Q&A: Head football coach reflects on season’s first game

Head football coach Brett Froendt reflects on Westside’s first game of the season against rival Creighton Prep.

Q: What were your initial reactions after the game?

A: Both disappointment and sadness. It was really sad because the players put so much effort into their performance and they were heart-broken. Disappointed because we just didn’t play good fundamental defense and they lost some of the technical aspects of what they were supposed to do.

Q: How has the loss shaped your practicing for this week?

A: Actually it’s heightened the excitement a little bit because we know we have a good football team we know we can lead a game, we know we can come from behind in a game, and we know we can battle with a very good team. They just happened to have the last play. We’re excited about what we have as a team going forward. We don’t look at the past, we can’t dwell on it, we learn from it but we have to move on.

Q: Were there any breakout stars on the team?

A: Yeah, we had a lot of great performances. Obviously Dylan Plautz played well at quarterback, had a great statistical night, made a couple errors, but everybody did, even down to the coaches. Jaden Kohls ran very hard. We had some linemen do very well. Pat Duggan had a good game. Deuce Johnson had a good game. We had a lot of guys who had individual performances that were really strong. On the defensive side, we had Austin Wahl had a nice game. Even Grant Tagge came in on reserve roles and had a fantastic game on special teams. We had a lot of individual performances that were really good. We had three 100 yard receivers, I don’t know if that has ever happened. Our offense did very well, it scored enough points to win the game, but our defense let the team down a little bit.

Q: What specific aspects of the defense will you work on this week?

A: Just our fundamentals. We were out of position a lot. Tackling was decent, about a “B”so we’ve got to improve that. But we were out of position and our fundamentals were poor.

Q: No. 3 on Creighton Prep, Elisha Burts, was really moving down the field. How do you deal with an electric player like that?

A: If our players are in the right position and using the right techniques, then he doesn’t have the lanes to run in. Since our players were out of position he found the lanes to run in. That’s how defense is supposed to work, you take away all of the space and you close those opportunities down, and since we were out of position a lot, they were able to take advantage of that.

Q: What is the outlook for this week against Millard South?

A: We just reset, we look at all of the things we did poorly on Friday night. We are going to strengthen those and apply it to Millard South, although they had 11 seniors sitting so we have no idea what they have personnel wise, so we just have to fix ourselves first and we will be a better team.

Q: How do you prepare for a team you don’t know much about?

A: Well that’s what we did against Prep because we didn’t know what we had there, so it is kind of like a first game all over again. We just fix the things that we do wrong and then that will take care of itself.

Q: Are there any specific aspects of Millard South’s game you need to prepare for?

A: They spread the field really well and they have a pretty good passer. They really make you defend the field because they have a lot of players in space. We have to be prepared to get in the right position, get in our stances, be prepared to go with the play. As long as we cover those spaces properly, we should be in good shape.

Cover Photo by: Olivia Washburn