Little Giants looking for their first complete effort from both sides of the ball against St. John’s

FREMONT – Entering its fifth game of the season, the Fremont Ross football team is still waiting to play its first complete game.

Through three weeks, the Little Giants had been carried by their defense, which had been outstanding in shutting down opponents by playing tough, aggressive and disciplined football. Meanwhile, Ross’ offense had been relying on a few explosive plays while long, methodical mistake-free drives were scarce.

Friday night, however, in its 55-49 triple overtime loss to Findlay, the script got flipped. Findlay moved the ball with ease against the Little Giant defense for most of the night. Ross entered the game averaging just 210 yards against per game, but Findlay totaled 378 yards of offense.

The offense, however, finally found a rhythm, racking up more than 500 yards of offense and erasing a 21-point quarter-quarter deficit.

Ross is easily just a handful of plays away from being undefeated, yet finds itself at a crossroads. The Little Giants are 2-2, coming off back-to-back heartbreaking losses to decades-old rivals and facing a major test Friday night at St. John’s.

So, what needs to happen for the Little Giants to play a complete game on both sides of the ball?

“If I knew that easy formula, we’d be doing it all the time,” head coach Chad Long said.

What happened on defense?

Long has been blunt this season, repeatedly saying he believes his defense is the best in the conference.

But if that’s true, how does the league’s best defense give up 55 points?

Ross played Friday night having to shift some bodies around.

Defensive linemen Dontrez Brown and Jason Burling had to play double duty, playing on both sides of the ball after offensive lineman Shawndre Koch was removed from the team following the Sandusky game.

Furthermore, Ross played without senior linebacker Ben Rozzell, who was forced from the lineup for disciplinary reasons. He will return to action this week.

“We had a lot of obstacles that occurred on Friday, with us having to suspend Benny, that was big, emotionally, because he was the heart and soul of our defense,” Long said. “I truly, truly believe, if we have Benny, that’s not a game. There are at least a good plays that occurred because we didn’t have Benny in there and that is a huge difference.”

But as good as Rozzell is, how does one player make the difference between a defense so stout and one so porous as the unit we saw Friday night?

“I think not everyone was ready to play on defense because we didn’t have Benny,” senior defensive end Shawn Newsome said. “Everybody was thinking about how we’re going to fit in Drew (Edmonds, Rozzell’s replacement) and help him out. Everyone was trying to help him out, we weren’t focused on playing defense like we usually do.”

Rozzell’s fellow linebacker, Caleb Wood said the Little Giant defenders entered the game overconfident.

“We thought we were better than we were. We came out flat, realized we were playing horrible, picked it up at the end of the fourth quarter,” Wood said. “A lot of over-confidence and we were missing Ben. We started Drew Edmonds there for the first time ever, and for his first time there he did a great job, but it affected us a lot.”

So does Long still believe the best defense in the TRAC wears purple and white?

“I’m having second thoughts based on Friday night, to be honest with you,” Long said. “Every great defense never gives up points like that. These guys got to regroup and they have to prove it all over again.”

Will Ross’ offense continue what it started?

Friday night the Little Giants showcased what had only been teased in flashes thus far: A proficient, high-octane, yet balanced, attack.

In Weeks 1-3, Ross averaged 275 yards of offense, but that was buoyed by a handful on long, scoring plays. Much of Ross’ offense had been plagued by mistakes and wasted opportunities.

That changed against Findlay. Ross rolled quarterback Hayden Lehmann out of the pocket, where he used his athleticism to extend plays. Lehmann did a better job controlling his mechanics, which helped him accurately target his receivers, who ran smart routes and escaped coverage as Lehmann extended the play.

“With what Findlay was doing and the way they were lining up, we had on-on-one matchups with Roger Burling,” Long said. “Then they started doubling Roger, so Hayden starts going to Noah (Hotz), they started doubling Noah, then it went to Jags (Devyn Jagodzinksi).

“Hayden is getting in that comfort zone where he’s not just looking at Roger. He’s finding other people.”

Lehmann set a pair of single-game school records Friday night with 428 passing yards and six touchdowns.

While he would have preferred to win the game, Lehmann admitted putting his name into the record book for a program that started playing in 1895 was a good feeling – even if he didn’t realize how well he was doing at the time.

“When I first heard it, I didn’t realize I threw for that much (yardage) or that many touchdowns,” Lehmann said. “I wasn’t paying attention to any of that during the game. But none of that would have happened if the receives didn’t get to the right places to let me make the throws.”

With St. John’s looming, Lehmann believes the offense will pick up where it left off last week.’

“I hope to have this offense be consistent with how we play every week,” Lehmann said. “I wish we could have started playing like this earlier in the season because we could easily be 4-0 right now.”