After two straight home losses to Brookville and Central
Mountain, the Bradford Owls’ coaching staff didn’t resort to a
fire-and-brimstone speech or bring in a motivational speaker in
preparations for the DuBois game on Friday.
“I don’t think they need a whole lot of motivation,” said Steve
Ackerman, BHS head football coach. “They know what’s at stake – a
District 9 League championship or at least a share of it. The 10
seniors know it’s the last home game they’ll ever play here.
Obviously it’s a chance to right two wrongs.”
Brookville physically throttled the Owls two weeks ago with a
39-21 D-9 League decision and then Central Mountain gave Bradford
another dose of physicality in a 29-27 non-league contest last
Friday.
“Central Mountain lined up and came right at us,” Ackerman
confessed. “We didn’t do a very good job of stopping that. We
couldn’t get out in front of them to make them stop doing it to us.
We need to get a lead on these teams and make them come out of
their game instead of us playing catch-up.”
Last year the Owls were in the same situation down in DuBois and
got blasted 37-0. Bradford fumbled the opening kickoff and was out
of the contest shortly after the National Anthem.
“They (Beavers) were a very experienced, well-coached, talented
team and they showed it in that game,” Ackerman recalled. “It was
men amongst boys. It really was. We laugh about it now, but that’s
what it was. They just totally manhandled us last year.”
DuBois was 8-2 a year ago and outscored the opposition 313-132,
but 2006 is a different horror story as the Beavers are 0-7 overall
and 0-4 in the league. The losses have been to Central Mountain
(35-21), Punxsutawney (21-20), Brookville (19-0), Hollidaysburg
(42-7), Kittanning (49-12), St. Marys (9-7) and Clearfield
(24-14).
“If you look at the DuBois roster, they are still big and do a
lot of things well,” Ackerman stated. “They have a lot of guys
injured and that’s what is hurting them the most. But they are
still a big team and they will bring it Friday night and I
guarantee that.”
After averaging over 31 points per game last season, the Beavers
are scoring at just under 12 points per contest this year.
“They (Beavers) run a multi-faceted offense with Wing-T, Power
and out of the shotgun at times,” Ackerman noted. “They throw the
ball a little bit and have some halfback passes. They are very big
up front. It’s a lot for us to prepare for.”
The Beavers’ defense has also suffered a 360-degree turn from a
year ago as the points allowed have more than doubled from 13.2 to
28.6 this campaign.
“Last week against Clearfield they ran a three-man front with a
shell or umbrella-type thing, but Clearfield is more of a passing
team so I don’t think we’ll see that,” Ackerman predicted. “They
run a 4-3 and a 5-2 in short yardage and goal line, so that’s
probably the defense we’ll see. They have a good inside linebacker
and both of their defensive ends are stout. They also have a kid
(John McCullough – 6-6, 432 pounds) at defensive tackle who weighs
400 pounds, which is about twice the size of any of our kids.”
Except for Nick Johnson, the Owls (5-2, 3-1) seem to be in good
shape injury-wise to keep pace with Brookville atop the District 9
League standings.
“Nick Johnson is probably out for this week with a pretty bad
ankle sprain,” Ackerman offered. “Other than that, we are pretty
healthy.”
The Parkway Field kickoff is set for 7 p.m.
