It was a rough start to the season, I can't lie. The only saving grace is that this is not a district game, so it does not hurt the team's standing but it did hurt the ego and even the quarterback position. Hays Johnson did about the same amount of damage as last year, but it almost wasn't fair in that we lost our starting quarterback in the second series within the first five minutes of the game. It got rough fast, the starting quarterback appeared to suffer a concussion which had him laying on the field not moving at all for about five minutes. He got up eventually, and was helped off the field by a coach on either side, but he eventually left the stadium to go get checked out at a hospital. Good news is that we heard towards the end of the game that he will be okay. This got us on the back-up quarterback pretty quickly which made me even more nervous because Baby A was recently moved over to center and as a parent, it is stressful because my son touches the ball on every play and the exchange from the center to quarterback has to be about perfect each and every time. I was hoping he would be at least as good as the center from last year, where I thought it was good to go a game losing one maybe two snaps a game that went over the head of the QB.
I am happy to say that Mijo did not have any bad snaps, they were all handled by the quarterback. He did get in the car talking about feeling responsible for his QB getting knocked out, but we saw the play at home and he was busy guarding against a defensive tackle, the QB ran away from the line, to the right where he was handled by a defensive end that was knocked down but he got up and grabbed the QB at the line as a linebacker came and hit him hard but clean. I think it cleared his conscious to see that he did what he could in that particular play.
It got interesting because they have so few players, the back-up QB was also playing defense and about the time he took over, he got hit pretty hard and went out of the game for a short time. It was nerve wracking to see our son on the sideline warming up with a 3rd QB who my son was saying doesn't even know all the complicated calls that are made at the line of scrimmage, such as calling the codes for where certain defenders are.
It is in poor taste to pick any one person as playing badly, but I do have to say that the tackling was especially bad on the defense. Runners in open field just slid all the way to the endzone without being touched. I didn't see any indication that the other team could really pass or run inside. It was mostly running around the edges, finding a hole and taking off time and time again.
The Crockett offense never had a chance to get going once they lost their starting QB, it turned into a matter of just surviving the game. It was interesting to hear our boy tell us he did manage to play defense for 3-4 plays. I asked him why and he wasn't sure, but in one play, the guy he replaced was just thirsty and wanted to go drink water. I would be so pissed at that boy, if that turned out to be true. Mijo even got in on a kick return which seemed weird as he says he has only done it once or twice since he started playing in 7th grade. He wasn't even sure what to do other than run and find someone to hit.
Other than the score, 69-6, it was a great game experience. We got a rain storm about an hour before the game started, so it kind of cooled things off, then as the sun went down, there was a nice breeze which made sitting out there more enjoyable. Both bands were out there and made for a festive night with their playing of all sorts of songs. They then put on good halftime shows which made it feel like games of old. I am also happy to say that there were a lot of parents and I guess classmates in the bleachers. Last year, most games were very sad, quiet, and empty.
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