Coaches Corner: Armstrong Football Coach Ryan Bartlett

Last week didn’t go the way the Falcons wanted it to go. They ran into Minnetonka, a team that trounced Totino-Grace the week before; and looked to stay hot.

They did just that. They beat the Falcons by a score of 24-0 at home. Armstrong didn’t play up to their potential and Coach Bartlett knows it.

“I’m giving the team a C- and that’s only because our defense kept us in the game,” said Bartlett.

When asked about which areas still need improvement after this game, Bartlett didn’t hesitate to say what he saw.

“Our special teams and offense was way below a C-," he said. "Offensively we struggled and didn’t play well.”

But all was not lost.

“Our defense kept us in the game," Bartlett said. "They played tough, created turnovers and hustled.”

With a lot of players doing a lot of things wrong, which earned them the subpar C- grade, there was one player that stood out to the coaching staff.

“Justin Wheaton was a force on both sides of the ball,” Bartlett said. “He played NG [Noise Guard] and OG [Offensive Guard] and dominated at times”

Bartlett would like to see more of his players doing exactly what Justin did in the game last week. He knows he, as a coach, needs to make changes in order to get his players better prepared and put in a better position to succeed.

“We are picking up the tempo in practice,” Bartlett said. “Along with that, we are going to be condensing down our playbook and focusing more on execution.”

The Falcons will be traveling to Centennial this week to face the 2-0 Cougars in conference battle. The Cougars have already taken down Osseo at home and Coon Rapids on the road.

Bartlett knows that Centennial will be no easy task.

“Centennial plays extremely hard and are very well coached,” Bartlett said.

He knows that his team will need to make some adjustments from last week in order to be competitive.

“We need to have more urgency on offense and play at a higher tempo,” said Bartlett. “We need to execute more in the passing game and we need special teams to clean some things up.”

With the game tonight, Bartlett knows that Centennial is no easy task.

“We will need to work on getting off the field after 3^rd down,” Bartlett said. “We are going to have our hands full with them.”

The Falcons face the Centennials tonight at 7 p.m. at Centennial High School.