Fall 2011 Preview: Division Football

Division football head coach Ray Weidlein isn’t going to stand for another season like the one his team had last year.

“We want to erase 1-7,” the coach said. “That was a bitter, bitter season. Even the kids felt it.”

After making the playoffs in 2008 and 2009, the team had a season to forget in 2010, something that the coach readily acknowledges. But he’s also taking steps to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

The Blue Dragons head coach went as far as to get rid of their long-standing 4-4 defensive scheme, switching to a more conventional 4-3. They implemented the passing part of that new defensive scheme during the summer and worked on the run defense component during August camps.

 “We’ve been running a 4-4 for so many years,” Weidlein said, “and we just felt it was time to switch it up. So we spent the summer putting that in, doing 7-on-7s so that we could get our coverages down. I think it’s going to help us out. I think that we’re going in the right direction, getting rid of that bad taste in our mouth.”

The team’s offensive sets are more varied. “We run a power I, we run a little spread,” coach Weidlein said. “We have a couple of kids that we think are pretty good running backs, so we’re going to try to get the ball to them in a couple of different formations this year and see if that helps us offensively a little bit.”

One thing that coach Weidlein knows his team will be better at this season is the physical aspect of the game. “We’re certainly stronger than we were last year,” he said. “There’s no question in my mind. Our conditioning, we really picked that up too. I think that it’s going to help us in the long run.”

The coach also singled out offensive lineman Steven Po’s off-season work. “He worked extremely hard this summer in the weight room,” said Weidlein. “He’s our strongest kid, and he really took a lot of the alignment under his wing this summer and really did a great job with getting those guys involved.”

After his team’s performance a year ago, coach Weidlein is telling his team not to take anything for granted. They are going to focus on each game as it comes, starting with tonight’s game against Great Neck North, and hope for the best.

“We really at this point have to take one game at a time,” coach Weidlein said. “I have not looked ahead one bit. Great Neck right now is my concern and my focus. We keep telling the kids that until we erase and get a W in the column, we’re in the same spot we were in last year. They understand that.”