Clinton-Massie brings unique offense to state semi-final game
CLARKSVILLE, Ohio – John Glenn head coach Matt Edwards jokingly called Clinton-Massies’ offense a pre-forward pass offense. He’s not that far off. But it certainly works for the Falcons.
John Glenn will play Clinton-Massie this Friday in the DIII state semi-final at Hilliard Darby. And you couldn’t have two more different offenses going against one another. John Glenn was the only MVL team to top 2,000 passing yard during the regular season. Clinton-Massie only averages about 2.5 passing attempts per game.
But it’s an offense that has been extremely effective for the 12-1 Falcons. Under 21st year head coach Dan McSurley they’ve made the playoffs 16 consecutive seasons. That includes picking up state titles in 2012 and 2013.
“We’re a fullback based offense. We are going to try to establish our fullback and we’re going to try to make teams take our fullback away. It’s a little similar to the academies like Army. We had a kid named Bayle Wolf who came through our program and he plays for Army. We’re real similar to Navy and Paul Johnson’s Georgia Tech,” said McSurley.
The Clinton-Massie running game averages 318 yards per game and has tailed a staggering 57 rushing touchdowns. In the rare times that the Falcons do pass, they usually have success. They’ve completed 19 passes on the season – 10 of them ending up in the endzone.
All ten receiving scores have gone to Luke Richardson who has averages 38 yards per reception.
“[Passing] is pretty easy when you have a kid like Luke Richardson who is one of the fastest kids in the state of Ohio. There’s going to be guys who have to come up to stop the run. When you do that you leave Luke free and we have a quarterback (Corey Stulz) that can throw the ball pretty good. If he was at a lot of schools he’d probably run the spread and be throwing it around a little bit,” said McSurley.
Friday’s game between the Little-Muskies and John Glenn will air on Z92 Radio. Kickoff from Hilliard Darby High School is at 7:30 p.m.
