Ashland football excited to open the season against Norwayne

A sizable gap exists between the number of students who attend Ashland and Norwayne high schools.

Ashland enters the 2022 football season as a Division II school and Norwayne a Division V.

That doesn’t mean much to Arrows coach Sean Seder, whose team opens the season Friday on the road against the Bobcats.

“We’re just really excited to play them,” he said. “I know they’re a smaller Wayne County school but, from our vantage point, if they were in our conference we feel like they’d compete right away and be a pretty darn good football team, so we’re definitely not looking at them as a small school.

“We’re just looking at them as a good football team.”

Norwayne is loaded on offense this season, returning all of last year’s top skill players.

That includes running back Jake Gill, an All-Ohio first-team selection in 2021 who rushed for 1,319 yards and 23 touchdowns on 145 carries. The senior is an explosive back, as he averaged a little over nine yards per carry.

The Bobcats also return two other talented ball carriers in junior running back Dillon Morlock (832 yards, 13 TDs) and senior quarterback Eli Stanley, who rushed for 752 yards and nine score while completing 133 of 212 passes for 1,923 yards and 13 touchdowns.

“They’re really impressive on offense,” Seder said. “They have kind of a three-headed monster with their running backs and quarterback. … They’re really good at running the ball and then lulling you to sleep and hitting you with play action or the deep ball.”

Limiting the production of those three is Ashland’s top defensive focus. If they’re able to do so, Seder thinks they’ll be in good shape.

“We’re going to have to make sure that we own the line of scrimmage and that we force their guys to cut things inside or keep things inside, and our linebackers are going to have to step up and make plays,” he said. “If we force them to throw the ball, I feel like that’s to our advantage. Our secondary is one of our team strengths.

“We’re going to try to stop the run and force them to throw.”

Who will start at quarterback for the Arrows was still up in the air as of Tuesday. Luke Bryant won the job during training camp, but he recently suffered an injury and might not be ready to go Friday. If he isn’t ready, freshman Nathan Bernhard will start in his place.

Seder plans to make that decision Thursday.

Regardless of who lines up at quarterback, the onus is going to be on the offensive line to step up in pass protection and create running lanes. That’s something the Arrows struggled with last year, but Seder said the unit performed well during Ashland’s two scrimmages.

“The biggest key obviously is going to be protection,” he said. “We’re been working on blitz pickups a lot this week. They’re one of those teams that will have linebackers flexed out wide, which is tough for linemen to pick up, so our backs are going to have to do a good job picking up that extra blitzer.”

The Bobcats are aggressive on defense and like to blitz. They played a lot of man coverage last year but might not show that much against the Arrows, who primarily throw the ball.

If Norwayne drops a bunch of players into coverage to try to stop the pass, Ashland running back Cayden Spotts could be in store for a big game.

“If they sell out to stop the pass and drop more guys into coverage, I feel like Spotts will have a big day running the ball,” Seder said. “We feel like he’s a pretty good running back. If they keep the box loaded to stop the run, our guys are going to have to make plays in space. If they give us the underneath, our guys are going to have to make catches and really good runs after the catch.

“We kind of have a game plan for either one. It just kind of depends on which one they show more of.”

Ashland’s mantra this season is, ‘Burn the ships.’ The saying stems from something Alexander the Great supposedly said as he prepared his troops to invade Persia. When they landed in Persia, they burned their boats, so their only way to return home was if they conquered Persia and sailed home in Persian ships.

The saying has a special meaning for the Arrows, who dealt with some internal adversity last year as they struggled their way through a 3-7 season.

“We have a leadership council with some of our seniors,” Seder said. “One of the first things we addressed and talked about was some of the ongoings of last year, what they liked and didn’t like and stuff like that. Obviously, making plans moving forward to this year.

“That’s kind of where we got our mantra from. It felt like last year we had a really divided team and staff and all of it. This year, I wanted everybody all-in, so they came up with 'Burn the ships.'"

Reach Chris at csnow@times-gazette.com

On Twitter: CSnow_TG

This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Ashland football ready to face Norwayne in season opener