Clinton Works to Keep Running, Rising
By
Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
September 22, 2016
By Chip Mundy
Special for Second Half
CLINTON – In 2012, Clinton football coach Scott McNitt had accomplished enough during his 27-year career that he was inducted into the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame.
Since then, McNitt, now in his 32nd year, has enjoyed the best on-the-field run of his career.
It doesn't happen often that a Hall of Fame coach reaches new heights after induction, but McNitt is proof it can happen.
Over the last three seasons, Clinton is 49-4 with three consecutive finishes with double-digit wins, two trips to the Division 6 championship game at Ford Field and one 40-game regular-season winning streak – the third longest regular-season winning streak by a Lenawee County football team since Hudson won 81 in a row from 1968-77.
All of that success – and especially the recent attention from the 40-game winning streak – has brought some unwanted credit to McNitt, who preaches the team concept and praises the work of his assistant coaches.
“It's a great accomplishment, but I can't stand hearing, 'McNitt did this,' or 'McNitt did that.' It's just that I have to be on the top line, but I've have tremendous assistants and some very, very good players,” he said.
McNitt has similar feelings about his induction into the Hall of Fame.
“The two biggest accomplishments for me have been the Hall of Fame and Ford Field,” he said. “That's every coach's dream. But this is a team thing, and there are coaches on our staff who work a lot harder than I do, and I get all the accolades.
“But it means a lot to me to stay at the same school for 32 years and outlast it. We had some seasons that weren't good. We had three 1-8 seasons in a row. We've been successful – but surviving for 32 years and keeping it going in the right direction, and I think what we have coming from our youth programs and middle school, it can continue – means a lot to me.”
Key to success
When McNitt interviewed for the Clinton job prior to the 1985 season, he was given some advice that has stuck with him for more than three decades.
“When I first got here 32 years ago, during the interview the superintendent said, 'Surround yourself with good people, and you won't have a problem,'” McNitt said. “So it's been a philosophy to put good people into the program.”
As is common with most high school programs, assistant coaches would come and go throughout the years at Clinton. But over the past eight seasons, Clinton has kept its coaching staff together – even down to junior varsity and middle school – and McNitt believes it’s no coincidence that his greatest run has happened under those circumstances.
“We've had changes over the years, and it is what it is, but this last eight years the staff we have in place now seems to jell together,” he said. “Jeremy Fielder came from Adrian College as a football coach and player. He brought a great philosophy and work ethic and new ideas.
“Our line coach, John Schuler, he was a player here in the 1980s and was on one of the best teams we had here. He's back there teaching and coaching, and he's an outstanding line coach. Joe Gillies and our JV coaches do a great job, and we also have volunteer coaches who are very familiar with the program and give us their time and dedication. We all work really well together.”
But coaches can't coach and have great success without talented players, right?
“Having good players is the other key,” McNitt said. “We've had a phenomenal run of outstanding players, and we saw it coming when they were in youth football in fifth and sixth grade. We watched them in seventh and eighth.
“They were a group of very fast kids with unbelievable speed. We watched them, and it was like, 'Holy Toledo, wait until we get ahold of these kids.'”
A trip to Ford Field – and back
From 1985-2009, Clinton made 12 playoff appearances under McNitt. The 1990 team made it to the Class C Semifinals, but more often than not, the Redskins were one-and-done in the postseason. After losing to rival Manchester in the 2012 Pre-District, Clinton was 7-13 in the playoffs.
Since then, Clinton is 9-3 in the postseason.
“I went to the Silverdome I don't know how many years and Ford Field, and we would sit there and go, 'It would be nice to get there,'” McNitt said. “But we were always in such a tough division, we'd always face Monroe Catholic Central in a District, and we could never get over that.
“In 2013, we finally got a good draw, and we felt we could make a good run, and we did (finishing runner-up in Division 6). The next year we were even better, but we drew Catholic Central in the second round, and they kind of blew us out.”
That set the stage for last season. But when the playoff pairings were announced, McNitt and his staff faced an overwhelming road to Ford Field. The first assignment: A road game at reigning Division 6 champion Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central.
A 14-10 victory in the Pre-District proved to be the sparkplug that charged the Redskins’ run.
“To go down there and win a close one gave us great confidence,” Schuler said.
Next was Madison Heights Madison, making its 11th consecutive appearance in the playoffs. On the road again, Clinton scored a huge 43-20 victory to earn a home game in the Regional against eight-time MHSAA champion Jackson Lumen Christi.
“To play the Regional Final at home against Jackson Lumen Christi was just a thrill ride,” Schuler said of the 49-20 victory that earned a Semifinal matchup with undefeated Grand Rapids NorthPointe Christian, which was making its fifth consecutive appearance in the playoffs.
Clinton’s 42-20 victory over NorthPointe brought it back to Ford Field for its biggest test of all: Ithaca, which had won four of the previous five Division 6 titles and defeated Clinton 41-22 in the 2013 championship game.
“It was a murderer's row of opponents, and we did not want to play Ithaca,” McNitt said. “We wanted Traverse City St. Francis just for something new.
“We knew Ithaca and who they were, but we were hoping for something different. But we had a chance, we were up 13-0 in the third quarter, and Ithaca took over.”
Ithaca dashed Clinton's title hopes with a 27-20 victory, but the experience Clinton had gained two years earlier resulted in a calming effect.
“Personally, I thought we'd get one shot at Ford Field because normally these small towns get one shot, and it's over with,” McNitt said. “I wasn't sure we would get back. And then last year when we got there, it was just like another game.
“It wasn't as big of a hype as it was the first time, and the community loved it.”
It also added to the momentum that has been building.
“It was a momentum-builder for us, and if we stay as a team, we can make it back there,” senior running back Steve Laurell said. “It's just team effort and coaching for sure. It was a good feeling.”
New challenge
The good news at Clinton is that the Redskins are 4-0 and rolling again. The bad news is that the talented speed group has graduated. The 2016 Redskins lack the flashy skill players from the past but are a senior-orientated team boasting an experienced line.
Any coach will tell you that having an experienced, talented line is a big step toward success.
“We have some interior linemen back, but we're brand new everywhere else,” McNitt said. “We do have some senior players who have waited their turn, and we knew we'd be OK up front because we're big.”
Center Alex McIntosh is a third-year varsity player and is joined by Austin Popp and Josh Brown as key players in the trenches, while the senior backfield of Laurell at tailback and Cordell Hernandez at fullback has been “outstanding,” according to McNitt.
“We just don't have the burners, but we have solid, good players,” he said.
Clinton has outscored its opponents by a combined 164-65 this season, with its next game tonight against a 2-2 Morenci team. It's easy to look at a matchup of a 4-0 team and a 2-2 team and assume the outcome, but that sort of mentality makes McNitt a little uneasy. The community has embraced the program, and its expectations can sometimes be a little too much too soon.
“It is erupting into a very big animal,” McNitt said. “We have to be careful, and we have to corral it before it gets too out of control. But it's nice for the football program, based on our current success – getting to Ford Field two out of three years – that is where the excitement comes from.
“The community support really has been incredible.”
The season already has had one milestone. Two weeks ago, McNitt reached 200 career victories, becoming the 61st high school football coach in Michigan to reach that number. He also is 12th among active coaches with 201 wins. His overall record is 201-113-1 for a .640 winning percentage.
“I remember when I got my 100th win. Some community supporters and fathers said, ‘That's quite a big deal, but if you get to 200, that puts you in a whole different group.’ It kind of stuck with me, but I never thought I'd get there,” McNitt said, “but the past four or five years did it.”
The future at Clinton
McNitt is very realistic about what lies ahead for Clinton. But he isn't discounting anything, either.
“Can we get back to Ford Field again? The chances are probably no, but we've gone twice in three years, so it's possible,” he said. “We focus on our rival up the road here, Manchester, just seven miles away, and then try to win our league. If you do those two things, you're going to be in the playoffs and then see what happens.”
It is a sensible approach that has worked at Clinton. He has surrounded himself with good assistants and let them do their thing on the field.
“Our assistant coaches do a phenomenal job, and there are times when I just sit back and watch them do their thing,” he said. “I'm very fortunate to have people like that around us.”
Fielder was hired in as defensive coordinator nine years ago, and he recognizes that there were some up-and-down moments along the way.
“To be given that trust was huge because he's a Hall of Famer,” Fielder said. “He hired me, and I had a big role, and there were some growing pains early on. I will always be thankful for him sticking with me once we got the system figured out and once we figured out how we were going to execute.”
The players come to the varsity having learned the system at a younger age, and their coach is a man who was coaching the varsity more than a decade before they were born. And he wins. That commands respect.
“We know that the coach knows what he's doing, and he's going to make the right call at the right time, and we just need to follow what he does,” said McIntosh, the senior center. “We have no question about it. He knows what he's doing.
“I think what it is is that our coaches push us. Through practice, they expect us to do things right, and if we don't get it right the first time, they expect that we won't make the same mistake twice.”
So, the obvious question looms. How much longer does McNitt expect to coach? He didn't dodge the question.
“I could be easily done this year, or I could go another 10 years,” he said. “I want to be able to turn it over to Jeremy Fielder, our really good defensive coach. He has waited, and he is probably going to take it farther than we ever dreamed of.
“Jeremy is a phenomenal football coach.”
Although Fielder likely would be thrilled to someday succeed McNitt, he seems comfortable in his current role, too.
“Times have changed for head coaches, and it is kind of nice to know your role and coach with people you trust and just be able to do your job,” said Fielder, who also is an English teacher at the high school. “When you look at coaching, yes, the head coach is the position and it's the title, but when you get down to the nitty gritty, you're a team within a team.
“If you have an outstanding team and coach with people you respect and admire, you're happy there no matter what your role is.”
Chip Mundy served as sports editor at the Brooklyn Exponent and Albion Recorder from 1980-86, and then as a reporter and later copy editor at the Jackson Citizen-Patriot from 1986-2011. He also co-authored Michigan Sports Trivia. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Clinton’s Steve Laurell (left) and Cordell Hernandez, shown this season against Manchester, are two of the top returning players from the 2015 Division 6 runner-up. (Middle) From left: Clinton assistant coach John Schuler, head coach Scott McNitt, defensive coordinator Jeremy Fielder. (Below) Clinton also returns multiple contributors from the offensive line that took on Ithaca during last season's Final at Ford Field. (Top photo by John Discher/Adrian Daily Telegram.)
8-Player Takes Flight in Upper Peninsula
September 28, 2017
By Dennis Grall
Special for Second Half
ESCANABA – Three yards and a cloud of dust. That was the highly successful version of football applied by veteran Ohio State coach Woody Hayes as big bruisers dominated the game.
It certainly is not the preferred style on the fields of 8-player football. Nope, this version is much more open-field and definitely more exciting, full of big plays and a ton of scoring.
Take Powers North Central as the prime example. The Jets have won the last two 8-player MHSAA championships with back-to-back 13-0 seasons, piling up yards and points in their first two seasons in the 8-player game with a large group of skilled athletes.
Their winning streak ended at 27 games earlier this season, but the style they displayed with exceptional athleticism led by Jason Whitens and Bobby Kleiman has caught on with many other programs.
The Upper Peninsula, at the forefront of the 8-player game due largely to decreasing enrollments, has been lighting up the scoreboards this year. Teams like Pickford and Cedarville, Rapid River and Stephenson, Ontonagon and Crystal Falls Forest Park are progressing with the same formula as North Central by featuring explosive offenses.
Citing some 8-player detractors who don't think the game is real football, veteran Cedarville coach Scott Barr said, "I don't think anyone can argue that it (8-player) has not been healthy for football. It has been healthy."
The game is thriving in small schools because the 8-player version simply has allowed football to remain in the athletic program despite shrinking enrollments across the state.
"It has allowed us to keep football," said veteran coach Steve Ostrenga of Rapid River, who led the Rockets into 8-player Finals in 2011 and 2013 and into the playoffs every season since making the switch after going 1-7 in 11-player in 2010.
"We did it out of necessity. We may have waited too long," added Ostrenga, recalling that last year of 11-player football when only one sub was available at several games.
Veteran Pickford skipper Josh Rader has an idea why the 8-player game has met approval at so many small schools. "It is a high-octane game. It is a lot of fun to watch," he said. "It puts a lot of pressure on defenses because it is such a wide open game. It makes it exciting for the fans."
No longer do fans have to squint and squirm in their seats to see what is happening among the goliaths in the line. Now the football is visible in the wide open spaces as skilled athletes display dazzling moves, whether the team favors the extremely popular spread offense or uses the more familiar run-oriented approach.
"It is more a one-on-one oriented game now," said coach Ben Mayer of Ontonagon, whose program has consolidated with neighboring Ewen-Trout Creek, which yearly battled small player turnouts just to keep the game alive. Fifteen E-TC students are playing football at Ontonagon, with six on the varsity, highlighted by 6-foot-7 receiver Jacob Witt, who caught MHSAA 8-player record 24 touchdown passes last season.
"Without 8-player, we would have gone under a while back," said Mayer, who played for U.P. Sports Hall of Fame coach Bob "Cubby" Carlson at Ontonagon. He said the Gladiators were forced to use four freshmen and had 130-pound athletes on the line in past years.
"Football has changed a lot in the last four years," he said of the time since the Gladiators moved to the 8-player game. "The ball is in the air. It is fun to watch.”
Mayer said 8-player also enables his program to offer junior varsity football to younger students, instead of having them compete against older, bigger and stronger players with the potential to increase injuries.
"There is not as much violence between the tight ends now because we don't play in those tight spaces," said Mayer.
He also recalls putting "wildly undersized kids in the line against bigger schools with monsters from legitimate programs, with kids getting stepped on and squashed on.
"You do have a lot of choices in 8-man. I can put smaller kids somewhere and they will be all right, and we can still play football."
Ostrenga said it seems injuries, especially of the serious variety, have also seemed to decrease. "We used to hit a lot more in practice. Now we do a lot of teaching and drill work and conditioning," he said, adding MHSAA officials have been in the forefront of trying to reduce injuries with new regulations.
Ostrenga said in the 11-player version, many times it came down to "men playing against boys."
He did say, however, that under the 8-player game coaches "can tend to overuse a player. You get a really good athlete and use him as a crutch in a game."
Ostrenga said it took time to support the change to 8-player football. "I was against 8-man football at first. Now it has made me more open-minded and allowed me to become more understanding." He said 8-player athletes need to have speed, strength, balance and shiftiness.
"Some big guys can't move that well," he said, indicating this version of football requires more agile and nimble athletes to cover the wide-open spaces. "The big thing is understanding you have to get your athletes on the field. You just have eight guys on the field and you are (more) exposed. In 11-man you can hide someone. In 8-man, coaches will find your weaknesses."
Rader agreed, noting, "It puts a lot of pressure on the defense because the game is so wide open. There is a little different strategy. It is a disadvantage for the defense because (the field) is so wide open and there is not a lot of help. You want to take the advantage your offense has over the defense in one-on-ones.
"We like to run the ball and throw the ball, so our athletes can utilize the open field.”
Barr said 8-player quarterbacks are more difficult to contain than typical pocket passers. "They are more elusive," he said, recalling how the 6-foot-4 Whitens could take the direct snap, survey the field and decide whether to throw or run the ball himself.
In the 2016 MHSAA title game, Whitens ran 17 times for a record 352 yards and six touchdowns as the Jets beat Deckerville 58-22. The Jets ran for 469 yards that night.
"You rarely see teams ground and pound," Barr said of the8-man game, noting he began to rely on the spread offense in 11-player football as he tried to figure out how to match up with the over-powering tailback-oriented rushing attack of perennial power Forest Park, which began playing 8-player football in 2016.
Barr said the kicking game is of vital importance now and that secondary tackling is a tough transition because of the explosive offense athletes.
He said "the hybrid player who has size and speed" is featured in 8-player "and it can eliminate the real big kids," which he said are seldom a factor for small schools anyway.
Another plus for the 8-player game comes in scheduling, where Class D schools no longer have to face larger Class C programs and can also find opponents in northern Wisconsin, which also has declining enrollments.
Bark River-Harris and Lake Linden-Hubbell are the only Class D schools still fielding 11-player football teams in the Upper Peninsula. Three other schools, Class D Wakefield-Marenisco and Bessemer and Class C Ironwood have formed a cooperative program, Gogebic Miners, for football purposes.
Denny Grall retired in 2012 after 39 years at the Escanaba Daily Press and four at the Green Bay Press-Gazette, plus 15 months for WLST radio in Escanaba; he served as the Daily Press sports editor from 1970-80 and again from 1984-2012. Grall was inducted into the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame in 2002 and serves as its executive secretary. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Upper Peninsula.
PHOTOS: (Top) Crystal Falls Forest Park downed Powers North Central 66-58 in Week 2 as the teams combined to score more than 100 points for the third time in two seasons. (Middle) Ewen-Trout Creek’s Jacob Witt, here against Carney-Nadeau last season, caught 24 touchdown passes in 2016 and is playing as part of a co-op team with Ontonagon this fall. (Photos by Paul Gerard.)