Non-district games are mixed bags for area coaches
When the new football schedules — and non-district games — came out earlier this week, some area coaches got what they wanted, some didn’t get what they wanted and others were left scratching their heads.
It is never an exact science for finding non-district games. Programs are asked to give five to 10 teams they would like to play in order of their preference. It is then in the hands of the Iowa High School Athletic Association to compile schedules for every team around the state.
For Newton and Cardinals head coach Ed Ergenbright, things worked out perfectly.
“We were trying to find games locally that can develop into rivalries,” Ergenbright said. “I am certain that Pella game will have a lot of hype. They have been the team to beat in this area for the past few years. They’ll be a handful.”
The Cardinals will play the Dutch at H.A. Lynn Field for their opener. The other game will be played at Oskaloosa in Week 2. Both teams are a part of the Little Hawkeye Conference, which most of the other programs at the school participate in.
“This is a win-win situation for us,” Ergenbright said. “We play an alternating home and road schedule this year, and I like that. It’ll be a pleasant change. The travel is the best thing. We should get more fans with our farthest game being Norwalk or Oskaloosa.”
While Newton is happy with its schedule for 2010, other area programs have mixed feelings.
PCM still gets to play Class 3A rival Knoxville, Colfax-Mingo was left with similiar foes in Nevada and Saydel, and Lynnville-Sully will play two teams it sought this fall.
Colfax-Mingo coach Mike Horstman originally wanted to play other teams. But after what happened to him Wednesday, he will now seek to coach elsewhere.
“They came to me yesterday and laid me off,” Horstman said. “They did some budget cuts. I had only been here one year, so I didn’t have the seniority that others had.”
Horstman did say the state has a tough time filling games, and it that it isn’t an easy task.
“The state has a hard time finding games, but I wanted to play someone knew,” Horstman said. “I wanted to see our guys play other teams.”
Before being told he was no longer the coach, Horstman said he tried to get teams like Central Decatur, Wayne, Woodward-Granger and Van Meter on his non-district schedule.
“It’s really a good gate and has become a friendly rivalry,” PCM coach Dar Dahms said of the Mustangs game with Knoxville. “We were wanting to keep that one in place because it’s usually a competitive game.”
Dahms was a little shocked with landing Madrid in Week 2. Neither PCM nor the Tigers had the other team on their respective radars.
“They were a little surprised, and we were a little surprised,” Dahms said. “It’ll be a tough game and a big challenge for our football team.”
Dahms said he seeked good competition and short travel with his non-district choices. Some teams on his list included Albia, Eddyville-Blakesburg and CMB.
“It would have been good to play CMB since they got moved out of our district,” Dahms said. “But with the cross bracketing of playoffs, I was unsure. I wasn’t real anxious to play a team twice.”
CMB coach Rob Luther was not worried about playoff brackets when he tried to decide who he wanted to play. He is more worried about winning games in the present.
“You worry about so many different things in this process — travel, gate, winning or losing,” Luther said.
Luther and the Raiders graduated plenty of talented seniors this past season. They have some talent coming in but most of it is unproven. CMB, which went 8-1 during the regular season last year, will get a chance to get some early wins with games against Lynnville-Sully and Ogden. Those two teams won a combined one game last season playing in Class A and Class 1A, respectively.
“We had Ogden on our list, but it was down a little ways down,” Luther said. “Lynnville-Sully was a shocker to us. I guess they wanted to keep it in the county, but it doesn’t make much sense to me.”
Luther seeked to play long-time rivals PCM and Colfax-Mingo as well as Nevada. He thought all three games would be good gates and wanted to keep rivalries in place.
“I didn’t want to play CMB,” Horstman said. “We only had about 20 kids last year when we played them. They rolled out about 80. We are just not that big anymore.”
Lynnville-Sully went 1-8 last year but head coach John Kramer said he would not say they didn’t want to play someone. The Hawks are hungry to prove themselves and to do that, you have to play quality teams.
“We need to play better teams if we want to be a better team,” Kramer said. “We want to prove ourselves. We’ll use this game to push ourselves.”
The Hawks also will play Colo-Nesco and English Valleys, both teams in which Kramer wanted to play. He also seeked Pleasantville and some of the teams from the old Des Moines River Conference.
“It would have been fun to renew those rivalries, but it didn’t work out for us,” Kramer said.
