With seven days of practice in the book, the coaching staffs for
both the New York and Pennsylvania all-star teams are pleased with
how their squads have progressed.

“Practices are going well and we’ve pretty much gotten
everything in,” Glenn Mountain from Olean Archbishop Walsh, who
with his staff is coaching the New York all-star team, said Friday
night. “With only two weeks, you don’t have much time to put a lot
in.”

What he and his staff have put in, his players have wasted
little time absorbing.

“The kids have picked up what we want done quickly. One of the
things we’ve also done is let the kids do what they did in their
own programs. An example is Trae Rogers from Randolph, one of our
quarterbacks, who ran the option. We’re letting him do that.

“We want to make it easy for the kids, and then just add a
wrinkle here and there. It’s a lot easier to add the wrinkles when
they’re already comfortable with all the basic things they’re
doing. We don’t want to re-invent the wheel.

“It’s refreshing to coach a group of young men like this. When
they do something wrong, you just correct it once and it’s done
right. You don’t have to go over it four or five times.”

The staff has also enjoyed the luxury of having several players
take on leadership roles.

“We’ve had four or five guys on the offensive side of the ball
step up and take control. They’re like having coaches in the
huddle,” Mountain added.

Defensively, the team must play a 5-2 formation, which makes
preparing the defense a little easier.

“There’s not a heck of a lot you can do with the defense already
set,” explained the coach. “Basically it’s pretty simple and the
kids pick it up in a day or two. You may fool them once, but they
recover well after they’ve made a mistake.

“You line up nose-to-nose and then put in a few coverages,
stunts and blitzes,” he added.

Across the border, Jim Penley from Eisenhower and his coaching
staff are very pleased with their Pennsylvania team.

“Everything has gone really well … it’s been a fun week,” he
commented Friday night. “Basically we’ve got our whole offense in
minus a couple of little things and on defense the kids have picked
it up well, too.

“We’re running a pretty basic offense. I’m a firm believer that
you don’t need a lot of plays, you just have to run them right. I
was told that by several older coaches and I’ve followed that
thought. You get your players to learn the plays, understand what
they’re doing and you should be pretty successful.”

Defensively, like New York, Pennsylvania must run a 5-2 so there
aren’t a lot of things that can be changed.

“About all you can do is tweek it (defense) a little here and
there, but in the end it has to be a 5-2. You can be creative with
stunts and things like that, but you can’t get into multiple looks
and formations. You just have to be good at what you do,” Penley
emphasized.

The teams return to practice on Monday (6-8 p.m.) with
Pennsylvania in Smethport and New York at Allegany-Limestone.

Game 33 in the series will be played Saturday night at Parkway
Field in Bradford. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m.