Perham Faces Tough Road Test in Week 6

(by Travis Aune MN Sports Unlimited Founder)

The Perham Yellow Jackets have a big Midwest Red Conference matchup as they travel to Grand Forks to take on the East Grand Forks Green Wave this Friday night at 7pm.  This is a big game for both teams as it is also a Class 8 AAA matchup that will have heavy repercussions on the final standings.

How did we get here?

The Perham Yellow Jackets come into this game with a 4-1 record including 3-1 in the conference.  The Yellow Jackets are coming off their first loss of the season last Friday to Fergus Falls by a score of 35-20.  The Green Wave are coming off a big win against Thief River Falls 13-6 to improve their record to 2-3 including 2-1 in the conference.  Perham is ranked 9^th in the latest QRF rankings and battling to be the number one seed in the section.  East Grand Forks is ranked 34^th in the latest QRF rankings.  Perham is 2-0 on the road while EGF is 1-1 at home.  Now to get to the meat and bones of this conference and section battle.

How are they 4-1?

The Jackets are led on offense by quarterback Jensen Beachy who leads this passing offense.  Ty Moser leads a balanced rushing attack for the Jackets to go along with Jace Kovash and Zack Peterson.  This is a high powered offense and led in receiving by Martin Lafond, Ty Moser, and Dawson Honer.  While this is very much a pass first offense, they run just enough to keep defenses on their heels.  The Jacket are averaging just over 30 points per game so far this year.  Coach Knutson does a great job of keeping a balanced offense and using the weapons that he has at his disposal to make the most of every opportunity.  This is a very good offensive team and that is the main reason they are 4-1.  They are also a very good defensive team giving up 18.8 points per game which is good enough to win with the offense that they have.  After starting off 4-0 they ran into a buzzsaw in Fergus Falls in the 2^nd half in which they were outscored 28-0. 

Where do we go from here?

I had the opportunity to ask coach Knutson some questions about how they are going to rebound from the bad 2^nd half against the Otters.  Going into last Friday the Jackets had all the momentum so I asked coach Knutson how they will rebound.  “We’ve cleaned a lot of stuff up since that loss.  Our kids have been re-focused this week are moving forward week by week.” That was a great response because every year you go through adversity and I liked how he is not going to change the way they do things, but instead make changes as necessary.  I then asked him what the Jackets need to do to come home with a win and he replied, “Defensively we need to contain the run game.  They have size and their backs run hard.  Offensively we need to play error free and execute our assignments.”  This is going to be a defensive game as the Jackets should be able to score at will against the Green Wave, but you need to hold them down.  I took this as a challenge to the defensive players to improve from last week.

What do the Jackets need to do on offense and defense to win?

Going into a hostile environment I was curious what they need to do on offense and defense to come back with a win.  Coach Knutson said about the offense, “Offensively we need to play disciplined.  Each play needs to be executed well to the smallest detail and we will need to stay on our blocks.”  Last week there were some mistakes on offense including a few uncharacteristic penalties and mistakes.  He is determined to not let them make those types of mistakes going forward.  The offense is the least of the issues for the Jackets so I asked him what the defense needs to do and he replied, “Defensively we need to play physical and aggressively up front.  Our backfield needs to make good reads and play hard to the ball.”  The defensive performance everyone would agree in the 2^nd half last week was not good enough. 

Outcome

After talking to coach Knutson there is no doubt in my mind that he will have the men ready and will show how explosive they are on offense.  They will be better defensively, but the biggest thing is I think they will play mistake free football.  The Jackets are the better team they just need to play mistake free football.

Final Score

Perham 42-East Grand Forks 20