Because the Tampa Bay Area is unfamiliar with Fletcher, I took a minute to watch the Senators on film and have posted some observations
Fletcher High Senators
Neptune Beach, FL
11-2
Offensive Scheme
Traditional I formations
• I pro
• I twins
• I twins over
• I far and near
• I Flex
Favorite Plays
Traditional Power I plays
• Lead
• Power
• Iso
• Counter Trap
The obvious: Fletcher is a run 1st team…will attempt to push opponent around and run between the tackles. The Senators did not show much trickery or misdirection. What you see is what you get. They are going to force Plant to play big boy football. Iso and lead tallied to be their favorite plays and they run it well. I think their most successful plays are Counter trap and lead running to the TE.
QB – 6-2/185lb, Evan Orth did not show anything flashy. Tall player that moves fairly well in the pocket. Does a good job with his play/ball fakes and cadence calling; drawing the defense offsides several times. He did not show much accuracy, throwing balls all over the place. Every now and then he would put one on the money, but lacked touch and placement. He often threw into coverage.
RB – Junior tailback, Jamari Smith is a good player. I want to say “the real deal”, but he lacks breakaway speed to pull away from defenders. He is an excellent downhill runner and can make moves in traffic. Delivers a blow on contact and has really good balance. Best player on the Fletcher Senator team. I do not think the RBs do a particularly good job creating a passing pocket for the QB. Often the defensive pressure is in the QB’s face because the backs do not attack, but sit back and allow the pressure to come to them.
WR – Nothing to make you hold your breath. The Wide outs as a whole do a really really good job at downfield blocking. Many times, the backs picked up 10-15 additional yards because the secondary was being occupied trying to get off the blocks of the receivers. Senior, Joe Lawrence is a nice size kid, listed at 6-0/180, but looks taller on film. Pretty good at tracking the ball in the air and catching the ball in traffic. But, he dropped too many balls and lacked consistency in making big catches.
OL – I really, really like the offensive line. Average sized high school O Line, but they fire off the line of scrimmage and do a great job running their feet after contact. Had some trouble with stunts and games. At times, eyes were down while in stance, not allowing them to see pre snap movement by the LBs.
Defensive Scheme
Even front, 4-2 or modified 4-4
Favorite Pressures and Coverage’s
• B gap and Edge pressure from depth
• cover 3 and cover 4
Scheme breakdown: Traditional 4-2-5 or 4-4-3 scheme depends on what you want to call the OLBs; athletic outside LBs that can run and drop into zone coverages. The defense runs to the ball, but at times over pursues leaving the backside of the field open. Not very good tacklers, do a lot of diving at ball carriers and tackle high, resulting in yards after contact for ball carriers.
DL – Effective with the initial push, but trouble disengaging with offensive linemen. As a whole, they run well and are able to change directions.
LB – Including the SS, who should be considered the WK side OLB in this scheme, are a good group of high school line backers. They attack the LOS and read their keys really well. Aggressive and physical, but run horizontally instead of downhill on perimeter run plays; pretty good job of finding their way through traffic.
Secondary – I may be overly critical because I am a secondary guy, but this group is not very sound technically. I do think they tackle well in space, but often caught in no mans’ land by alignment playing cover 3. FS gets out of his back pedal too soon and allows the QB to open his hips, exposing the backside deep ball. Too many times I observed them getting pinned inside by the WR leaving the sideline unprotected.