by While the football teams from North Olmsted and Midview have played each other often in recent years there still will be a sense of unfamiliarity when the two meet Friday at Midview’s recently upgraded stadium.
First of all, while he’s been a member of the Midview coaching staff since 2017, this is just the second season that Jack Armstrong has been the head coach. Last year the Middies opened the Armstrong Era with a 42-28 loss to Westlake. As a sign of the growth of the program, this year Midview opened with a 34-14 victory over the Demons, turning a 14-14 halftime score into a runaway.
“This year, compared to last year, I felt confident going into halftime that the team believed in one another,” Armstrong said. “They’re a very close group of kids. They were ready to roll coming out of halftime. We fixed mistakes that we were making and in the second half we dominated like we expected to.”
As for North Olmsted, after several years of running a high octane spread offense with athletes such as Jared Kelley (Kent State), Collin Ward (Eastern Illinois) and quarterback Xavier Balson (Baldwin-Wallace), coach Tim Brediger and his staff have decided to switch things up, turning to a run-oriented power game.
“We looked in the offseason at what we have coming up in the lower grades and the types of bodies that we have and decided that style wasn’t going to fit us,” Brediger said. “We have a lot of good athletes coming up, but not that same caliber. We’ve got a lot of tough kids who are hard-nosed kids coming up, so we wanted to go to something that utilized the athletes that we have coming up. It’s a style that fits our community and our kids moving forward.”
The result is that neither team has a clear picture of how the nuts and bolts are going to go in this matchup.
“We got film of them (scrimmaging) against two teams that were more spread-oriented and we’re not, so it’s hard to tell exactly what we’re going to see,” Brediger said. “So, in some ways we’re both guessing.”
Actually, it appears the nuts and bolts aren’t crucial to Armstrong and the Middies. He feels that if his team can exert its physical dominance then everything else will take care of itself.
“We just need to continue to have that physical mindset,” Armstrong said. “The kids worked really hard this offseason. They bought into the weight room so that they’re ready to roll on Friday nights. It starts with physicality and it ends with physicality. I think we just need to continue to have that mindset.”
These teams used to play each other as part of the Southwestern Conference schedule. When North Olmsted left the SWC for the Great Lakes Conference which now has morphed into the Cleveland West Conference, the two continued the yearly matchup. In fact, North Olmsted opens the season against three SWC opponents, North Ridgeville, Midview and Amherst.
“The reason I like playing (Midview) is, obviously it’s a neighboring community instead of driving all over the place,” Brediger said. “But the main thing is that if we can get through playing three SWC teams right away, we’ll learn how to play tough teams and fast teams and teams that have 80 guys versus our 55. I think it prepares us for our conference.”
North Ridgeville is viewed as a possible contender for the SWC crown, and the Rangers looked the part in the season opener, handing the Eagles a 48-0 loss. North Olmsted’s power running game was definitely limited by the fact that its two top offensive linemen are out with injuries and will miss this week again. But Brediger said there were positives in the game as well.
“There was a lot of good on the film, believe it or not,” he said. “There were times when we were one block from a four-yard gain being a 10- or 12-yard gain. Or one guy did one thing wrong in coverage and that’s where they hurt us. It was a very good teaching tape. We knew going in it was going to be a battle for us and we had to play perfect football just to be in the game at halftime. But I’m not going to run away from competition and schedule teams just to get a win.”
In Midview, Brediger sees a team with good size and speed and lots of solid skill position players. He was quick to single out receiver Dior Jones, a junior who gave the Eagles fits last year. Midview also has a weapon in kicker Ethan Morris, who made field goals of 42 and 45 yards against Westlake.
“Dior Jones is a special kid,” Brediger said. “He’s a wide out and he plays some defensive end and is a returner. He’s physical, nasty and explosive. As a sophomore last year he killed us on about four or five plays. We thought we had him covered and he just went up and made plays. A lot of their explosive plays go through him.”
Brediger said he knows his squad needs to show some major improvements if it wants to avoid opening the season with two losses.
“We had two turnovers against Ridgeville,” he said. “If you’re going to be a team that doesn’t score six or seven times per game, you’re going to have to minimize turnovers, and you’ve got to eat some clock. We need to control the clock way better. Then, we have to minimize their best players. We want to try to force them to go somewhere else and to other people. That’s easier said than done against a good team, but if you want to win against a good team, you’ve got to execute.”
Armstrong noted that North Olmsted is using the same defensive principles that it has employed for years, adding that the Eagles do it well.
“North Olmsted is a very well coached team,” he said. “They used to be in our conference, so it’s a team we have faced many times. Coach Brediger does a good job of working with the players that he has to put them in a position to be successful. They have a good quarterback, and their defensive scheme is consistent with what they’ve been doing for many years. They do a good job with it. We need to execute or they’re going to make some big plays on us.”
The quarterback is senior Tommy Horsfall. The top runner is expected to be Michael Passafiume, who can be a load at 212 pounds. But when it’s all said and done, the game will likely be decided in the trenches.
“I think the key is to win the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball,” Armstrong said. “They like to run the ball, and we need to win the line of scrimmage so we can stop them from running the ball. On offense, we ran the ball really well against Westlake and I would like to see that continue. The more physical team is going to win on Friday, and if we execute, I think that’s going to be us.”
It’s a formula that Armstrong hopes will carry the Middies not only to contention in the SWC, but also into the postseason.
“We need to continue to have the expectation that we can compete with any team we play and have the expectation that we can win,” Armstrong said. “I think for a little bit the kids kind of doubted when we played the top teams in our conference, but that mindset has definitely changed. This year we drop down to Division III, so after going through the SWC, when we make the playoffs, we’ll be ready to roll and make some noise.”
