Friday night against Allegany was yet another game in which the lack of coaching at Mountain Ridge doomed the Miners' in their attempts of picking up a victory. I wanted to watch the game on video, to confirm what I saw in person, before I commented on this matter.
The Mountain Ridge football program suffers from one thing... bad coaching... and it shows on a weekly basis. Example one of this happened after Mountain Ridge scored the game tying touchdown. The TD tying drive was a perfectly called drive by Coach Patterson. He mixed the pass with the run and drove the ball down the field and tied the game.
The high that those young men were feeling lasted but a few moments as a poorly coached special teams gave up a 95-yard kickoff return for a touchdown and effectively killed all the momentum that you just got by tying the game at 7. We have allowed way too many kickoff return, punt return, and interception return of touchdowns in the past 5 years.
Mountain Ridge had decent luck throwing the ball in the touchdown scoring drive. Their QB had some nicely timed, thrown passes and converted some nice plays. With that being said, you just lost all the momentum you gained by tying the game when you gave up the kickoff return for a score, and what do you do? You throw the ball on first down? That leads to a pick six and all the sudden it is 21-7. I'm sorry but that is bad coaching.
Allegany had 14 points off of Mountain Ridge interceptions, and an additional 7 points on a kickoff return at the half, which meant that half of the points they had at the half was not done by the offense. The other half was scored by the Allegany offense and was given up by the Mountain Ridge defense. The Miners' defense has hit an all-time low. Giving up 60+ points in back-to-back weeks??? Unacceptable!!! Allegany running back getting 15+ yards down field without being touched. Some of the scores the running back for Allegany wasn't touched at all. Piss poor defensive strategy by the Mountain Ridge coaching staff.
Mountain Ridge gave up 28 points on turnovers and kickoff returns. The special teams play for Mountain Ridge has been horrible since they started play in 2007. They have given up kickoff returns, punt returns, had kicks blocked. Terrible exection of kick coverage. All of this is coaching. I'm sorry to say it but it is absolutely coaching. I am looking down at the sidelines following the Campers fourth touchdown, putting them up 28-7, attempting to see what type of adjustments, coaching was happening and what do I see??? Mountain Ridge coach on their cell phone not paying any attention at all. Just pathetic if you ask me.
What is the answer? At this point... it is clean house time. Everyone needs to go... everyone!!!
Does Mountain Ridge need to drop football for a while? This has been a prolonged down period for the Ridge. I sure hope it doesn't come to that.
The officials had a rough night. They had a phantom hold on a Mountain Ridge play early in the second quarter. Didn't really affect the game as MR lost yardage on the play anyways so Alco declined the penalty. They also missed a clear hold on #62 on the second to last Alco touchdown in the first half. #25 for Allegany should have been ejected in the first half after his second unsportsmanlike conduct/personal foul penalty of the game. I know that HSFB doesn't have the same rule as NCAA and the NFL has when it comes to that. Both late hits were totally uncalled for and as cheap of a shot as you can have. Seems to have a bit of a anger problem. Alco had another cheap shot in the fourth quarter on a punt. Not happy to see that.
