Nobody can accuse Sacred Heart-Griffin of scheduling patsies in nonconference football games to better pad their schedule in the “Drive for Five” minimum win plateau to make the state playoffs.
Cyclones coach John Allison scheduled six-time Missouri Class 6 state champion Christian Brothers College for the team’s season-opener Friday night, a team with a 176-33 record the last 17 years.
The Catholic school from St. Louis went Old Testament on the host Catholic school in a 63-20 beatdown at Ken Leonard Field.
“Honestly, it’s tougher and tougher in Illinois finding (nonconference) games. And for them, too, it’s the same kind of thing in Missouri,” Allison said. “We knew this was going to be a tough challenge. Obviously, we knew they were going to be really good.”
The Cadets were, but you’d have a hard time believing that listening to CBC coach Scott Pingel after the game.
“(The game) didn’t look the way I thought it should look,” Pingel said. “I have to give so much credit to Sacred Heart. I didn’t know much about them coming in. They have a lot of explosive players, and we need to shore up some things on the back end in the secondary.”
Imagine Pingel after a game in which he thought the Cadets played well? While CBC played a fine game overall, the truth is the Cyclones made a bunch of fundamental mistakes that had little to do with what the Cadets did. Bad snaps, false starts, missed tackles, short kickoffs; those were just a few of the internal problems the Cyclones had, but make no mistake, the Cadets were the bigger, stronger, faster football team on this night.
“Lot of athletes. Big, strong people,” junior Cyclones quarterback Cam Brinkman said of the Cadets. “There’s a lot to take away from the game, on both sides of the ball. I was happy with the way our offense kind of fought in the second half. But there were just too many stupid mistakes, like my interceptions.”
Brinkman was being too hard on himself, as he actually played his usual good, tough game. He threw three touchdown passes, despite lots of pressure in the pocket from a big CBC defensive line. One of those high-pressure moments, in the first quarter of a 14-0 game, resulted in a hurried shuffle pass that was intercepted by Cadets 6-1, 275 senior lineman Joe Kopp, who ran it back to the SHG 6-yard line. The Cadets’ Courtney Rivers ran it in from there to make it 21-0. If there was to be a “turning point” designated play of the game, it might have been that one.
“I was just trying to climb the pocket, and mostly just trying to run and make a play. But I made a stupid mistake, not holding the ball with two hands and it falls out, unfortunately right into the hands of the defender,” Brinkman said.
Jobe Kepler caught a long TD pass from Brinkman to make the score 49-20 with 6:55 left in the third quarter, and for the first time since the opening few minutes, there was some life on the Cyclones sideline.
The buzz fizzled quickly, as on the next possession senior running back Vic Williams blazed down the left sideline for a 43-yard scoring run to make it 56-20.
Still, a positive for SHG was their big-play performance. All three of the Cyclones’ touchdowns came on long-yardage plays, including Mikey Groesch’s 85-yard scoring reception from Brinkman that got SHG on the board in the first quarter after being down 21-0.
Keep this in mind, too: The Cyclones currently have about a dozen good players on the injured list, including their starting center. That probably helps explain the handful of bad snaps that made Brinkman’s life tougher.
“We lost our middle linebacker in the first drive of the game. We’ve got a cornerback that’s on (the list) and a running back that’s on it. I hope our kids realize that they’re a lot closer than they might have looked tonight. When we get to full health, that’s what I’m excited about,” Allison said. “They’re a 6A school in Missouri, so they’re a lot bigger than we are. But I still think we’ve got big enough kids to make it happen in our conference. So, that’s what we’re going to hang our hat on.”
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Sacred Heart-Griffin football finds positives in blowout loss to Missouri powerhouse
Reporting by Adrian Dater / State Journal-Register
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