John Marshall Not Taking Weir Lightly
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MOUNDVILLE -- The John Marshall Monarchs and Weir Red Riders enter Friday, the 48th meeting in the two school's history, coming off of very different week one outings.
The Monarchs are 1-0, having pulled off a comeback 37-28 victory on the road vs. Marietta, while Weir is 0-1 after falling to rival Oak Glen 35-0 in their own season opener.
For John Marshall, who are hosting the Red Riders, a win to open the year meant much to the Monarchs for multiple reasons.
"We showed a lot of grit because we played from behind most of the game," John Marshall head coach Mark Cisar said. "We won the turnover battle, which was huge, and our offense did extremely well. The only time we really got stopped is when we stopped ourselves twice. We had two touchdowns called back, and then we made some nice adjustments at halftime. [Marietta] broke a run where we only had 10 guys on the field defensively. But defensively, the second half, we played well enough to win the game.
"Our kids, I think we’ve learned how to win the close ones when it’s crunch time. And we did that. We were down most of the game and made some big plays when you need to make big plays. We need to play a little better on defense and clean some things up. We had almost 100 yards-worth of penalties. We need to clean some things up, but it was a big win for us."
Weir's season-opening setback hasn't disheartened first-year head coach Chris Hill, who sees solutions to the problems on film.
"It was a preponderance of little things," Hill said. "We were watching plays, really broke it down for our kids from a defensive standpoint. I said we gave up 280 yards-- 150 of those yards were on five plays. We looked at each one of those plays and talked about the mental gaps that we had where we didn’t align right to formation. We didn’t have our eyes on the right key. We didn’t take a block on with the right shoulder. It wasn’t just one instance on those plays, there were two or three, sometimes even four that cost us, to give up big plays.
"Same thing breaking stuff down offensively. We would have a lineman go the wrong way, then his guy made the play. We would call an RPO, the receiver ran the wrong route. Quarterback didn’t make the right read anyway. It was a lot of that stuff, which was unusual the week before in our two previous scrimmages. Those were really what we were concentrating on in camp was cleaning up all those little mistakes and being a physical football team. I think physicality-wise we were okay, but mentally we just didn’t show up fully against Oak Glen."
John Marshall enjoyed big offensive days from running back Dalton Cooper, who had three total touchdowns and 144 total yards, quarterback Jacob Cisar, who passed for 264 yards and three touchdowns, and Landen Snyder, who hauled in nine catches for 111 yards and a score.
"What’s amazing is people understand that, he didn’t rush for 50 yards the whole game," Cisar said of Cooper. "We had a good run plan, our line didn’t play real well. We’ve had to make some adjustments this week. [Cooper] did 12 carries for 27 yards or something, and he’s one of the best backs. So they [Marietta] did a very good job. But Cooper was unbelievable for us. A tremendous kickoff return after they scored, which was huge, An 80-yard kickoff return, and later in the game had a big 80-yard screen pass for a touchdown.
"Two big plays by him. He’s a game breaker. We just got to get him in the open field. We got to do a better job on the line. We had some other guys step up too. Landen Snyder had a great game. So did [Tiler Clemons]. So did Jacob Cisar. Our big thing that I’m most proud of is we didn’t turn the ball over. We won the turnover game and we showed that we have some fight."
Weir's Nick DiMatteis and Ryant Lyons combined for 86 rushing yards in the Red Riders' week one, while Lyons also passed for 59 yards. Amir Williams was Lyons' top target with four catches for 31 yards.
"They’re athletic," Cisar said of Weir. "They got some athletic receivers, they got some athletic tailbacks. They have some good athletes. But it’s tough, you’re coming in as a new coach. I’ve been there before. You’re trying to put your system in and make adjustments. And the kids are also trying to adjust to that too. So that makes it awful tough. But honest to goodness, last year, their week one to week two was a huge jump last year. They came in and they gave us everything they had up there."
John Marshall defeated Weir 42-12 last season.
"They’re going to do the same thing again this year. It’s not like they’re going to come in and lay down and say, here this is for you. That’s, I think maybe, what some of our guys thought last week. 'Oh yeah, Marietta's not big.' Marietta was pretty good. They were really good on offense.
"[Weir] has big athletic kids. They didn’t play very well last week. They turned the ball over. Some things went wrong for them, but they’re going to fix those things. That’s why they practice. They’re going to make adjustments. It’s going to be a good game."
Weir owns the advantage in the two schools' all-time head-to-head record, 25-22-0.
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Monarch Stadium.