday averaging 179 yards per game, but was held to 69 yards on 16 carries. This is when the offense all but abandoned the running attack and started to air it out. From there the Cardinals offense was able to gain more yards but wasn't able to put a lot of points on the board in the form of touchdowns. Instead of 15-20 play possessions on the ground, it was the same through the air, which was impressive and QB Brian Rose proved he is the best QB in Cardinals history with a lot of passing records. Receivers Reid McDermott and Colin Reynolds had some great showings and records as well.
When you air out the ball and don't put points on the board, you don't eat up much clock and that gives your opponent more time and more plays on the field. That equates to more time for a tired defense out on the field which has a lot of kids going both ways. When you're playing so many kids on both sides of the ball, the quicker the clock moves along the better your chances are of winning. And the results show that now in the end. Running the ball and using the clock to your advantage has been the success story in the past, but it was obvious our offensive line wasn't able to make the blocks and that's why the coaches started throwing. Other than a handful of big runs by Roskilly this year, the ground game really struggled.
Class 3A District 8 was THE toughest district in 3A. 5 of the 8 teams were ranked at one point. Newton beat Pella and Oskaloosa who finished one-two in District 7. We can be proud of that.
Next year the IHSAA reshuffles the Districts so it's hard to say who will be on our schedule next year. And after 8 seasons and no longer able to use the excuse of being the small fish in a big pond in 4A, and we're now the big fish in 3A, will coach Ergenbright still hold the reigns in 2012?