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Monday, October 27, 2008 11:07 PM CDT
Beyond disappointing finish, Trojans have bright spots
By BRIAN NIELSEN, Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON -- Instead of finding information on this week’s playoff opponent, Charleston football coach Brian Halsey had to find silver linings.
This was not the plan a few months ago, when other Apollo Conference coaches were picking the Trojans to win the league championship and Halsey was not denying his team had the talent for that to be a possibility.
This was a week Halsey wanted to be talking about the first-round opponent’s offense and defense, not his own team’s freshman-sophomore record or his team’s academic strides.
Certainly, those things are important.
But now they become the bright spots of a disappointing 4-5 season.
“It’s pretty hard,” Halsey said. “It was definitely not from a lack of not working. The kids worked very hard in camp and in two-a-days. We just let too many chances slip away early.
“At the same time it just goes to show you how often and special it is to get into the football postseason. There’s no automatic postseason.”
Maybe Charleston fans started to assume they would have a 10th week to the season once Halsey rebuilt a program that had gone 3-33 over four years to a stretch of four straight playoff berths interrupted by a 2-7 hiccup before last year’s Class 5A quarterfinal berth.
No one was panicking just calling a dismal season opening loss to Taylorville an aberration.
That probably was even the case after a double-overtime loss to Apollo title contender Mount Zion.
Then when the Trojans lost to upstart Paris – who knew these Tigers after an 0-2 start would rally to their first playoff berth in school history – Charleston found itself in an 0-3 predicament.
“I think one of the things looking back, we’ve got to play every week and we’ve got to come to practice every day,” Halsey said. “That’s where our preparation is - at practice. We’ve got to go to work every day.
“Our kids hung in there. We struggled at times. I know we had a preseason ranking and were picked to win the Apollo but we were green at a lot of spots. That’s a lot for a young team to handle. They didn’t quit. They didn’t give up. We started off 0-3. If anyone after that 0-3 start would have told us we were going to Highland going for a playoff spot it would have been hard to have believed.”
Past Charleston playoff teams did not beat Highland. When the Trojans lost this year, it meant they were out of the playoffs. As much as a loss at perennially strong Highland, you could blame losing 14-point leads in losses to Mount Zion and Effingham leaving no margin for error.
That will go down as a disappointment but some will be able to remember 2008 included positives as well.
While the coach cannot deny that the inverted wishbone that seemed like a good idea for this year’s personnel last summer after two games was deemed a failed experiment, some of his additions were keepers.
“I think we turned the corner in some areas,” Halsey said. “For the first time in nine years after we implemented the study table we did not have any ineligibilities at the varsity level and I think we only had two or three at the fresh-soph level.”
The 7-8:15 p.m. Wednesday mandatory study hall may have just gotten some of the player’s class work done, but it also set the tone for this new emphasis.
That emphasis can be carried down to a younger level players who enjoyed success on the field.
With a low number of sophomore players, Charleston before the season switched to freshman-sophomore games and the result was a 9-0 season.
“I’m very proud of that team considering the lack of numbers at the sophomore level,” Halsey said. “Hats off to Jeff Miller, Cliff Campbell and Carl Wolff. Those guys did a great job. I think consistency in the (Junior Football League) program has helped. The JFL coaches are doing a great job. They are doing a good job of teaching and all we do is rep is polish. Our freshman squad was one of unique individuals. They were a fun bunch to watch. They were good kids. I’m excited. I’m excited for them to be in our program the next three years.
“Not only was our freshman staff incredible, the four varsity assistants did a terrific job. We’re going to reflect and evaluate and honor our men at our banquet and in a couple of weeks get in the weight room.”
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com or 238-6856.
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two cents wrote on Oct 28, 2008 2:14 PM: