As long as Athens wins the Tri-Valley-Conference this season, Friday’s loss against Logan will not hurt the Bulldogs playoff chances. That’s not to say there aren’t still some lingering concerns from the upset, however.
Penalties
Athens had committed some untimely penalties in the first two weeks of the season, but the issue of sheer volume began with the ten penalties for 81 yards against Watkins Memorial. Coach Ryan Adams wasn’t thrilled with the mistakes his team made, but he wasn’t going to excessively dwell on the negatives after a win.
“Sometimes in the field of battle, the fur flies,” Adams said at practice the following week. “The bottom line is they got the job done so they were fortunate enough to not have to wreak my wrath this week. If we had lost that ballgame it’d be a different story.”
Two weeks later, the Bulldogs have committed 16 more penalties (eight each week) for a combined 139 yards. 84 of those penalty yards came against Logan. Adams had a different tone this time around on the penalties his team committed — he seemed frustrated as he talked about the repetitive mistakes despite his constant discussions about penalties with his team.
Penalties make games harder to win than they need to be, and it’s not hard to imagine the Bulldogs running an extra sprint or two this week in practice.
Allowing Big Plays
The Bulldogs have allowed multiple 40+ yard plays in every game this season except against Warren. The front seven is normally stout, but every now and then a 47-yard touchdown from Vinton County comes through the woodwork. No unit can be perfect all the time, but when the front seven bends, it tends to break in spectacular fashion.
The secondary is the most vulnerable part of the Athens roster so far. It gave up touchdown passes of 34, 38 and 76 yards against Logan, and the Logan receivers dropped a couple more surefire touchdowns Friday.
Adams said his defensive backs had their eyes in the wrong places against Logan, which is the same issue secondary coach Kris Kostival said the unit had against Alexander. The mistakes being made in the secondary are correctable, but Athens needs them corrected before they truly get into hot water with some higher efficiency passing teams.
Letdowns
When a team is on a roll like Athens has been, it’s natural to feel extreme confidence — especially when you’re dealing with high school kids and they’re playing a winless team. We've seen now what overconfidence can do a team, though, and it was a valuable lesson for the Bulldogs.
This should be the least worrisome issue going forward. Adams’ team lost to his winless former archival and he’s not likely to let his team forget it.
That being said, the Tri-Valley Conference may end up being a two-horse race between Athens and Nelsonville-York. They are the only teams undefeated in conference, and the average margin of victory is 40.5 points for Nelsonville-York and 32.5 point for Athens.
If the last game of the season starts to look like it will be for all the marbles and Athens gets rolling again, the Bulldogs could find themselves in another trap game if their focus wanders again.
