Week 3 football preview: Shaffer stressing self-improvement as Zebras prep for winless Whitko

After shutout in Bell Game, Valley defense hopes to bug Adams Central’s All-State QB Roach; Caston, NM’s productive rushing attacks to square off; Pioneer to face Winamac in Panther Pit opener; Culver to travel to Triton

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Whitko (0-2, 0-1 Three Rivers Conference) at Rochester (1-1, 1-0), 7 p.m.

The themes for the Rochester football team going into their home game against Whitko center around simplification and self-improvement.

As for the simplification, first-year coach Isaac Shaffer said he has narrowed down the playbook following last week’s 30-0 loss to Tippecanoe Valley. Rochester was held to 95 yards against Valley. Kale Shotts had a team-high 41 yards rushing.

By comparison, Rochester had 240 yards of offense in a 7-2 loss to Valley last year.

Executing with precision the plays that they do run will be emphasized more so than running a wide variety of plays.

“We slimmed the playbook back down,” Shaffer said. “We’re only going to run seven run plays and four pass plays, and we’re going to perfect those, and until we do, we’re not adding anything to the playbook. We’re going to get better at what we do, and we’re going to be really good at it on defense. We’re going to be more fundamentally sound using a lot of individual time this week to really improve on that.”

As for the self-improvement, Shaffer wants to see his players turn their focus inward while still respecting the threat that Whitko might offer.

Having said that, Rochester has beaten Whitko each of the last five years by a combined score of 243-18. It was a 47-0 rout in South Whitley last year.

“While we are playing Whitko, we talked about at the beginning of the week, this is more of a focus on us as a team,” Shaffer said. “We still have to know what Whitko does and watch film on them, but we’re focusing on how do we get better as a team and our fundamentals – tackling, our blocking assignments and things like that.”

Shaffer has called this a “gut-check week.”

“We are going to figure out this week what guys can play varsity football and what guys can’t,” Shaffer said. “So we’re looking at different positions where we’re going to try some guys, and they’ve got to be perfect as far as their rules and assignments go for them to still be in consideration to play varsity football. It’s just where we’re at.

“We’re now into conference opponents pretty much the rest of the year. Our focus is on every single week, we’re approaching it like we’re playing for the conference championship because if you slip up one week, and you might not get an opportunity to make that up. Probably the four teams that are starting to emerge are us, Northwestern, Maconaquah and Cass. We play all three of those teams. Northwestern and Lewis Cass don’t play each other, so we think that puts them at an advantage. So we have to constantly be getting better every week and focusing on who we play in the conference and approaching it as a championship week every single week.”

Whitko is marking the 40th anniversary of its 1986 state championship team. It remains the only season in school history in which the team has won so much as a sectional. 

The happy memories from long ago outnumber those from more recent times: Whitko is 3-52 in their last 55 games dating back to 2020, and they have been shut out in 21 of those 52 losses.

Mason Hersha ran for a team-high 62 yards in a 40-0 loss to Peru last week. Shaffer said his stats do not tell just how hard he runs.

“He’s a six-foot, 185-pound running back, so maybe two inches shorter than (Valley’s Owen) Omondi and only five pounds lighter, and you’ll look at his stats and say, OK, he’s rushed 27 times for 74 yards,” Shaffer said. “He gets hit in the backfield at about four yards a lot, so the fact that he still has a positive rushing average to me is just incredible. He runs the ball hard. It takes more than one guy to take him down. So when he touches the ball, we have to fly to the ball and have multiple guys getting there because he is a hard runner and a really good football player for just a sophomore and just put together really well.”

Shaffer said that Alex Chapman will be back after missing the Bell Game with a knee injury but will focus on defense. Shaffer wants to continue to develop depth, adding that sophomore Tanner Horn will see more time in the offensive backfield.

The team dealt with some cramping issues against Valley, but Shaffer believes that developing depth will yield benefits that will last beyond the heat.

He also praised the defense given the good field position that Valley had.

“I think defensively just the way the kids competed and fought,” Shaffer said. “We didn’t exactly give them the greatest field advantage. We never really flipped the field. So when Valley was starting on our 30-yard-line on every single possession, the fact that we were able to hold them to 30 points, and really I looked up at the scoreboard at halftime, and it was only 14-0, and I’m like, how is it only 14-0? Now 30-0, they took it to us, and they got the job done, but I was really impressed with how our kids fought, especially given the conditions, the weather, and just how limited we are on rotating guys and guys that are playing varsity football, I thought it was encouraging for us.”

Adams Central (1-1) at Tippecanoe Valley (2-0), 7 p.m.

Valley continued their Bell dominance with their 30-0 win over Rochester last week, and while it was a showcase for seemingly the entire roster, it might have been the offensive line that shone the brightest.

In Rochester’s season opener, Southwood rushed for only 70 yards, and the Rochester defense pitched a 46-0 shutout. This time, Valley ran for 233 yards. Quarterback Hunter Randall ran for 80 yards, and fellow senior Hunter Paxton ran for 71.

The offensive line consists of left tackle Zander Ioannou, left guard Braylon Fannin, center Noah Coughenour, right guard Braxton Alderfer and right tackle Jacob Bradley.

“I thought that at the beginning of the game, we did fine,” Valley coach Stephen Moriarty said. “At the end of the game, I thought we did better with moving our feet and getting that guy back in the lap of the linebacker. You could see a lot of corrections made from the first half to the second half on linebackers too as they scraped over the top. So overall, I was pleased on at least their knowledge on who to block.”

If the line was the emerging factor on offense, it was middle linebacker Ty Kiser who emerged on defense. Kiser was credited with 24 tackles – 21 solo tackles and three assists – after missing the opener against Plymouth. He played outside linebacker last year.

“Which keys to read,” Moriarty said when asked what Kiser had to learn in order to become a middle linebacker. “We give him a set of rules for each position, and him playing outside last year was a little bit different than the way we’re playing middle linebacker this year. With 53 tackle points, that was close to being a school record. It’s not quite the school record. … He was able to read his keys and be able to fly to the ball. Having him back at middle linebacker definitely gave us a little bit of versatility on the outside where we could be a little more flexible to push up on jet (sweep) or their power play.”

Valley, who moved up from No. 18 to No. 15 in this week’s Class 3A USA Today media poll, will conclude their season-opening three-game homestand with a game against Adams Central. The Flying Jets dropped from No. 3 to No. 5 in the 3A poll following a 21-14 loss to Class 2A, No. 4 Eastside last week.

Adams Central has jumped from Class 1A to Class 2A to Class 3A over the last three enrollment cycles, per the IHSAA Success Factor. Since the start of the 2021 season, they are 69-7 with five regional titles, four semistate titles and a state championship in Class 2A in 2024. The loss to Eastside last week was their first in a regular season game since a 21-19 loss to Eastside in 2021.

Like Rochester, Adams Central runs a wing-T offense. The Flying Jets rely on senior Jamison Roach, a quarterback who was Junior All-State last year. 

“They try to get him the ball as much as they can, whether it’s him throwing the ball or him running it, they do try and get him the ball,” Moriarty said. “They have like a duck key play that they like to run, and when they get in trouble, he’s the one that controls the game. He is an athletic kid. They don’t make many mistakes. They are fundamentally sound. They are well-coached. There is a reason they have only one loss in the last five years in the regular season.”

Thomas Laughlin is a top running candidate at fullback for Adams Central.

Meanwhile, linebacker Reece Hammond was Junior All-State last year and is a focal point of Adams Central’s 4-3 defense.

“I thought he got over the top well,” Moriarty said. “He plays hard. He has a nose for the football. It seems like every play he’s around where he needs to be. He sets the tone for the defense. As well as he plays, they play around him and rally. It’s going to be important to get a hat on him for sure to make sure that he doesn’t disrupt our offense.”

This game might have an air of mystery. Was Adams Central’s loss to Eastside a blip or a sign that one of the state’s winningest programs of the 2020s is in a state of regression? And how does Valley respond against a state powerhouse after beating their biggest rival?

“I think it would normally,” Moriarty said about getting the team focused after a Bell win. “But with playing Adams Central and the magnitude and quality of the opponent coming up here, I think we’ll be pretty focused this week.”

Moriarty said that Garrett Hart and Ian Young are both “questionable” with injuries.

Caston (2-0, 0-0 Hoosier North) at North Miami (1-1, 0-0), 7 p.m.

• Caston ran for 273 yards against Whitko in their opener and 299 yards in a 45-0 win over North White last week, but no individual back has rushed for more than 78 yards in a game.

• Caston is seeking their first win over North Miami since 2020 and their first 3-0 start since 2009.

• This is the last game of a three-game season-opening homestand for North Miami. Their next two games are on the road against No. 2 North Judson and No. 3 Pioneer.

• Northfield averaged 3.1 yards per carry in Week 1 against North Miami. Taylor averaged 2.9 yards per carry. The Caston wing-T attack is averaging 7.0 yards per carry for the season.

Winamac (2-0, 0-0 Hoosier North) at Pioneer (2-0, 0-0), 7 p.m.

Football is back at the Panther Pit. It has been awhile.

Pioneer played their semistate game against South Adams on the road last year and their state championship game at Lucas Oil Stadium. They were supposed to host Northwestern in their scrimmage Aug. 14, but heavy rains rendered the field unplayable, and it was moved to the turf field at Northwestern.

And then Pioneer played their first two games at Lewis Cass and Knox, winning both.

Pioneer ran for 153 yards on 3.7 yards per carry against Lewis Cass in Week 1 and upped that mark to 222 yards on 7.2 yards per carry in Week 2. Senior Shiloh Rine was limited to four touches due to injury against Lewis Cass but had 11 touches for 128 yards against Knox, and that does not include the kickoff return he had for a touchdown in the second half..

“A healthy Shiloh definitely helps,” Pioneer coach Adam Berry said. “He went down our very first series against Lewis Cass, and that kind of changes the game plan a little bit, but guys stepped up in a huge way in Week 1. Watching live, obviously, we had some big plays, some home run plays. But then we had some success, but then we had some huge penalties on a drive that really cost us, so overall, I thought our line did a very good job against a very big, physical Knox team. Our running game was solid all night, and we didn’t score an offensive touchdown (in) the second half, but we had some penalties that really killed our drives.”

Berry admitted that Knox “was wearing us down a little bit” in the second half, but a late defensive stand secured a 34-26 win.

Winamac was not troubled as much in their 41-6 win over Frontier in Chalmers. After allowing 151 yards on the ground to West Central in their opener, they limited Frontier to just 53 yards rushing.

“I think when you watch it, we played better in space,” coach Eric Davis said of the defense’s improvement from Week 1 to Week 2. “We’ve been really harping on angles and leverage. I think it really showed growth from Week 1 to Week 2. … I think defensively, we did a really, really nice job of taking away number 10 (Chase Winkler). He had two receptions. He’s very, very talented. And so our box played really well with (Cody) Wheeler, (Hank) Haschel, (Lucas) Perez, (Keagan) Kough and Tearson (Wolford), and then our back end … in space did a really nice job, and that includes (Jager) Terry, (Bryant) Galbreath, Parker Abbott, (Xavier) Adriano, (Louis) Rugg and Ivan Cardenas.

“So our space guys played really well, and our box guys allowed that to happen because they are very physical against the run game.”

Meanwhile, the Winamac ground attack steamrolled Frontier for 368 yards on the ground. Wolford ran for 172 yards, and Rugg ran for another 104. Cardenas ran for 70 and caught a 45-yard touchdown pass.

Berry said his defense will have to tackle Wolford low.

“He brings that wrestling mentality to the football field offensively and defensively,” Berry said of Wolford, a state qualifier in wrestling last winter. “He is just a physical football player with athletic ability and some speed. He’s that runner that’s going to try to wear you down, wear you down and get his four yards a carry and then look to break one.”

Winamac has scored 75 points through their first two games. That is the most points Winamac has scored through the first two games of the season since the 2013 team scored 90 in their first two games. That team went on to have an undefeated regular season and make semistate.

And they made semistate that year by beating Pioneer 28-14 in the Panther Pit in the regional, which is noteworthy because Winamac has not beaten Pioneer in Royal Center since that game.

For the Warriors, moving the ball against Pioneer has been historically futile: Pioneer has shut Winamac out each of the last four years. Pioneer also shut out Winamac in 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2015.

“It’s an odd front for us in how we identify defenses, meaning they have a zero-technique (defensive tackle),” Davis said. “But they’re not going to be that way at the snap. Once the snap happens, they’re going to be in an even front with their three inside guys because they move. They slant, they angle. They’re very, very fast, so for us, a big part of this is what can we do to control where they’re at and how they react to things.”

Regardless, it could be the re-emergence of a rivalry of two schools separated by approximately 15 miles.

Davis said there were two doors, an interior door and an exterior door, that one has to open to get inside the visitor’s locker room at Frontier. After the game Friday, Davis said he opened the exterior door after the game Friday, but before he opened the interior door, he stopped to listen. What he heard was “pure absolute joy,” a reaction of a team that has already equaled its win total from last year.

There might be a similar joy from the home crowd Friday.

“For Pioneer it’s all about Friday nights,” Berry said. “The Winamac game does mean something to our community. We even have players on our team where their parents went to Winamac. We have a lot of community members that work in Winamac. This game definitely means something for both communities. It’s been that long-time rival through the Midwest Conference. Both Winamac and us transitioned to the HNAC. Close in mileage. It’s definitely a game that means something to both teams, and it’s always a battle.”

Berry said Kit Gotshall will be a “gametime” decision with an undisclosed injury.

Davis said Braxton Shidler will be back after missing last week’s game. 

Culver (0-2, 0-0 Hoosier North) at Triton (0-2, 0-0), 7 p.m.

• Culver has scored just seven points in its first two games, losses to Central Noble and West Central.

• Culver has lost the last seven meetings against Triton. Culver has not beaten Triton since 2019 and has not beaten Triton in Bourbon since 2016.

• Triton lost to Bremen 66-0 last week. That was their worst loss since a 66-0 loss to Pioneer in the 2018 regional.