WK 3 (1-1) Vinton County @ (2-0) Jackson

[Ty Webb]

Jackson will be able to name the score in this one. I watched Jackson play Wellston in week 1 and they are a good football team. The Jackson/Wellston game was much closer than the score indicated, though. With a few breaks, Wellston could have been right in it until the end. I'd say that Vinton County doesn't have much of a chance. Jackson is just too athletic for the Vikings.

Alot of good points there Randy.......I agree with everything you say except for the closeness of the Jackson game...it wasn't that close and the "breaks" excuse is just that.

VC's got throttled Friday night and it will be interesting to see if they're competitive at Alumni Stadium this week. I'd agree that if VC's interior lines don't get their act together it will be a very long night. Huff for as many as Wolford wants him to get.

A shame that VC doesn't have all the talent they should have......I guess 1-1 is better than 0-2.

[Ty Webb]

A shame that VC doesn't have all the talent they should have......I guess 1-1 is better than 0-2.

If VC had a better staff maybe they would have better talent. Again, Coach Yates is a good coach, but how about some better help for him.

So, are you gonna come back if we shake things up a little? Where are your loyalties?

Sounds like a good script for a soap opera pilot.

[boilermaker]

I guess1-1 is better than 0-2 , We ( The Rockets havent played any cupcakes though)

[ocho stinko]

Its hard to play cupcakes when you are the biggest cupcake!

[VIKED_MAN]

Keep your heads up Vikes. Anything can happen!

[Poo Bear]

Why do all VC topics keep coming back to kids that have transfered to other schools??

[ironman02]

Why do all VC topics keep coming back to kids that have transfered to other schools??

I was actually wondering the same thing.

[Judge Smales]

Ironmen large!

[Goldengonzo]

Who are some of the top players for both teams?

[Keyser_sozeThrice]

Cody Huff, Brandon Trace and Ryan Hughes for Jackson and Andy Grillo for Vinton County just to name a few to start with.

[irongirl78]

Bentley, Beckley, Jarvis, Grillo just to name a few VC players who rock.

[orange-n-brown 365]

Gotta go with Vinton County on this one

[grndma1]

Gotta go with Vinton County on this one

We are buddies, but I'm gonna have to disagree with you on this one. Jackson by two touchdowns.

[OZZIEOHIO]

I say you two make a bet, and the loser has to cook me Cabbage rolls.

[grndma1]

Sounds good to me. If you had shown up at my yard sale, I made cabbage rolls and put some back for you, but they were eaten as leftovers today. Anyway, I will take that bet but I don't think she will , because remember she said she isn't a good cook.

[Do-Your-Job]

Ironman02 - Do you have any idea how the JV game with Waverly went this week? Just curious how the lower level team is doing. Thanks.

[jhsmom2]

Waverly JV Team did not show up!!! Said they did not know we were on their schedule. Sounds convenient to me. Jackson JV played at Waverly and WON last year on Labor Day.

[Do-Your-Job]

Man, was Jason Snider involved in that confusion some how? Sounds like something that would happen if he was the AD down at Waverly. Not good for Waverly to be drawing Snider comparisons.

[Keyser_sozeThrice]

Here is the preview story which will run in Thursday's Times-Journal on the game. Enjoy.

2-0 Ironmen face visiting Vikings

By PAUL BOGGS
Sports Editor

Usually, it’s a band of Vikings which are entering uncharted waters.

This week, though, it’s the Jackson High School football team which is charting “new territory.”

For the past decade, the Ironmen have vanquished the Vinton County Vikings in every single week three meeting.

For the first time in the Shane Wolford era, though, the Ironmen are facing the neighboring Vikings after a win over Waverly.

“Beating Waverly is something we haven’t done since I took over as head coach,” said Wolford. “This is new territory for us being 2-0. We’re pretty excited about it, though.”

This week, the Ironmen attempt to parlay two streaks into one, as Jackson welcomes the visiting Vikings for their home opener on Friday night.

Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. at Alumni Stadium, which kicks off its fifth season of hosting high school football.

Speaking of Alumni Stadium, its very first game on Sept. 11, 2004 saw the same visiting Vikings come into Jackson and end with the Ironmen standing tall at 3-0.

Not since then has Jackson started with three straight wins, although the odds appear to be in its favor on Friday night.

The Ironmen are at home for the first time this season, and are coming off a key win at Waverly in which they dominated the contest for the most part.

At one point in the first half, Jackson held a commanding 21-0 lead, bolstered by three first-half touchdowns by senior tailback Cody Huff.

“You can’t say enough about how the kids performed the other night (at Waverly),” said Wolford. “Not just Cody, but everyone. It was really hot, there were a lot of kids cramping up and things like that, and everyone fought through it.”

Huff himself amassed a career-high in both carries and yards, 40 and 259 respectively.

All on a sore toe, too.

“Anytime you carry the ball 40 times in a game, and your toe is not feeling good, and he hadn’t practiced a full practice in about two weeks…he was able to go out there and put on quite the performance,” said Wolford. “He ran the ball very, very hard and didn’t go down with the initial hit.”

For the season, Huff has a hefty 335 yards and five touchdowns on 57 carries.

Vinton County, conversely, is coming off the wrong end of 39 points, exactly a week after being on the right end of that amount.

The Vikings steamrolled, and shut out in the second half, the Unioto Shermans 39-19 in the season opener.

However, the Bloom-Carroll Bulldogs took a bite out of the young Vikings last week, 39-8.

“I can say that our kids have not given up at any point in the last two weeks,” said Vinton County coach Nolan Yates. “We just dug ourselves in a hole last week in the first half. We probably had the ball for six minutes total in the first half last week, and Bloom-Carroll has a very nice football team. Those guys flew around and maybe some people have overlooked them a little bit.”

As for this week, Yates said that no one is overlooking the Ironmen, and admitted that his Vikings are indeed the underdog.

“There are no secrets about it, it’s obviously a very tough game for us. It’s probably the toughest one on our schedule every year,” said Yates. “We have a lot of youth and inexperience, and it’s the same old Jackson. Except — honestly — since I’ve been here, this is probably their strongest team I’ve seen up front. They are very good up front, and Cody Huff is the one of the best running backs I’ve seen in a while.”

The Ironmen thrive on ball-control, time-consuming drives with their midline option and off-tackle attack, which often times includes unbalanced sets.

Last week against Waverly, Jackson often lined up with its two tackles — Ryan Hughes and Jon Waugh — on the same side.

“You can’t just man up with Hughes on the line. He’s a monster,” said Yates. “You have to get someone that is going to dive at his ankles, and at least make him stay in the hole. Against Waverly, he had two or three guys occupied just because he is so big. He drove the defensive linemen into the linebackers and there was a hole that even I could run through.”

The Ironmen are also known for pulling guards.

The offensive line paved the way for Huff and fullback Klay Arthur, as the Ironmen amassed 317 rushing yards on 62 carries.

“We feel like Cody, Klay Arthur and the offensive line pretty much dominated,” said Wolford.

In the 41-14 season-opening win over Wellston, the Red and White racked up 364 rushing yards.

“When you watch film on Jackson, they love to pull their guards,” said Yates. “So if you can get your linebackers to read their keys correctly, get in the hip-pocket of that guard and read down the line, you might have a chance to slow some of that down.”

Yates added that perhaps Vinton County’s best defense on Friday will be its own offense.

By playing keep-away from Jackson, the Vikings would be serving the Ironmen a dose of their own medicine.

“The only chance we have to stay in the game is to slow down their running game, neutralize them up front, and get some possessions on offense where we can move the ball and maybe kill seven or eight minutes off the clock,” said Yates. “We have to play a mistake-free game, though. We don’t have any chance if we turn the ball over and not have any time of possession. We want to compete and do well, hang around for three or four quarters, and see what happens.”

The Vikings operate out of the wishbone, their longtime staple offense in which they have reverted back to this season.

Junior Andy Grillo — the Vikings’ lone all-league returnee — is the team’s quarterback this season, with a stable of halfbacks and fullbacks paced by Kyle Matteson.

Matteson, also a junior, is the team’s leading rusher through two games with over 200 yards.

Yates described the advantages of running the wishbone offense, which forces the defense to play “assignment football.”

“The wishbone typically requires that their linebackers defend all three of our running backs and account for the quarterback too,” he said. “We hope that their middle linebackers will rely on stopping our fullback, which keeps their outside linebackers on our halfbacks and quarterback. It keeps their linebackers at bay and they can’t just fly to the football.”

The Ironmen have stymied the Wellston and Waverly running attacks, bottling the Rockets for 34 yards on 24 carries while taming the Tigers for 18 yards on 14 tries.

In both instances, the opponents’ most athletic players — Wellston’s Matt Lockard and Waverly’s Derek Roback — were ratcheted to only eight carries apiece and a combined five yards.

But the Vikings’ wishbone offers a different type of attack, Wolford noted.

“You have to be able to deal with all of the faking and things like that, and be able to contain the quarterback from running to the outside,” he said. “You have certain individuals who are assigned to tackle the fullback, certain individuals who are assigned to tackle the halfbacks, and you have to have someone looking out for the quarterback also.”

Three years ago, in Wolford’s first season, Vinton County went back to the wishbone, and nearly upstaged the Ironmen 14-6 in McArthur.

There are no such shifts expected in X’s and O’s this week, though.

As Wolford said, “it’s just a smashmouth football game.”

“They are going to run the ball, we are going to run the ball, and you see who wants it more,” he said. “We’ve defended things like this before, but like I told the kids, we’re getting back to the basics a little bit this week. We’re going to practice hard on our blocking, we’re going to practice hard on our tackling. If we take care of ourselves, I think everything will work out for us.”

While Jackson now owns an 18-year win streak over Wellston, it’s keeping track of a trek against Vinton County as well.

The last time the Vikings vanquished the Ironmen was in 1997, which was Wolford’s senior season.

The fourth-year Red and White boss reminded his team of that tale on Tuesday, and explained the moral of the story.

“It’s a pretty simple thing for me because I’ve been in this situation as a player,” said Wolford. “The year after we went 10-0, we came back as seniors in ‘97, we were 2-0, got a little bit of a big head about us, and we were a lot better than Vinton County that particular year. But we went up there and got beat 19-13. It’s something that weighs in my head, that that kind of thing can happen. We have got to stay fired up and execute our assignments right. Hopefully, we’ll come out of it 3-0.”

Meanwhile, for Yates and the youthful Vikings, while the first victory over Jackson in over a decade would be one to savor, the long-term goal for his team is “to continue to get better as the season goes on.”

“The kids look forward to playing Jackson, but if they continue to think about how many times we’ve lost to them in a row, then that’s not going to get them anywhere,” said the VCHS mentor. “We’re just telling them that we want 100-percent effort this week and to focus on getting better. Whatever the score ends up, as long as we’re doing those two things this week, that’s what we care about.”

What the Ironmen care about, conversely, is starting 3-0 entering Southeastern Ohio Athletic League play.

That too, like this week against the visiting Vikings, is uncharted territory for the Wolford-led Ironmen.

“To get these (non-league) games would be absolutely huge,” he said. “Not just because it’s three games won, but it’s a confidence thing for our kids. I see this week that we’re really upbeat and things like that. As opposed to the last three years when you lose against Waverly, then you have to kind of start back at square one and build it up again. We’re feeling pretty good about things right now.”

sports@timesjournal.com