The Locker Room November 4, 2009

Pulaski County will travel up I-81 for the final game of the season this Friday night, and when they step out onto the surface of the playing field they will be taking on the 2009 River Ridge District Champions and a team most expect to make a deep run into the playoffs.

Hello again Cougar fans, and welcome back to another week here at cougarfootball.net.  I wish I could post that the Cougars have locked in a spot for the Region 4 playoffs heading into this weeks game, but the Blacksburg Bruins took that chance away last week with their 34-3 win over the Cougars.  There has been a lot of talk since that game, and a lot of people have made a point of getting that word to me.  They've emailed it to me; they've stopped me at Wal-Mart to tell me.  They've posted it on message boards.  They've sent me text messages about it and sent it to me on MySpace and Facebook.

The bottom line is that people are not happy.  Some of the comments are just plain silly, and you try to ignore those, but some of them stick in the back of your head.  "Those seniors just don't have any heart", "What happened to COUGAR PRIDE?", and "I've never been so embarrassed in my life, this is awful" were just a few that really stuck out.  I've had former players that live away from Pulaski County now send me messages like that, as well as parents of former players.   Fans in the stands are no less vocal about the way they see things, and with attendance down due to the bad record they stick out even more sometimes.   One guy decided that enough was enough just minutes into last weeks contest, and began letting everyone know about it.  "PUT IN THE SECOND TEAM !!  LET'S GO SECOND TEAM !!  THEY CAN'T DO ANY WORSE!!”

It's sad, and you would like to say "well, those are the just the spoiled, fair weather fans that only like to show up when the Cougars are winning", but you can’t.  Those long time Cougar fans are bothered too.  In one conversation, a long time fan and supporter of the program told me "I'll always be there to support the program, but it just seems like this year’s team doesn't want it at times.  It's like they are just going through the motions and trying to get it over with."

Certainly, when the Pulaski County players put their helmets on for that first practice that hot day in late July, it never crossed their minds that they would be going into the final game of the regular season with a record of 2-7.  You don't go out and put in the work that these kids and coaches have put in if you're expecting those type of results.  Several things have played into the lack of success this season.  Anyone who knows football knew that it was going to be a tough year for Pulaski, first of all because you don't just go out and find players like Nubian Peak , Josh Miller, Brandon Hazzard, and some of those other seniors that we lost to graduation sitting on the bench at the bus stop.  It took three years to build those players into what they became.  Players like those don't come around every day.  Second, you have to look at the schedule.  This year’s team had to play a much tougher out of district schedule than most Cougars teams have had to play.  Sure we got to start with Radford, but then you see the Cougars play Northside (currently 7-2, with close losses to Cave Spring and Salem), Patrick Henry (while they have had a tough year under first year head coach Brad Bradley, they DID beat Blacksburg 35-34 in OT), William Fleming (6-2 going into their last game of the season), and of course the best one....Amherst.   Pulaski went from playing Lord Botetourt, Franklin County , and Jefferson Forest to playing Radford, Fleming, and Amherst.  Add in to that the fact that most all of the River Ridge District teams are having solid seasons and are much improved as well.  Christiansburg is 5-3, Cave Spring is 8-1, Hidden Valley is 6-3, and Salem is undefeated at 9-0 going into Friday night’s contest.

Sometimes you need a little luck too, and Pulaski County has certainly not found much of that this season.  A little luck will get you a good bounce on a fumble.  A little luck will get you an extra yard when you need it.  A good bounce and an extra yard here and there will get some momentum going, which is another thing that the Cougars haven't been able to find much of this year.  If you take a look at our rushing totals, you'll see one of our main issues.  Going into the final game of the season, Pulaski County has only rushed for 1,622 yards.  Normally, Pulaski County is a rushing team.  Since 2000, the Cougars have averaged 2,819 yards per season rushing.  Some might say "but we've got the leading passer in school history".  It doesn't matter, as those teams have also averaged 401 yards passing per season.  If those teams had the passing numbers that this year’s team has, the total yardage averages would be 3,220 yards per season for those nine years, against 2377 yards for this season.  The Cougars would have to gain 843 yards on Friday night, against one of the toughest defenses in the state, to meet that average.

As a rushing team, the Cougars usually have a player stand out as a feature running back.  Sometimes, it's two players.  Sometimes, you'll see three or four players with high numbers as the load is shared between them, but the numbers have always been there.  In fact, you would have to go all the way back to the 1990 season to find a Cougar team that rushed for less than 2,000 yards.  Rushing the ball not only gets you down the field, but it eats up that clock.  If the other team can’t get the ball, the other team can’t score.  The Cougars are giving up 29.44 points per game this season, while only scoring 19 points per game.  Salem has spent an entire off season with the words "38-0" ringing in their ears and in their hearts.  They want payback.

So with all that said, the Cougars should just go ahead and call the VHSL...forfeit the game set for this Friday.....put the pads away....get into the weight room and start getting ready for next season.  Nobody is giving them a chance against Salem anyway, so we could just save the gas money and the further embarrassment of going down there and getting our tails kicked for an eighth time this season.  The Spartans are averaging almost 32 points per game, while only giving up 9, including five shutout wins.  The Spartans have beaten everyone they have played.  Most of them were convincing wins.  The two close ones were a 26-22 win over Northside, and a fine come from behind win over a tough and scrappy Christiansburg team in three overtimes.  Yep, the Spartans should win, and the Cougars should lose, and all will be right with the world for some folks.  In fact, let's just take the JV and freshmen players down and give them a chance to play in the big game to gain some experience, because it's obvious that Pulaski County is DONE.

Or.....we could find our heart.

Cougar football is, was, and always shall be about PRIDE.  In 1978, after the 1977 team suffered a 34-6 loss, the Cougars beat Salem High School for the first time.  They went on to defeat them eight times in a row, before finally falling in a controversial 14-13 game that got Coach Hicks a call from the VHSL after he publicly showed mistakes by the officiating crew of Friday Football Extra, which was broadcasting live from Dobson Stadium that night.  The series went back and forth from then on, but that eight game streak is still the longest by either team.  There were games that each team won that they weren't expected too also.  The 1992 Cougar football team won the programs first State Title that season, but they had a loss to Salem in the sixth game of the season 29-22.

COUGAR PRIDE is about getting it done when others say you can’t.   We've done it before.  In 1985 against Franklin County , in 1988 against Bethel , and in 1991 against E.C. Glass and many other teams.   The 1992 season was expected to be good, but somewhat of a year to get ready for 1993.   The Cougars won it all that year.   In 1997 and 1999 the Cougars came back and won games in overtime against Cave Spring.  One that sticks out in my mind is the 2005 Franklin County game.  The Eagles were loaded with talent, and the Cougars had been hit hard with the injury bug going into the contest with an 0-2 record.  The Cougars came out and gave it their best though, and at the half the score was 34-27 in favor of the Eagles.  With 4:05 left in the game, the Cougars were down 41-27, when the Cougars decided enough was enough.  Benji Poindexter scored first, and then Pulaski went on defense.  Kevin Crouse scored from 14 yards out to tie the game, and then as time ticked off the clock Crouse intercepted a pass to send the game into overtime.  Franklin County went on offense, and after a big hit Cab Cabiness came out of the pile with the ball to give Pulaski a shot to win it.  The Luis Piscura field goal from 27 yards was good, and Pulaski got its first win of the season.  Cabiness came off the field after recovering the fumble and had to be held upright, as he was exhausted to the point of not being able to continue any further.  After the game, Kevin Crouse looked at me and said something I'll never forget.  "Dave, I sure am glad we won that game."  He said it as he stood there with his arms and legs shaking from fatigue so bad he could barely lift his hands to shake hands.  He gave it everything he had, and then some.

It's time for this year’s team to do the same thing.

Prove all the "internet experts" wrong.  Prove all the fans that scream unflattering things from the stands wrong.  FINISH this season with heart.  If you go out and give it everything you have, then we can’t ask more.  If you go out and STAND UP, instead of handing the game over to the Spartans, then we will be proud.  Forget about every game we've played this season, forget about all the nasty comments, forget about all the press clippings, forget about all the junk people have said, and go out and play FOOTBALL!!

Go out and play with heart, and play COUGAR FOOTBALL.  That's all we ask.  You either will, or you won’t.  My hope, along with a ton of other people, is that you will.

COUGAR PRIDE!!!