By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports
These are the decisions that NFL and college coaches make throughout the course of a season.
There’s only one difference: High school football coaches don’t make millions of dollars to make those decisions. And you don’t see a whole lot of college coaches grading Civics tests during their workday.
Friday night at Messmer Stadium, Northwood coach Austin Brown had a decision to make.
A few minutes later, Loyola coach John Sella had a decision to make.
Both knew their decision could be the difference in whether their team won or lost in the crucial game between two 8-1 teams.
They each made a call and didn’t bother to second guess themselves. All they could do was hope for the best.
One of the decisions worked out and one of them didn’t as Loyola beat Northwood 28-27 in a game that was as close as the score indicated, which is why the decisions of Brown and Sella were even more significant.
All season, the Falcons and Flyers have been involved in ridiculously one-sided games. The closest margin of victory Northwood has had all season was 34 points. Loyola’s average margin of victory in its eight wins had been 38.1 points.
Not a lot of game-altering decisions to be made in games like that.
With a little more than three minutes remaining in this game and the Falcons trailing by a point, Brown’s team was staring at fourth-and-goal from the 6-yard line. There was much to consider as Northwood called time out to talk it over. The man-up inclination would be to go for the touchdown, especially since the Flyers would still have three minutes to try to answer.
However, Brown knew that when you have a chance to take the lead late in the game, that’s the button to push. He sent his field goal team on to the field. However, the 23-yard attempt was wide right and the Flyers still had the lead.
But could they hold it?
Loyola’s running game, which came in averaging 161 yards per game, had mostly been stuffed all night long, due in large part to Falcons’ defensive tackle Braylon Levy who had been borderline-unblockable for most of the night.
After the missed field goal, the Flyers picked up a first down to make Northwood use its remaining timeouts but still faced a third-and-6 at its own 36 with 1:48 to go. Pass? Run? Both had a large risk/reward factor attached.
As he huddled with his team, Sella took one of those options off the table. “We were not going to throw it,” he said.
But that didn’t mean the Flyers couldn’t give the appearance that they might. Running up the middle was not going to be an option, so the Flyers came up with another tactic.
The play call was a running play all the way, but quarterback Bryce Restovich rolled to his left to make it look as if it was a roll-out pass play. When he saw the Falcon linebackers drop to cover, he made a quick cut inside the block of left tackle Ryan Sipes and picked up the first down easily.
Actually, very easily because Restovich ended up gaining 48 yards on the play.
Two kneel downs and it was over.
But what might have changed the game more than anything else was the fingertip of Loyola junior Brock Geter.
With 1:17 left before halftime, Northwood took a 20-14 lead on a 12-yard run by Kyran Johnson and lined up for the extra point. All season, Geter had been coming excruciatingly close to blocking an extra point. He didn’t get much more than a fingertip on this one, but “Block” Geter’s deflection had implications throughout the second half.
The Flyers were able to score on the second play of the third quarter on a 50-yard pass from Restovich to Ty Walsworth and Cooper Varnadore’s extra point put Loyola ahead instead of tying the score.
On Northwood’s final touchdown, the Falcons wanted to go for two with 1:33 to go in the third quarter, but an illegal procedure penalty forced them to kick instead.
Neither team would score again.
As offensive-minded as both teams had been all season, the defenses for both played a significant role. When Northwood had 1st-and-goal on its final drive, the Loyola defense allowed only three yards on three plays.
Senior linebacker Hayden Horton was in on all three tackles, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise since he had 23 tackles and an interception in the game.
“That was a big stop,” Horton said. “They kept running it over and over again but we know our guys and we know what we can do.”
“People who have played Loyola told me they are more physical than you think they are,” Brown said. “They toughened up when they needed to and not just on that last possession. Hats off to their defense.”
Restovich completed 21 of 36 for 292 yards and was the leading rusher with 80 yards. Charlie McKenzie caught nine passes for 96 yards.
Northwood’s strong rushing attack (321 yards) was led by Johnson with 148 yards and John Sneed with 144.
With the win, the Flyers are the No. 2 seed in the Select Division II playoffs and will have a first-round bye. The Falcons are the No. 7 seed in the Non-Select Division I bracket and will play host to 26th-seeded Barbe (5-5).
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com