Injuries force Northwood backs into musical chairs

By: 
J. Patrick Eaken

Northwood football coach Ken James already knew going into the season that his team was going to be young. Then, you add in multiple injuries, and you have real issues.

“We’re pretty deep into the bullpen in terms of guys,” 36th-year coach Ken James said. (A television media person) asked, ‘Do you have some running backs hurt?’ I said, ‘Yeah, why?’ He said, ‘Well, I see in your stats you’ve got a few different guys who like to rush for 100 or 120 yards in a game and then they don’t ever carry the ball again.’ I said, ‘Yeah, that would be us this year.’

The biggest failure this team has had is no one’s fault. It is not staying healthy, so the Rangers relied on what depth they have.

“We have to. It’s where we are,” James said. “Necessity has been the mother of invention for us. We are typically able to plug in back-ups in spots and we are deep enough. We went into the year OK in that regard and in the summer, we had guys start to go down, so we’ve lost three running backs plus one lineman. And, we’ve had a fourth running back who has had quite a bit of time with some injuries.”

Sixteen different backs have carried the ball for Northwood led by 5-7, 174-pound sophomore Zaegan Byington (383 yards), 5-8, 149-pound senior Braden Alore (350), 5-9 165-pound senior Mickey Asad (294), 6-0, 189-pound junior Logan Collins (118), 5-9, 170-pound junior Montonio Baker (101) and 5-5, 125-pound freshman Luke Szekeres (100). 

In a 49-48 Toledo Area Athletic Conference comeback win over Cardinal Stritch, Alore had 176 yards rushing on 20 carries and Asad had 117 on 19 carries. Mason Smith, a 6-1, 163-pound junior quarterback has completed 17 of 36 passes for 244 yards, including nine to Byington for 122.

The rotation of running backs has been like a game of musical chairs.

“We had two upperclassmen who were going to start out at split end, and one was a bigger kid who can run pretty well. One was Logan Collins and the other was Braden Alore — they were going to play out there and rotate out there and also play some tight end for us,” James said.

“When one of the running backs went down in the summer, we put Collins in at running back. He rushed for 118 yards against Woodmore (34-0 Northwood victory) in week one but hurt his shoulder in the first half of the Woodmore game, so that was a season-ending injury because he blew his shoulder out,” James continued.

“Then we’ve moved one of our fullbacks, Montonio Baker, over to halfback, but he broke his leg in week five. He had rushed for 100 yards against Lake in week two and then we had Covid for a couple weeks and we finally came back, and he busted his leg. Brandon Gomez (5-7, 145-pound junior) hurt his knee in the summer at 7-on-7, so we’ve gotten decimated by injuries — that is what it is.” 

As a result, Alore has played nearly every position on the team, including snapping the ball to Smith..

“The Alore kid started out, and he was going to be the wideout for us and he plays outside linebacker on defense, so with those three running backs playing in the secondary and linebacker for us, we had him playing at safety — just worked him there to be safe. Then we had to move him to inside linebacker because one of the fullbacks who got hurt was an inside linebacker, so he was working three different spots on defense. 

“On offense, because we had three offensive linemen down for the Woodmore game, we moved him to tackle. Later on in the Gibsonburg (44-18 Gibsonburg victory) week, our center went down, so we moved him into center for a little bit. Then we got a couple linemen back healthy, so we moved him out to halfback because we had another halfback go down, so he’s been playing halfback and fullback the last few weeks or so. He hasn’t played quarterback yet, so that’s about the only position he hasn’t played.”

Middle linebacker Jarel Dixon, a 5-8, 186-pound junior, leads the defense with 58 tackles, Smith has 42, 5-11, 206-pound freshman linebacker Codey Wheeler has 39, Alore has 35, 6-0, 215-pound junior defensive end Gage Reed has 33 and 6-2, 225-pound junior defensive end Sean Kovacs has 30. Dixon has two fumble recoveries and 5-11, 160-pound free safety Carson Gutekunst has two interceptions and knocked down three passes.

How has it all worked out? Well, the Rangers are in the playoffs, albeit an expanded playoff where 16 teams from each region qualify. A few years back Northwood finished undefeated and didn’t qualify when eight teams got in.

“We’ve hung together quite well. Unfortunately, we are playing some freshmen, we are playing quite a few sophomores,” James said. “We’re playing some guys who are good football players but are not quite physically ready to be varsity guys from a speed and strength standpoint. They are playing hard, doing what we ask, and they are getting better every week, competing hard, but they need another year in the weight room essentially.”

It was not what James expected, but he hopes it will pay off for his team next year.

“We should if everybody gets healed up properly from all their injuries, we should have starters back. We’ll lose a handful of good seniors, but it’s a small crew to begin with and we had some of those guys get hurt. But we’ll have guys who started at least a game or two back at every spot on both sides of the ball,” James said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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