WEEK 8 PREVIEW: Louisville Leopards at West Branch Warriors

Louisville Leopards (4-3, 3-1) at West Branch Warriors (3-4, 2-2)

WHEN: Friday, October 14 at 7:00 PM

WHERE: Heacock Stadium | Click Here for Directions

RADIO: WRMU 91.1 FM

TV: None

HIGHLIGHTS: Will be available following the game late Friday night or early Saturday morning right here on louisvilleleopards.org

SERIES

ALL-TIME SERIES: Louisville holds a 21-5 all-time record over West Branch.

LAST MEETING: Louisville won 28-0 in Week 6 of the 2010 season back on October 1. | Highlights & Story for the 2010 Game

LAST MEETING AT WEST BRANCH: Louisville defeated West Branch 42-7 in Week 6 of the 2009 season back on October 2, 2009.

LAST WEST BRANCH WIN: The Warriors last defeated the Leopards in Week 9 of the 1998 season winning 39-33.

Schedule So Far:

Louisville — West Branch

Walsh Jesuit L 26- 27 — Kirtland L 0-17

North Canton Hoover W 50-7 — @New Philadelphia L 14-28

@Ravenna L 6-31 — @Streetsboro W 20-18

Marlington W 35-28 — @Alliance L 26-55

@Minerva L 26-29 — Carrollton W 35-24

@Alliance W 43-14 — Minerva L 26-39

Carrollton W 43-7 — @Canton South W 21-14

PREVIEW

As the NBC is searching for a team to take over as the dynasty of this decade, Louisville and West Branch renew their rivalry that used to decide the conference back in the 1990’s.  Louisville has dominated the series of late winning the last 12 games, but the Warriors have a new coach and are entering a new era of football.  The 2011 season has proven one thing, anything can happen.  Its Louisville in desperate need to win out in order to have any shot of making the playoffs and its West Branch that is trying to restore pride to their traditional program with a victory over a seemingly unbeatable foe.  Friday night at Heacock Stadium will a new era begin or will history continue to repeat itself?

LEOPARDS

OFFENSE: With quarterback Chad Neff out last week, the Leopards still had no problem moving the ball against Carrollton racking up 350 yards of offense and 18 first downs.  It also helped that Louisville played a mistake free game with no penalties on either side of the ball, and no turnovers.  It is a different offense without Neff at the helm, but Sophomore quarterback Joey Duckworth filled the role just fine.  Duckworth was 13 of 21 passing for 232 yards and threw three touchdowns to his three greatest aerial weapons Dillon Stertzbach, Trent Ohman, and Gavin Lovejoy.  Ohman was Duckworth’s main target as the combination hooked up 8 times for 131 yards.  Ohman leads the conference and county in receptions with 44 and in yards with 531.  Look for the Leopards to test a West Branch secondary that is giving up 15.1 yards per completion.  The Warriors have also had trouble stopping the run this season giving up 257 yards on the ground per game.  Look for runningback Lucas Poyser, who has 578 yards on 103 attempts and 9 touchdowns this season, to have a big game.  Duckworth has also scored two touchdowns on the ground in the past 2 games and won’t be afraid to run it in himself near the goal line.

DEFENSE: The Warriors have a run first offense and Louisville will look to improve in stopping the run come this Friday.  The Leps defense has given up 183 yards per game on the ground this season.  While stopping the rush has been a problem, forcing fumbles hasn’t.  The Leopards have recovered 9 fumbles this season, the most recent one coming from defensive lineman Trey Province last week against Carrollton.  Oppositely the Leopards defense has limited opponents to just 98 passing yards per game, but has only picked off two passes all year.  One of the two interceptions came last week when linebacker Charles Beamer picked off a pass late in the second half.  In fact, the Leopards defense caught just as many passes from Carrollton quarterback Damon Anderson as the Warrior receivers did.  Carrollton was just 1-of-3 passing for 7 yards on the night as the Leopards suddenly stout pass rush got the Anderson all night long.  Unofficially Louisville recorded 5 sacks, twice from Gary Anile and Cory Neff and another time from Jake Sluss.  The Leopards run defense has improved a little each week and the pass rush is better than ever.  If Louisville continues to improve come Friday, it could be a long night for the West Branch offense.

SPECIAL TEAMS: Louisville has converted 6 two-point conversions, 3 of which were in non-traditional situations in the past two weeks.  If the Leopards miss an extra point early or even if they do not, don’t put it past Head Coach John Demarco to go for a conversion.  At kicker, Merrick Storlie has made 18 of 23 extra point attempts and Justin Romy’s kickoffs have only allowed opposing teams a 7.5 yards per return average this season.  Louisville’s only punt attempt last week had a high snap, which turned into a failed fourth down conversion.  With Neff out, look for Alex Schooley and Mike Weiss to assume duties at punting.  Each have had 2 punts this season for a combined average of 34.5 yards per boot.  However, the big story on special teams last week was the return game.  Stertzbach’s only kick return was a season long 45 yards and one of his two punt returns went for a season long that was also 45 yards to set up Louisville with good field position at midfield.  Louisville has averaged 20 yards per kick return and 10.6 yards per punt return this season, while opponents have only been able to average 4.6 yards per punt return this year.

WARRIORS

West Branch Portion Written By Mike Swinhart, Edited by Jared Heller

OFFENSE: Under first year head coach D.J. Dota, West Branch has changed their offensive philosophies from years’ past. Instead of spreading the field, and playing a Spread type offense with QB draws, rushes out of the spread, and throwing short and deep passes, West Branch is now focusing on “smash-mouth” football type of attitude and philosophy. Many coaches have said that what West Branch does differently this year compared to the past, is two things: their priority on offense is to run the ball and use a lot of multiple formations. The key to West Branch in this game against Louisville, is to be more balanced offensively. Louisville started going bac k to their 5-2 defense against Carrollton, and it worked. I expect them to use that defense and other packages and formations against the Warriors of Beloit as well. Troy James is going to have to help read where the blitz will be coming from, so that he knows which side to roll out to if needed.  James is 61-of-101 for 676 yards and 5 touchdowns this year threw the air, but has also thrown 5 interceptions.  James is also a treat on the ground rushing 70 times for 217 yard and 4 touchdowns.  Brenden Wells will have to be the focal point of this offense again. He has had three straight games of 200+ rushing yards, and five straight games of two touchdowns.  Wells broke the millennium mark last week verse Canton South and has a conference leading 1081 yards altogether on 165 rushes and also an second in the NBC with 11 rushing touchdowns.  It will be crucial for the young offensive line to create holes in the first level, so that Wells can get through to that second level, where he is almost impossible to be brought down by one player. The holes will be there if James can get some passes completed early in the game to wide receiver Scott Muckleroy and also to his tight ends.  This should be a closer game than people think, but in order for West Branch to win this game they’ll have to play with their ‘A’ game. I expect Wells, Tyler Pidgeon, Aaron Page, Muckleroy, and James to have huge games at their respective skilled positions. If West Branch can win the battle in the trenches on offense, West Branch should be able to move the ball and put up some points.

DEFENSE: D.J. Dota’s philosophy coming in was “run the ball, and stop the run.” Offensively, they’ve accomplished that. Defensively, not so much yet. Most of it isn’t Dota’s fault, but more of it is the fault of the game of football. Teaching the proper technique of tackling has taken a back seat in the fundamentals of football, and it’s discouraging. I don’t see many teams anymore that can get that 1 vs. 1 tackle on the first try.  D.J. Dota has had to re-teach the way to tackle, and it has been a challenge to break the players bad habits. I’ve seen progress in tackling each week, but there’s still a lot to improve on. West Branch needs to get pressure on Duckworth, as he’s more of a passer than a runner. With the Warriors’ size on defense, it will be hard to win the battle in the trenches defensively, but the Warriors will need to get some penetration on that line in order to disrupt this Louisville offense that has lit up the scoreboard the past couple of weeks. The keys to this game for the West Branch defense are three things. First, as I mentioned above, they can’t let Duckworth have time to throw in the pocket, so that’s where the D-line needs to somehow collapse the pocket time and time again. Second, they need to reduce the amount of missed tackles and bad angles. The linebackers will need to do a better job of filling the holes that the Leopards’ offense will try and create for Poyser. That will help with the bad angles, and hopefully slow down the Leopard’s running game with a reduced amount of missed tackles.  Third, West Branch will need to keep the big plays they allow on defense to a minimum.  Against Canton South, the Warriors gave up too many big plays on third down and long.  Also, after a huge Wildcat penalty, there would be a 1st down/2nd down and long, and South would convert on the very next play.  West Branch’s defense on those big plays seemed to lack the intensity of Dota’s motto for the year which is “Every Play, Every Day.” That motto basically means “playing 100 miles per hour, from snap to whistle, every single play for 4 quarters.” If West Branch’s defense can do those three things effectively on friday, the defense should help the Warriors stay in this game.

SPECIAL TEAMS: Last year, West Branch’s special teams became their achilles heel for a few of their games. In the rivalry game against Salem, West Branch missed all three point after touchdown tries, and that was the difference in the game as Salem won 21-18.  This year, the kicking game is better.  Brock Trimmer has been solid booting through 16 of 18 extra points this season.  Not sure about his field goal range, but that might be why kicker Matt Latham has been the one attempting field goals for the most part this year. The punt and kick return games have been improving this year. Jake Mull and Jalen Shelton have done a great job returning kicks, and you can expect them to continue to improve the rest of the season. Surprisingly, the kick-off and punt coverages have been improving dramatically from the games I’ve seen this year. However, the most surprising area of special teams this year is the fact that the Warriors have blocked a few PATs and FGs this year, including a big one against Kirtland. It seems that the Warriors overload one side on the PATs and FGs to try and block it. Some teams have seen this, and the snapper seems either intimidated, or just decides that the other side is open and tries to run with it to the opposite side of the overload. For the most part, it hasn’t worked.

ALL-TIME SERIES:

Number of Shutouts: Louisville-4, West Branch-0

Leopards Highest Margin of Victory: 1970 they won 42-0 and 2005 they won 48-6

West Branch’s Highest Margin of Victory: 1990 they won 35-15

Highest Combined Score: 76 Points – 2008 – Louisville 48, West Branch 28

Lowest Combined Score: 6 Points – 1968 – Louisville 6, West Branch 0

Longest Winning Streak: Louisville – 12 Games – 1999-Present

Longest Warriors Winning Streak: 2 Games – 1990-91 and 1997-98

Total Points Scored: Louisville-629, West Branch-322

Average Score: Louisville-24, West Branch 12