By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL, Journal Sports
There are different approaches that coaches take when the regular season ends and the playoffs begin.
Some look at it as if the two go hand-in-hand. Let’s pick up where we left off and keep this thing rolling.
Others see at it as if there is a clear line of demarcation. What you did up until that point really doesn’t matter anymore. This has gone from a 10-week grind to a one-game season, perhaps as many as five times. But the regular season is a thing of the past.
Oh, look who’s standing in the front of that line – it’s Parkway coach Coy Brotherton.
“I’ll be honest with you, for the first time in a long time going into the playoffs, I do say that,” he said. “Just because we were able to hit the reset button after the year we’ve had. We need a reset. I think it’s coming at a good time for our guys. It’s kind of given us a second life.”
How long that second life will last will be determined Friday night at Harold Harlan Stadium when the Panthers (5-5) take on Haughton (8-2) in the ultimate neighbor-vs-neighbor game in the Division I (non-select) first round playoff game.
It’s been an interesting year for the Panthers, to say the least. Lots of things haven’t gone according to plan. It might be best to say it has been an uneven year.
There was a two-week period in September when the Panthers gave up a total of three touchdowns, followed by allowing 126 points in the next two games.
One of those games was against Haughton, which the Buccaneers won 55-36. Now it will be Round Two between these two schools, who share a Sligo Road border and are about as familiar with each as they could be. Brotherton is a former Buccaneer player, his brother is a former head coach and his wife teaches math at Haughton.
Bucs’ head coach Matthew Sewell served as Parkway’s offensive coordinator before taking over at Haughton.
One of the most overused cliches on football is that “it’s hard to beat a team twice in the same season.” Maybe it is, probably it isn’t, but in this case that’s just another subplot to this game.
Does what happened in Week 5 apply this time around? Is scouting really necessary with a team that you already know so well?
“When you play a playoff team, you try to get as many games on them as you can,” Brotherton said. “Well, we’re familiar with them. We have all of their games (on video) and you look at the last three the hardest. But you always go back to that Week 5 game and look for something that worked for them. Obviously that was their running game and how physical they were. But those are things that we’ve had to make sure that we don’t let happen again.”
However, playing Haughton in a playoff game takes on a different feel. Last year, the Panthers were home in the opening round against Covington — a team from another corner of the state.
“It almost doesn’t feel like a playoff game because it’s somebody that’s in your district that you are used to playing,” Brotherton said. “When you think about the playoffs, you think it’s going to be somebody you hadn’t seen before.”
Then there is the practical side to it. As long as the Parkway bus has enough gas to make it down Sligo Road, turn left on Highway 157 and go up the hill, finances shouldn’t be a problem.
“I’d be lying to you if I told you we are fixing to save $10,000 and we only had to go 15 miles down the road and that wasn’t a good thing,” Brotherton said.
Even though the Panthers have lost the last two of the last three games, Brotherton still sees some good signs as his team prepares for the playoffs.
“We’ve had some consistency in the last three weeks,” he said. “We just haven’t put together four good quarters. It’s like something always happens to us, and we have to get over that hump of overcoming something. If we don’t, it snowballs. We’ve had injuries to some key players, but there are kids that are sacrificing to play both ways and that has been awesome.”
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com