Rap music can be heard playing to ramp up the energy of practice as one drives by the Varsity Football practice field while the team prepares for another day of mastering their new offense. The Tigers have switched from a power run offense to a Spread offense this year. The team is hoping the change will bring the team playoff success after failing to make it out of the first round each time the team qualifies.

“We always had an offense that’s been diverse over the years, if you go back and look at 2008, 2009, 2010 we have always tried to structure the offense based on the personnel. We have always had pieces of older school power football. A lot of tight end sets, but we have also been shotgun with spread, almost every year. We have just emphasized different pieces. So, we are not really changing our offense just the piece that we are going to emphasize more in the spread,” said Head Coach Tim Kane.

The Spread offense is an offensive scheme that primarily features the Quarterback in the shotgun with three to five wide receivers spread out wide creating forcing the defense to spread out and cover these extra receivers. The spread offense allows the team to also run more read option plays with one to two Running backs in the backfield with the Quarterback. The spread is a system that is usually used by somewhat smaller teams that cannot overpower the opposing team, or a team that may have more speed and versatility than others.

Conference rivals Plainfield East and Oswego East have been running the spread offense for multiple years now, with Plainfield East gaining a lot of recent success with the offense.

“For me, it’s always a challenge to learn a new offense. We have been working on and talking about it before the season. We felt like there was a new for change to progress. Everybody overall is adjusting to it exceptionally well. We have got a lot done over the summer,” said Quarterback JD Ekowa.

The Tigers are looking to pass more with their new offense which the team is hoping will also allow for more running lanes and bigger gains from their plethora of running backs this year.

“We throw the ball a lot more [this year], so there is a lot less pressure on one player. We throw the ball to Speas, Jarosz, Peplow, Ryan Krystofiak, and more, we have a lot of people who can catch, a lot of people who can run. I feel like we will have a lot of rotations, not all the [starters] are going to be in all the time. It’s going to be different all the time. Everybody is getting rest, everybody is coming in fresh,” said senior offensive tackle Mitch Dodd.

The difficulties so far for the team in learning a new offense is that the spread is far different from the former power run scheme the team used to run. There is more motion shifts and complex plays compared to other offenses.

Third year starter Ekowa is coming into this season with two knee surgeries under his belt, one in February and the other, not too long ago, in July. The offense may have to take a step back for a bit while Ekowa recovers from this injury. The team limited him during the summer as to let JD’s knee recover for the season.

“To say that his injury hasn’t limited his progress would be ignorant because in reality it has. It took away time from him to continue to build strength and speed and also limited him at times this summer but I think he’s done a great job controlling what he can and learning all the time.  He’s done that by staying involved mentally and asking questions. I think you can ask anyone involved with the program and without a doubt it hasn’t limited his progress per say,” said quarterback coach Nicholas Welch.

As for the offensive line, Ekowa praised the offensive line for the amount of work and effort they have put in during the summer and every day of practice.

When asked about the injury history of the team coach Kane replied, while knocking on wood, that the team has been doing more to try and prevent major injuries this year. This includes changing how the team tackles with using more of a shoulder tackle and trying to eliminate the head. Kane also talked about how they have done more to strengthen legs and knee stability.

The defense has also looked to emphasize a more spread-based defense. The team has switched to a 40-base which features four defensive lineman, two linebackers, and five defensive backs. The team is switching from their 5-2-4 defense, but will still include looks from the 5-2 defense.

“A lot of our base principles and terms come from our 5-2 defense, we have always had a 40-package in ever since we’ve been there. Now there are more and more teams [running the spread] so I would say we are probably just emphasizing that side of our package more than our 50 package. We are using our 40 as more of our base package than our 50,” said Kane.

The team is returning six offensive starters from last year after losing star runningback Quinton Hoosman and tackles Cody Conway and Jack Kramer to college.   

The Tigers will look to be the first team in PNHS history to win a playoff game. They have reached the playoffs for multiple years, but have failed to make it out of the first round each year. Injuries and just bad luck has been part of the problem in recent years so the team will look to change this winless record in the post-season this year.  

“We’ve been there,” is what Ekowa said was what the team has been preaching this offseason as to getting out of the first round. The whole team and coaching staff believes this year can be the year that Plainfield North finally wins their first playoff game.