Valor Christian football coach Rod Sherman, left, and Cherry Creek coach Dave Logan, right. (Photos: Kai Casey/CHSAANow.com; Jack Eberhard/JacksActionShots.com)
CENTENNIAL — The 2014 Class 5A state championship football game was one for the ages. It was the second game of the season between Cherry Creek and Valor Christian and it lived up to every bit of the hype.
The Bruins won both of those contests last season. Friday, the two teams will showdown again, and coaches Dave Logan and Rod Sherman sat down with us at the same time to talk about last year’s games, the changing landscape of Colorado high school football and what they’re looking for in Friday night’s game.
Q: From a coaching standpoint, were last year’s games as much fun for you guys as it was for us in the media or the fans?
Dave Logan: No. There’s my answer. Go ahead (gestures to Sherman).
Rod Sherman: We were 0-2, of course not (laughs). They were awesome, competitive, exciting games. I think the first one was probably a little closer than the final score indicated.
Logan: No doubt.
Sherman: It’s why you play sports, right? You play sports to compete and we felt like we were playing against a great team. Dave’s kids are always well-prepared and play super hard. What’s not to enjoy about that? You may not enjoy the outcome all the time, but I think now we can look back and say that we were really glad we went through that last year. We were glad we got to play in the game. We wish a couple of plays would’ve gone differently, but those were great games.
Logan: I would say this, I think in the first game we scored on the last play of the game so it was a one-score game. Honestly, it could have gone either way. It really could have. I know that’s cliche, but it’s an honest answer. And the championship game, if you saw the game, it was back and forth. There were a couple of times where it looked like we had a chance to get control. There were a couple of times where it looked like Rod’s team could get control.
Ultimately, it came down to — just as Rod said — a couple of plays, and it could’ve gone either way. What I liked about it was it was two groups of kids and coaches — kids primarily — that gave everything they had during that game. That was not a game where anybody had anything left afterwards. So from a coaching standpoint, it’s enjoyable because of the height of the competition. I know whenever we play each other we have to play as good as we can possibly play to have a chance to win the game.
Q: In the championship game it certainly could’ve gone either way and it was eventually decided on a two-point conversion. Was that you or your players that decided to go for two?
Logan: It was the players that executed the play. I’ve always been sort of a gut call sort of coach. I thought even if we didn’t get it there was five minutes and change left so maybe we could get a stop. We were pretty spent at that point. I thought Valor had the best defense in the state last year and it was hard sledding, especially in the fourth quarter. We had gone a ways in the fourth quarter and I didn’t know how much we had left. I looked at it and said after the penalty, this might be our best and only chance to get a lead.
Q: What was your reaction when you saw the offense take the field for the two-point conversion?
Sherman: We felt like one of our biggest problems in the game was when — I don’t know how many thousand people were in the stadium, but everyone said (Milo) Hall’s getting the ball. We felt that Creek up front was as good or better than anyone we had played all year. We didn’t play as well up front as we needed to.
We weren’t surprised by (the two-point conversion). I think I would’ve done the exact same thing at that time. They made a really good play. And again, at the end of the day, if our season and the difference between being a state champion or a runner-up is going to come down to a two-point play, I’ll take it right now. I’ll take it right now for this year.
Logan: I would too.
(Jack Eberhard/JacksActionShots.com)
Q: This game is part of the Great American Rivalry Series, but how much of a rivalry is this?
Sherman: I heard a great college coach say one time that it’s only a rivalry when both teams have won a game. We’re 0-2. I think last it was part of the series and it was the first time we had ever played. I think there’s factors of Dave’s tradition and how many championships he’s won at different schools and the stretch that we had. There’s a lot of those things that go into it.
But the reality is with the league we play in, I mean, Dave had to play Grandview last week and no matter what happens tomorrow night, we have to go play them next week. Their running back (Hayden
Blubaugh) is as good as anyone in state and I’m not minimizing us playing (Cherry Creek) but in this league you have to bring your best every week. We had to bring our best against (Cherokee) Trail.
It’s exciting for the school and it’s exciting for the media. You know when you play Dave’s team that they’re going to play hard. They’re going to bring their best, but that’s true against Grandview, that’s true against Trail and down the line.
Logan: I think our league is the best league in the state. I’m not saying there aren’t other good teams around the state, but I think from top to bottom, what Rod said is so true. There’s not one team that you can sort of overlook in terms of preparation and say “Well, we play these guys this week, but look who we play next week.” You just can’t do it. There are too many athletes and honestly, I think there are a lot of really good coaches in our league. Guys that spend a lot time studying football, studying their opponents, putting their kids in a good position, understanding that the team is going to change every year. The personality might not change, but your overall ability changes every single year.
In terms of this being a rivalry, the only thing that I think makes it a rivalry is the fact that Valor had done and continues to do such a good job and won five-straight state championships. When you’re on top, and Rod knows this as well as I do, everyone shoots for you. Everyone wants a piece of you and that’s just how it is. If you’re a .500 team, people don’t get as fired up to play you.
They had won how many state championships in a row? Other than that, I agree with Rod, I think the Grandview rivalry is big, CT, you can never overlook Eaglecrest. Overland always has a stock of athletes that you have prepare for. I know it sounds like coach speak and little cliche, but that’s the honest to goodness answer I can give you.
Q: Who has the bigger bullseye on their back?
Logan: I think we both do. We were fortunate enough to win it last year so we get a bullseye in that regard. Rod’s crew has won it so many times so they kind of get a bullseye in that regard. I’m the coach at a public school who has a long history in terms of football success. We kind of get a bullseye in that regard, as one of the biggest public schools in town.
Rod is the head guy at a private school and I’ve coached at a private school before so there’s an automatic bullseye just because you’re coaching at a private school. I think the bullseye is probably right in the middle of both our backs.
Sherman: Sometimes that bullseye has other people, other programs saying that we have advantages that they don’t have. They might look at Creek and say they have a big school, so they’ve got a good diverse group of students in many areas. I think at the end of the day, what can get minimized in that is that Dave and his staff do a great job of coaching up kids. It’s still kids on the field that are working hard and investing months and months into lifting and running, speed camps, college camps, trying to perfect their craft.
I think sometimes when there is a sentiment that, “If only I could be at one of those schools…” The reality is all of our kids are the same anywhere in the state. They’re putting their football pants on, they’re working hard, they’re preparing. They’re all high school kids. I just thank God for the ability to work with them. That just makes that bullseye, at times, brighter.
Q: Let’s go back to the Centennial League for a second. Would it make Colorado better overall if some of those teams were spread out or do you like the competitiveness that it brings to your programs right now?
Sherman: I like the competitiveness of it as long as the best teams are making it to the playoffs. I think sometimes that’s where there’s a miss. If the state wants to have parity in the playoffs then I think it’s unfair for the six teams in the Centennial League to have them all in the same league. To then go down to a 16-team playoff where last year, Eaglecrest as a fourth-place team, probably should be a semifinalist team and deserved every bit of that.
I’m nervous about going down to 16 teams, trying to protect league champions and there being a sentiment of letting the Centennial League beat each other up and see what happens. I think that’s unfair to the students in our schools.
Dave Logan. (Matt Mathewes/MVPSportsPics.com)
Logan: I completely, 100 percent agree. I would be in favor of leaving the leagues as they are, but leaving the field at 32. If you cut the tournament, you cut the postseason in half and then you leave the leagues as they are, my question to whomever would make that decision is explain to me what you’ve accomplished.
What’s the motive for that? People say well when there’s five playoff games, the first round where you have No. 1 playing No. 32, they’re not good games. Some of the games are not competitive and I understand that, but some of them have been competitive. If you cut it 16, there are 16 teams that can’t even hold on to any sort of hope in Week 5. That’s big for kids. I coached a team back in 2002 that was 7-3 and didn’t get into the postseason. So I think that if you want to break up the leagues, let’s come up with a reason and a motive as to why you’re doing it.
Q: You guys have two very different styles. Offensively Rod’s team has a quarterback who is getting a lot attention and has great ability in throwing the ball. Dave’s team is more ground oriented. How do you guys maintain such a high level of play considering your different styles and what makes your games so great when they come together?
Logan: You try, as a coach, to look at your team every single year and you try to identify, “Who are we?” I’ve had teams in the past where we couldn’t run the ball a lick so we spread out and got in the shotgun, and I’ve had 3,000-yard passers four or five times in my career. I think the personality of your team, once you identify that, then I think you have to put them in positions that were they can best achieve.
I think the running game is important and it can help control the game. There are different ways to run the ball. You have to come up with strategy that allows you to run the ball when somebody else knows you’re going to run it. If you look at some of the really successful teams, that’s what they’ve been able to do. I’m an ex-receiver, I played quarterback in high school. I love to throw the ball. Rod does a great job in identifying the same sort of mentality.
Sherman: I would agree with that. I think as a coach you go through the spring and the summer and have some team camps to figure out what your personality is going to be and how do you compliment that. Last year, championship game, Dave’s team is doing a great job of running the ball and he had a couple of really well-timed reverses. That’s a great compliment. I think of a pass (quarterback) Joe (Caplis) made when they were in double-tight. A play-action post. That’s a compliment to what you do really well to help round out the edges.
I think for us personality-wise, early in the season we were throwing the ball too much. It’s easy to rely on that and I think we’ve been playing better as we’ve found balance. That’s true for every team. There’s some talk at Dove Valley, right, about how do they find the right level of balance. Balance comes with either your passing game setting up the run game or your run game setting up the passing game. There has to be some level of balance if you’re going to be successful.
Q: How do you guys feel about the Wild Card system and the switch to RPI? Is that a good or a bad thing?
Logan: I think that’s as good a system as any. I haven’t heard anybody offer up anything that would be better. I think strength of schedule should impact ultimately the seeds, which should be taken into consideration when deciding the pecking order of the playoffs. It would encourage programs to jump up and play some good teams. You find a lot out about your team early in the season if you’re willing to go out and play teams that are good, that have good talent and are well coached, and if you don’t play well there’s a chance you’re going to lose.
Ultimately, you have nine regular season games. I don’t really think it’s all that important to be 9-0 in the regular season. It’s important to be playing your best football and also as a coach, to have a good grasp of what I have have. What do we have to do to win? Playing good teams helps you identify your team’s strengths and weaknesses and I think with a RPI system, you’re not penalized for playing good teams. You’re encouraged to play good teams.
Rod Sherman. (Jack Eberhard/JacksActionShots.com)
Sherman: I think the RPI balanced with equal leagues and the parity of leagues makes a ton of sense. I think there’s still an issue if the RPI is your winning percentage, your opponents’ winning percentage and then you have some of the best teams in the same conference, your winning percentages aren’t as good and that can have an adverse affect. But there’s only 16 teams in the playoffs. I look at Cherokee Trail, at 3-4, would compete for league championships in a lot of leagues.
Logan: No doubt.
Sherman: You can see that. You can look back at scores. Monte (Thelen) does a great job of coaching them up, but just with RPI I’m worried about what that means for Trail in the next two weeks. In a field of 32 they should absolutely be in the playoffs. Because of the conference, how does their opponents’ winning percentage (affect them). And do they have to look at their schedule and see if they can challenge themselves early to find out all the things Dave talked about.
I just don’t think it’s good for any of us to have to worry about non-conference winning being more important than the things Dave was talking about. How do we challenge ourselves? How are we learning about our team? I think having a larger playoff field kind of self-adjusts to some of those issues.
Q: Without giving too much away, when you guys take the field, what’s the biggest worry you have when you look at the team on the other sideline?
Sherman: Protecting the football and being ready for multiple looks. Offensively and defensively. Dave, with his offense, we know they’re going to run the ball. They’re going to throw the ball a bit. What are their complimentary plays? Some of those things you can’t prepare for other than trying to draw up some ideas and things like that. How your kids react to things that are new. Are we going to answer? Are we going to be prepared for that?
I think we’ve both played in environments that have been tough. I think in their game against Regis Jesuit there were seven or eight thousand people there. When we played in Arkansas, it was a packed house. We’ve done that and those things will wear off quickly during the game. Those guys play hard. They play really hard.
Logan: From our standpoint, a couple of things. You look at Valor on offense and they’re similar to us, not in terms of schematically, but sort of a mindset that he has. You’re going to see a lot of different formations, you’re going to see some stuff that you have not seen before. I guarantee it. So how do you prepare your kids for when they break the huddle and, defensively, they have to identify something that they’ve worked on all week and they’re looking at something that they have not seen. That’s always critical when we play them.
You go into every game from a defensive standpoint trying to make that team one-dimensional. We can’t let them run the ball for 200 yards because we will get our doors blown off if that’s the case. They’re really good schematically and personnel-wise in what they do on offense. So we have to tackle well and we have to get the ball out a couple of times to be successful on defense.
(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
On offense, you have to understand that it’s going to be a slugfest up front. You have to be willing to line up and go at people. If you get a yard, you have to line up and go at it again. With the atmosphere, there will be a lot of people at the game. It’s going to be a great barometer for us and I told the kids this week that this is a game that we can be really loose in. The winner isn’t guaranteed anything. For the loser, the season’s not over but you learn a lot about your team. We’ll know a lot more about our guys at the end of Friday night.
Q: Any chance of either of you guys offering up a prediction for the game?
Sherman: We’ll be there (laughs). I think at the end of the day, have our kids been excited about this game? Yeah. Did we want this to be homecoming? Truthfully, our first two games of the season were at home and we’ve been away for five weeks. Homecoming couldn’t be next week because we have to do our senior night with Grandview.
Here’s the thing about Valor’s homecoming: We don’t have very many graduates so it’s not like there’s that many graduates to come home for. I’m sure there’s the same buzz for both schools. The weather’s changing, it’s getting down to football weather. The Broncos are undefeated. I’m sure both teams are going to play hard. Like Dave said, both games from last year, there’s a few plays either way that could have dictated the game.
Logan: There’s a healthy respect between the programs. There’s a healthy respect between the staffs, I know most of Rod’s guys. People on the outside sometimes, and a lot of times, don’t really understand what high school coaches are all about. Nobody is making any money here. You’re making about 27 cents an hour. The guys that really commit a good portion of their life to try and mentor kids and coach them up and help them achieve their dreams and hopefully win some games and teach them a few things about football in case they go on and play college, those are the guys that really go unnoticed.
The majority of coaches are in this job of professional avocation because that’s what they’re about. They’re trying to help kids. It’s not going on your tombstone, how many games you won and how many games you lost. But how many lives have you impacted? How many of your kids will come back to you five years from now, or 10, or 15 and bring their kids back and tell their coach, “Thanks for what you taught me”? That’s really important stuff. The respect level between the two programs is high and it should be a fun game for the spectators.
(Matt Mathewes/MVPSportsPics.com)