Blanchester football coaches are tackling a big issue this week in practice as the Wildcats prepare for Norwood Friday night.
“Tackling was awful,” BHS head coach Justin Schmitz said. “There were times we had multiple guys around the ball carrier and couldn’t put him down.”
Blanchester (1-2) will make the long trip to Norwood to face the winless Indians. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. Friday night.
“Norwood’s record is deceiving,” Schmitz said. “They’ve played some very tough football teams right out of the gate.”
Norwood has lost to 2-1 Madeira, 2-1 Mariemont and 3-0 Cincinnati College Prep.
Norwood is a member of the Miami Valley Conference Scarlet Division with Roger Bacon, Purcell Marian, North College Hill, Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy and Summit Country Day.
Blanchester won last season’s meeting 30-21.
“Their quarterback is a very dynamic kid,” said Schmitz. “He’s dynamic in the pass game and run game. The have a lot of space winning athletes in their wide receiving group. We need to be sure that we’re sound schematically so we don’t place kids in bad situations athletically.”
Amon Collins is the Norwood quarterback. He has thrown for 372 yards while running for another 245 yards. He is averaging more than 15 yards a completion.
Blanchester lost to Waynesville last week 34-14.
“I think coach (John) Lovin had a good game plan (offensively), we just didn’t execute,” Schmitz said. “We lost the turnover and field position battles. Odds of winning drastically drop in those instances.”
Schmitz believes the Wildcats are motivated with the loss to the Spartans and will now work their way back to respectability and putting a W in the win column.
“We have to be able to execute better and play our brand of football,” he said. “The mistakes we’ve seen thus far are correctable. Pressure is forever relevant. You’re either feeling it or applying it. We want to be the ones applying it on both sides of the ball. We’ll work toward that all week and on Friday night.”
