From the sound of things, the Indian Valley football team has good reason to be very concerned about playing Tyrone at Mitchell Field on Friday night.
Considering that the Warriors are 2-5, scoring only 15 points per game, and already eliminated from the District 6-AAA playoffs, you would think the Eagles could easily over look the MAC non-divisional game, but the fact is, Tyrone is going in like it has something to prove.
Part of the motivation stems from a sub-par performance last week against Bishop Guilfoyle when the Eagles earned a solid 28-6 road victory in a game that lacked the spunk of Tyrone’s first six wins.
“We did what we had to do to win (on Saturday),” Tyrone coach John Franco said. “All year long we had been able to make big plays and put together long drives, but we were a little out of sync. With all of that said, we still managed to win against a team that had won four in a row, but we didn’t feel we were at our top level.”
The other part of Tyrone’s motivation is found in what’s at stake against Valley: a win would guarantee the Eagles a No. 1 seed in the District 6-AA playoffs, and it would put them one step closer to securing the ninth undefeated regular season in school history.
But Tyrone has been close to undefeated seasons before when facing Indian Valley, and even when the disparity of talent seems to weigh heavily in favor of the Eagles, the Warriors have always been one of their toughest opponents.
That’s why Franco has reminded his team this week about his first District championship squad at Tyrone in 1995, a group that took an 8-0 record into a Week 9 game against Valley in search of the Eagles’ first undefeated season in 50 years. Although the Warriors were 2-6, they played like they were 7-1, and they delivered Tyrone’s first blemish of the season, 13-7 on Senior Night.
That kind of effort has been consistent from Valley throughout Franco’s tenure, and he’s expecting the same tomorrow.
“We’re the big bulls eye on everybody’s schedule, and it will be the same this week against Indian Valley,” he said. “Year in and year out, they have great athletes, and every time we play it’s a battle. When they beat us in 1995, a lot of people wondered what happened, but they won because they were as good as we were.”
It would be hard to imagine Valley this season as being on the same level as the undefeated Eagles, but the fact is the Warriors could be 5-2 just as easily as they are 2-5. Three of their losses have come by six points or less, including a 21-20 loss to Clearfield in Week 3 and a 22-16 loss to Huntingdon last Friday.
The big problem for Valley has been its inefficiency in the red zone. Against the ‘Cats last week, for example, the Warriors penetrated the 20 twice with the game in the balance and came away with just three points and five plays that ended in their own backfield.
Similarly, in its one-point loss to Clearfield, Valley failed to score from the four before giving up the Bison’s go-ahead score on a 96-yard drive.
“They’re the best 2-5 team I’ve seen in years,” Franco said. “They have as multi-faceted an offense as we will see, and they run a lot of different packages. They run the triple option and their quarterback (three-year starter Anthony Trutt) runs it in a very precise way.”
Valley’s red zone woes are in stark contrast to Tyrone, which has lived inside its opponents’ 20-yard line this season, and made good on most of its opportunities. In fact, through seven games, Tyrone has converted on 28 of 32 trips inside the red zone (87.5 percent), with 24 touchdowns and four field goals.
Senior running back Brinton Mingle has been a major factor in Tyrone’s success near its opponents’ goal line. He leads the team with 14 touchdowns, and most of them are of the smash-mouth variety.
But the Eagles haven’t scored more than 30 points per game with a powerful running game alone. Five of quarterback Leonard Wilson’s nine touchdown passes have come inside the 20-yard line, with wideout Shane Barr and running back Johnny Franco each proving to be valuable pass catchers when Tyrone is in close.
Coach Franco feels the Eagles will need their top performances and more to deal with a Valley team he says has a lot going in its favor.
“We’re playing down there, which is never easy,” he said. “Plus, they’re out of the playoff picture, so they have nothing to lose. They’re basically playing for fun, trying to see what they can do against a good team. They have a ton of positives going for them.”
FOUR-HEADED MONSTER
Bald Eagle Area coach Mike Markel was the first coach to say publicly what many Tyrone opponents were feeling in private: most schools in the Mountain Athletic Conference, be it in the big school Seven Mountains Divisions or the small school Nittany Division, would love to have one of the running backs from three-runner stable Tyrone has compiled this season.
Be it the physically imposing Mingle, the speedy Tyler Gillmen or the nimble Franco, any one of them would be a starter on most teams.
That kind of depth and talent could cause problems as players clamor each week for more touches, but that hasn’t happened for the Eagles. Mingle has carried the bulk of the work, carrying 129 time for 723 yards, while Gillmen is second with 407 yards on 49 carries. Franco, meanwhile, has toted the ball 35 times for 255 yards.
Throw in Wilson’s 126 yards from the quarterback position, and it’s easy to see why at 231 yards per game the Eagles have one of the top rushing offenses around.
Each back has benefited greatly from a better-than-expected offensive line, and each brings a style that complements and contrasts with the others. It’s something coach Franco said he actually anticipated before the season started.
“They bring four different styles of running that makes it very difficult for another team to prepare for,” he said. “You get the power and straight-ahead strength with Mingle, Gillmen will run around you with his speed and quickness, and then Johnny is like a combination of the two. Then you add Leonard and he may be the best of the bunch.
“All three of the running backs are also excellent pass catchers, and they’ve become integral parts of our passing game.”
SECRET OF SUCCESS
When you consider that Franco works year-in and year-out at the small school level – coaching at a school that draws from a population of around 5,000 and where most athletes are committed to multiple sports – the numbers his teams have consistently amassed on the offensive side of the football are staggering.
Since Franco took over the program in 1995, Tyrone’s offensive record book has undergone a complete overhaul. Every standard is now owned by a Franco-coached player with the exception of career field goals and single-game field goals, which 1980s kicker John Supina shares with Scott and Ben Gummo – two Franco players – respectively.
His offensive system has allowed four running backs to combine for eight 1,000-yard rushing seasons, while five quarterbacks have compiled nine 1,000-yard passing seasons. Six of Franco’s 12 teams have averaged over 30 points per game for a season.
Finding the kind of players with the talent to post numbers like those is difficult enough, but just as challenging is developing a system that allows them to be successful, and according to Franco that’s the key to his program’s offensive success.
“Offense is all about showcasing your talent, not your system,” he said. “We center what we do around the talented players we have, whether it’s a Brice Mertiff, Tyler Mertiff, Brit Mingle or Jesse Jones.”
That may sound easy, but the Eagles’ multiple offense actually borders on quantum physics in terms of its complexity. At any time it could employ shotgun, motion, shifts, double tight ends, split backfields, empty backfields and any of a number of other formations.
It’s complicated enough that Franco said his son Johnny was amazed upon transferring to Tyrone this season from Bishop Guilfoyle to see just how complex it was.
But what impresses the elder Franco is not that his players have had success in picking up the difficult system, but that most of them do it on both sides of the ball.
“If you look at what we do defensively, it’s just as complicated,” he said. “But I’ve always felt that you should never short-change a player by thinking they can’t learn it. The fact is, with most kids, if you can teach it right, they can learn it.”
