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[Excerpts from a letter to my son]
The Hart-Canyon varsity game was interesting as a study in stupid coaching decisions during a game.
Hart scored on the Indians' second possession. 7-0. Canyon took the ensuing kickoff down the field and scored. 7-7.
After a Hart punt, Canyon threw an interception to Scott Hunt. Hart again scored on Neill pass to Owens (I think I have
this right. Its hard for me to remember what happened two weeks ago). 14-7. Hart then stopped Canyon and scored again. 21-7
at the half.
In the second half, Canyon came out and kept trying to pass (at which they are not very good) instead of running between
the tackles (which they do well).
Hart eventually moved out to 31-21 lead and was trying to run out the clock at the end of the game when the Hart running
back broke through the middle for a long touchdown (38-21).
Canyon then scored with 14 seconds left to make it 38-28.
If the Canyon coaches would have just stuck to their "grind it out between the tackles" game plan, they would
have had a chance at the end. Moreover, with about four or five minutes left, Canyon did not use its time outs and Hart then
scored. Had Canyon used its timeouts, the Cowboys might have had time at the end of the game to try to score again.
In addition they had two or three huge guys on the offensive line which could have been used on the defensive line to
overpower the Hart offensive linemen (who are not very big at all big)or at least force a lot of double teams and make the
blitzes more effective. Instead they used the monsters only on offense and then mostly for pass blocking, at least in the
second half.
Neill was 14 of 22 for 295 yards and 4 TDs (Neill's yards per completion numbers are huge, primarily because of Jerry
Owens).
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