The Bradford Owls’ 28-21 double overtime defeat to Clearfield
last Friday ranks as one of the most exciting high school football
contests in recent memory, but as head coach Steve Ackerman said in
his postgame interview, “A loss is a loss.”
“We can look at it (Clearfield game) anyway we want to make us
feel good, but we still lost the football game,” Ackerman stated.
“We showed the kids the tape and pointed out the good things, but
we also showed them what went wrong. There were eight to 12 plays,
that if we had done them correctly, we would’ve won the game in
regulation. We know if we play mistake-free football, we can beat
anybody on our schedule.”
Next up on that schedule for the 0-1 Owls is the 108th meeting
with the Olean Huskies in Bradner Stadium tonight. Bradford owns a
59-41-7 margin in the all-time series, which began in 1893 with a
least exciting 0-0 deadlock. The Owls have won the last two
meetings, including a 27-7 rout at Parkway Field a year ago.
“The kids know it’s a big rivalry,” Ackerman declared. “Although
now that we have a state playoff system, it’s just another game.
They used to play the Olean-Bradford game at the end of the year in
the snow and there was a lot of hype building up to it. Of course,
we want to win and we know there’s a lot of history, but we’re more
concerned about winning the game and moving along with our
season.”
The 1-0 Huskies were victorious in their season-opener at East
Aurora, N.Y., last Friday, although Olean nearly squandered a 20-0
lead and had to hang on for dear life in a 20-14 final.
“Olean looked very good on film,” Ackerman admitted. “They
(Huskies) played their 3-5 defense with stunting linebackers, and
they did a good job of running a little bit of a Utah offense with
traps and stretch plays.”
Ackerman says Justin George, Neil Fay and Mike Sprague are the
Huskies’ players to beware of this evening.
“Justin George is a senior quarterback and an impressive
runner,” Ackerman noted. “Neil Fay does a lot of stunting on
defense and runs hard offensively. The Sprague kid also had a good
game in the secondary.
“They (Huskies) will be tough because of their size and
quickness,” Ackerman added. “They will throw a lot of stuff at us
and they will be difficult to handle.”
Although the Owls emerged from the Bisons’ game virtually
injury-free, Ackerman and his coaching staff have made several
lineup changes as they continue to fine tune the starters in search
of the right combinations.
“We are fine,” Ackerman said of the injury situation. “These are
changes we needed to make to get better.”
When asked if there was anything he would like to add, Ackerman
declared, “Tell everybody game time is 7:30. We’re looking for a
big Bradford crowd.”
It’s no secret that teams looking to succeed against the Owls
must prepare for the run, and Olean High coach Mike Kane has been
doing just that.
“I know Bradford runs the ball real well out of that Wing-T, so
we have to cover our assignments, read our keys and do a better job
on defense this week than we did last week,” Kane remarked.
“Last week we played a pretty good first half and then started
scrambling in the second and didn’t take care of our own jobs,”
Kane recalled. “We made a lot of mistakes on defense.
“Bradford – with that Wing-T – if you make a mistake on an
assignment, they’re going to exploit it. We know that, so that’s
what we’ve been concentrating on.”
