With regard to the topic of Highlands' offense, all I got to say is that HHS' coaching staff and players better work hard on diversifying the offensive gameplan for 2007. As another thread by the guru showed, more often than not (and for 3 of the 4 state champs this year) championship teams in this state usually possess a balanced offense. HHS' offense was not balanced in 2006 (and has not been balanced for a few years).

Trinity is not the most storied program in KY HS football. That title either goes to Male or Highlands. Trinity has not won enough games all-time to be "the most storied ever"... just as the U. of Kentucky is the most storied college basketball program of all time, even though they are not tops right now or have the most titles.

 

 

You tell'em jb. Go Birds.:banana:

Hate to say it but you are absolutely correct sir........By the way I like your disguise Ted........:lol: :lol: I totally agree the former Milford Eagle needs to find another profession. The play calling the past few years has been horrible. HHS has been so predictable that my nine year old knows whats coming....It seems that they come in with a game plan and if it doesn't work there are never any adjustments made. Hopefully they get somebody up there that knows what they are doing..........GO BIRDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!:thumb:

 

 

For the record, Coach Vilardo DID NOT call the plays and does not call the plays and will not call the plays. If you have a gripe with the play calling, it lies totally with Coach Mueller. Vilardo does nothing more than signal in the play called by Mueller. If you think Vilardo calls the plays because you do not see him and Mueller talking before the play is signalled in, its because they are connected via head phones and that is how Dale tells Vilardo what play to call. Admittedly, in blow out games, Dale will let Vilardo make some of the calls so Dale can concentrate on watching the jv players on the field performing to evaluate them, but other than that, Dale calls all the plays. And that's a fact!

 

As for your 9 yr old knowing what play is going to be called, I assume you are being facetious. If not, then your son needs to apply to be the offensive or defensive coordinator next year some where. While I admit we never developed a passing game to the extent I wish we would have, we need to be a little more fair in our criticisms of "our" coaching staff. I've been around the game for a really long time, and I did not know what play was going to be called and neither did your son.

 

As for the passing game, if you attended many practices you know that we spent a whole lot of time practicing passing. Much more than running. Dale came into the season knowing that the strength of the team would be the offensive line and running backs. Thus, he decided to go with a run based offense and choose Cecil (a running qb) over Draper. That was a strategic decision that Dale made. Perhaps at this point with hindsight it was a wrong decision, but it sure looked smart on all the long runs that Cecil made. Admittedly, Cecil never developed the passing touch that all hoped he would have, but also keep in mind that he threw a lot of balls that were catchable, but were not.

 

As you assess Dale's play calling and the offense's performance this year, I think you have to keep in mind that in every game except the last game, we moved the ball extremely well on offense. And that's playing against some really, really good defenses. So I think you have to somewhat forgive Dale for thinking that in the last CovCath game he'd be able to move the ball doing what had been successful the entire season: running the ball and keeping the ball out of the hands of the other teams defense and occasionally mixing in the pass.

 

As for the lack of adjustments criticism I've read on here a lot, I want you to recall the first CovCath game. They based their defense on shutting down Kramer and did a very good job of doing it. If your "lack of adjustments" criticism was accurate, Dale would have kept forcing the ball to Kramer regardless of its lack of success, right? What did Dale do however? He instead ran Cecil up the middle in that game with great success and utilized Conner on the counters. Seems like adjustments to me.

 

In the second game, CovCath overplayed the short side of the field. We exploited the short side of the field the first game with the Conner counters. So when he observed what they were doing in the second game, he made adjustments and did not call the short side counter more than once or twice. Thus he made the adjustment and tried to attack the wide side of the field. And what happens? Well of course people get on here and criticize him for not running Conner on the counter in the second game when it was so successful the first game. Danged if you do, danged if you don't I guess. Further evidence is that in the second game coming out of the half (with mo on our side-we scored right before half to make it a 12-7 game and got the ball in the beginning of the second half) he does what so many people on here seemed to be clamoring for and passed the ball on a sideline route to Conner. Brown intercepts the ball on what I think was the most decisive play of the game. Brown returns it for a td (its called back because a block in the back to the 15). CovCath scores anyway to go up 19-7 and the entire complexion of the game changed imo. For what its worth, the pass was not thrown to the primary receiver. Brown made a great read, came off his receiver going deep and intercepted the pass. So at the end of the day, Dale's detractors get their wish, we pass the ball, and in my opinion the whole game changed.

 

I also think people need to remember that the last two years we've been eliminated by two very good football teams that went on to win state. If you put any stock into the All BGP selections (and I obviously do:laugh:) CovCath must have been an exceptional team if they placed 5 kids on the All BGP team. Do I think they were significantly better than us? No I don't, I really don't. But I think its impossible to argue that we got beat by a lesser team this past year or the year before that. We had some weaknesses on this team, which I won't discuss out of respect for the kids playing those positions. At the end of the day, those kids played the positions to the best of their abilities and worked their tails off for three years to be the best players they could and thats all you can ask for.

 

Could we have made some player moves to shore up the weak spots? Perhaps, then again, unless you saw what was happening in practice and were familiar with injuries that limited some people's abilities to play even more than they did, its somewhat unfair to be too critical of the coaching decisions.

 

Was I happy with the way the season ended? With a senior on the team who worked his tail off the last several years to transform himself into a pretty good football player and who was devastated by not winning state, the what should be obvious answer is NO. And logic would conclude that I as much as anyone should be griping about coaching decisions if I felt it was coaching decisions that cost us the championship. But in fairness to the coaches, it was not those decisions that cost us that game. Our players simply failed to execute our offense in the second game as well as they did in every game throughout the season. Perhaps it was because our kids were tight going into that game (as I've heard several players talk about since the game). If you had a crystal ball that told you in the second game that we were not going to be able to effectively run our offense, I sure wish you would have shared it with Dale.

 

Do I think every thing is perfect with the coaching staff and coaching decisions? No I don't. I hope and expect Dale to spend the off season critically examining what went wrong and what can be improved. If you know Dale at all, he's obsessed with winning. And I certainly don't think the sky is falling at Highlands because we have lost the last two years to the eventual state champions. Man I hate to think what this board would have been like if it had been around when CovCath was winning state championships back to back. Ru would have needed to hire psychiatrists to prevent people from jumping off bridges.

 

We'll be fine next year and I again expect us to again challenge for a state championship. We are not, as a smaller team playing against larger teams particularly next year when we move up to 5A, going to win the championship every year. Unlike Trinity, a very, very good program that has the advantage of in almost every game playing teams smaller or equal in size, we have won our championships with a size disadvantage. As we continue to win them in the future, it will be with an even greater size disadvantage. We won't win as many of them as we would have if we stayed in 3A, but that will make the state championships that we do win even more worthy in my opinion. Keep the faith my friend. We'll be just fine.

.......By the way I like your disguise Ted........:lol: :lol:

 

Someone's playing a cruel joke. It aint me!

Someone's playing a cruel joke. It aint me!

I know who it is........ He isn't fooling me.

For the record, Coach Vilardo DID NOT call the plays and does not call the plays and will not call the plays. If you have a gripe with the play calling, it lies totally with Coach Mueller. Vilardo does nothing more than signal in the play called by Mueller. If you think Vilardo calls the plays because you do not see him and Mueller talking before the play is signalled in, its because they are connected via head phones and that is how Dale tells Vilardo what play to call. Admittedly, in blow out games, Dale will let Vilardo make some of the calls so Dale can concentrate on watching the jv players on the field performing to evaluate them, but other than that, Dale calls all the plays. And that's a fact!

 

As for your 9 yr old knowing what play is going to be called, I assume you are being facetious. If not, then your son needs to apply to be the offensive or defensive coordinator next year some where. While I admit we never developed a passing game to the extent I wish we would have, we need to be a little more fair in our criticisms of "our" coaching staff. I've been around the game for a really long time, and I did not know what play was going to be called and neither did your son.

 

As for the passing game, if you attended many practices you know that we spent a whole lot of time practicing passing. Much more than running. Dale came into the season knowing that the strength of the team would be the offensive line and running backs. Thus, he decided to go with a run based offense and choose Cecil (a running qb) over Draper. That was a strategic decision that Dale made. Perhaps at this point with hindsight it was a wrong decision, but it sure looked smart on all the long runs that Cecil made. Admittedly, Cecil never developed the passing touch that all hoped he would have, but also keep in mind that he threw a lot of balls that were catchable, but were not.

 

As you assess Dale's play calling and the offense's performance this year, I think you have to keep in mind that in every game except the last game, we moved the ball extremely well on offense. And that's playing against some really, really good defenses. So I think you have to somewhat forgive Dale for thinking that in the last CovCath game he'd be able to move the ball doing what had been successful the entire season: running the ball and keeping the ball out of the hands of the other teams defense and occasionally mixing in the pass.

 

As for the lack of adjustments criticism I've read on here a lot, I want you to recall the first CovCath game. They based their defense on shutting down Kramer and did a very good job of doing it. If your "lack of adjustments" criticism was accurate, Dale would have kept forcing the ball to Kramer regardless of its lack of success, right? What did Dale do however? He instead ran Cecil up the middle in that game with great success and utilized Conner on the counters. Seems like adjustments to me.

 

In the second game, CovCath overplayed the short side of the field. We exploited the short side of the field the first game with the Conner counters. So when he observed what they were doing in the second game, he made adjustments and did not call the short side counter more than once or twice. Thus he made the adjustment and tried to attack the wide side of the field. And what happens? Well of course people get on here and criticize him for not running Conner on the counter in the second game when it was so successful the first game. Danged if you do, danged if you don't I guess. Further evidence is that in the second game coming out of the half (with mo on our side-we scored right before half to make it a 12-7 game and got the ball in the beginning of the second half) he does what so many people on here seemed to be clamoring for and passed the ball on a sideline route to Conner. Brown intercepts the ball on what I think was the most decisive play of the game. Brown returns it for a td (its called back because a block in the back to the 15). CovCath scores anyway to go up 19-7 and the entire complexion of the game changed imo. For what its worth, the pass was not thrown to the primary receiver. Brown made a great read, came off his receiver going deep and intercepted the pass. So at the end of the day, Dale's detractors get their wish, we pass the ball, and in my opinion the whole game changed.

 

I also think people need to remember that the last two years we've been eliminated by two very good football teams that went on to win state. If you put any stock into the All BGP selections (and I obviously do:laugh:) CovCath must have been an exceptional team if they placed 5 kids on the All BGP team. Do I think they were significantly better than us? No I don't, I really don't. But I think its impossible to argue that we got beat by a lesser team this past year or the year before that. We had some weaknesses on this team, which I won't discuss out of respect for the kids playing those positions. At the end of the day, those kids played the positions to the best of their abilities and worked their tails off for three years to be the best players they could and thats all you can ask for.

 

Could we have made some player moves to shore up the weak spots? Perhaps, then again, unless you saw what was happening in practice and were familiar with injuries that limited some people's abilities to play even more than they did, its somewhat unfair to be too critical of the coaching decisions.

 

Was I happy with the way the season ended? With a senior on the team who worked his tail off the last several years to transform himself into a pretty good football player and who was devastated by not winning state, the what should be obvious answer is NO. And logic would conclude that I as much as anyone should be griping about coaching decisions if I felt it was coaching decisions that cost us the championship. But in fairness to the coaches, it was not those decisions that cost us that game. Our players simply failed to execute our offense in the second game as well as they did in every game throughout the season. Perhaps it was because our kids were tight going into that game (as I've heard several players talk about since the game). If you had a crystal ball that told you in the second game that we were not going to be able to effectively run our offense, I sure wish you would have shared it with Dale.

 

Do I think every thing is perfect with the coaching staff and coaching decisions? No I don't. I hope and expect Dale to spend the off season critically examining what went wrong and what can be improved. If you know Dale at all, he's obsessed with winning. And I certainly don't think the sky is falling at Highlands because we have lost the last two years to the eventual state champions. Man I hate to think what this board would have been like if it had been around when CovCath was winning state championships back to back. Ru would have needed to hire psychiatrists to prevent people from jumping off bridges.

 

We'll be fine next year and I again expect us to again challenge for a state championship. We are not, as a smaller team playing against larger teams particularly next year when we move up to 5A, going to win the championship every year. Unlike Trinity, a very, very good program that has the advantage of in almost every game playing teams smaller or equal in size, we have won our championships with a size disadvantage. As we continue to win them in the future, it will be with an even greater size disadvantage. We won't win as many of them as we would have if we stayed in 3A, but that will make the state championships that we do win even more worthy in my opinion. Keep the faith my friend. We'll be just fine.

If your right, which i'm sure you have the inside about Dale calling the plays. Then why is he considered the offensive coordinator. What benefit does this guy bring to my beloved Birds. People have often asked me what we owe this guy and i say not a darn thing. I mean he kind of reminds me of the guy last week over the holidays when we flew into Cincinnati Airport and directed our plane into the tarmak(SP). What did he do at Milford that was so special that could have landed him such a great job at Highlands.

Then why is he considered the offensive coordinator.

It's because he IS the offensive coordinator. It makes no sense whatsoever to suggest that his only job is to pass along Dale's play calls. :lol: The water boy could do that job. That's not why you call someone an offensive coordinator.

 

The play calling definitely earns the lion's share of the blame for any failings we had this year. There's no question about it. At the last Cov Cath game, I overheard some visiting coaches wondering why it seemed like we only had three plays on our book. That's about right. I know Dale wants to win state more than anything. I'm sure he'll make the moves necessary to right the ship once again.

It's because he IS the offensive coordinator. It makes no sense whatsoever to suggest that his only job is to pass along Dale's play calls. :lol: The water boy could do that job. That's not why you call someone an offensive coordinator.

 

The play calling was definitely earns the lion's share of the blame for any failings we had this year. There's no question about it. At the last Cov Cath game, I overheard some visiting coaches wondering why it seemed like we only had three plays on our book. That's about right. I know Dale wants to win state more than anything. I'm sure he'll make the moves necessary to right the ship once again.

 

 

 

I specifically asked Dale approx 3 weeks ago whether Vilardo called the the plays. He told me Vilardo did not, rather that he (Dale) did. If you want to continue to question what I posted, Dale's number is in the book.

If your right, which i'm sure you have the inside about Dale calling the plays. Then why is he considered the offensive coordinator. What benefit does this guy bring to my beloved Birds. People have often asked me what we owe this guy and i say not a darn thing. I mean he kind of reminds me of the guy last week over the holidays when we flew into Cincinnati Airport and directed our plane into the tarmak(SP). What did he do at Milford that was so special that could have landed him such a great job at Highlands.

 

As to what benefit he brings to the Birds, he assists Dale and does what Dale asks him to do. Attend a practice some time and you'll see that Vilardo does a lot for Dale. He often works with the receivers, qbs and running backs when Dale is involved with the other positions. And obviously Dale thinks he is of some assistance or else he would not have him on his coaching staff. Vilardo is not on the coaching staff because we owe him anything. Such talk is in a word, silly. Either you believe Dale is a good head coach and knows what he is doing (and thus Vilardo must provide value to the team since Dale keeps Vilardo on his coaching staff) or Dale doesn't know a good asst. coach from a bad one, in which case Dale isn't a good head coach. I think its the former, but you can have your own opinion. But at the end of the day, Dale calls the plays, and Vilardo only signals them in. They will definitely discuss plays to be called, but Dale makes the final decision as to what play will be called. That may be hard for some of you to believe, but as the good Lord as my witness, that's what Dale personally told me when I talked to him.

If your right, which i'm sure you have the inside about Dale calling the plays. Then why is he considered the offensive coordinator. What benefit does this guy bring to my beloved Birds. People have often asked me what we owe this guy and i say not a darn thing. I mean he kind of reminds me of the guy last week over the holidays when we flew into Cincinnati Airport and directed our plane into the tarmak(SP). What did he do at Milford that was so special that could have landed him such a great job at Highlands.

Welcome to the board M&M.....:thumb:

I have just one question to the "in the Know crowd" Why is Ft Thomas school district employing Keith Faust as their Vice Principal for the Middle School but yet they allow such a young,smart, and upcoming coach to instruct at back to back state champion NCC. Why would we employ from outside the district when we have such great talent within. Isnt there some type of rule that says if a district employee wants to coach then a non-employee is out. Seems to me we should get what we pay for and get this guy on board at all costs before he jumps ship. I don't know if its just me, but seems like Coach Schneider gets the last laugh again.

I have just one question to the "in the Know crowd" Why is Ft Thomas school district employing Keith Faust as their Vice Principal for the Middle School but yet they allow such a young,smart, and upcoming coach to instruct at back to back state champion NCC. Why would we employ from outside the district when we have such great talent within. Isnt there some type of rule that says if a district employee wants to coach then a non-employee is out. Seems to me we should get what we pay for and get this guy on board at all costs before he jumps ship. I don't know if its just me, but seems like Coach Schneider gets the last laugh again.

This should be an interesting reply!!!!!!!!!!!

It sort of falls into the same category as in the past when former professional athletes have come forward to help out and have been told No Thanks, "We are just fine as we are". As in the past and with the history of Highlands football, HHS has always been ahead of the pact in some sort of way, whether it was lifting weights in the 50's or scout teams in the 60's or junior league football feeder programs and military like leadership in the 60's and 70's. It all only works for so long until everyone else copies what you are doing and catches up and or moves ahead. I believe HHS is slipping a bit when it comes to giving the kids the very best available at all costs, especially in this case you could make an agrument at "NO COST"!!!!

Seems to be a trend at Ft. Thomas schols. Mike Code teaches at HHS but yet is the head coach at Brossart and seems to have our number when we play them in basketball.

Seems to be a trend at Ft. Thomas schols. Mike Code teaches at HHS but yet is the head coach at Brossart and seems to have our number when we play them in basketball.

Maybe so, but the point here is Coach Faust is NCC QB/Asst Off Coord who helped design a "BALANCED ATTACK" Offense the past 2 yrs and grooms QB mechanics like no other. And when you don't have that at Highlands it makes you sorta scratch you head. And before all the "They don't play anybody and just let them play HHS schedule" it doesnt really matter if you know anything about football. You still have to call the correct plays and when you do you must have confidence in yourself and in your players that they are capable of executing it based on sound instruction. I just did'nt see that happening this year in Ft.Thomas.