September 5th-6th-EDON: There is many a cliché that could be used to describe why Edon lost on Saturday.
Losing the turnover battle is always a popular choice. And yes, when a team turns the ball over six times like the Bombers did against the Edgerton, it is extremely difficult to win a game. Add to that the fact that most of said turnovers happened in the second quarter, when the Bulldogs exploded for 33 points, and this argument becomes even more convincing.
Others might point to the lack of a ground game for Edon. Indeed, rushing 24 times for just 9 yards is pretty rough, especially when one considers that quarterback Kaiden Sapp rushed for 17 yards by himself. Generally, an inability to run the football will make even the most potent of offenses anemic.
A simple look at the scoreboard will convince most people that Edon’s effort must have been lacking. After all, it’s hard to look at the scoreboard and honestly believe that the Edgerton might have been that much better than the Bombers. It’s much easier to look at the players from a distance and demand they play with “more heart.”
But no, none of these things were the determining factor in Edon’s 20-59 loss to hated rival Edgerton.
The turnovers, while debilitating to be sure, weren’t enough to keep Edon down by themselves. In fact, most of the turnovers were committed a good distance away from the Bomber end zone, giving their defense every opportunity to respond to the sudden change of possession.
Rushing for 9 yards as a team did little to stop the Edon passing attack. Kaiden Sapp still threw for 348 yards and a touchdown while completing 23 of 43 passes.
And anyone at the game could tell by how loud the pads were cracking that “heart” wasn’t lacking on either side of the field, and certainly not from the Bombers.
The culprit behind Edon being on the wrong side of a 39 point route was none other than their own rushing defense. The Bomber defense gave up 318 yards and 8 touchdowns on 32 attempts. In other words, one out of every four times a Bulldog rusher touched the ball, Edgerton scored a touchdown.
It’s not as though the Bulldogs methodically wore Edon down. Those 8 touchdown runs made up 207 of their rushing yards, with 6 of them being longer than 20 yards. 56 of Edgerton’s leading rusher, Dallas King’s 99 yards came on two plays, both of them touchdown runs. His quarterback, Duane Miller, amassed 74 yards on his 2 touchdown runs, which is 30 more yards than he gained from passing the ball all day.
The point is, outside of those six plays, the Edon defense held Edgerton to a much more respectable 121 yards rushing and a pair of short touchdown runs. With only 80 yards passing on the afternoon for the Bulldogs, and 36 of those yards coming from a meaningless touchdown reception by receiver Alex Michael, that would have reduce Edgerton’s total yardage to just over 200 yards.
But it doesn’t work that way, and Miller, King, and running back Logan Daniels were able to break long runs when they got to the second and third levels of the Bomber defense. Is this due to some schematic issue with Edon’s back seven? Could it be a fundamentals issue? Is a personnel shift in order? It’s tough to say for sure, but it’s clear that some adjustments are likely to be made, and soon.
Hicksville is coming to visit, and if the Bombers want to save their season, they can’t let six plays beat them again this week.