FORT MADISON – Head Coach Derek Doherty said starting the football season 0-1 for the first time in his six-year history leading the program shouldn’t bother him anymore than any other loss.
“But it does. It doesn’t feel good. It hasn’t helped my sleep at night,” Doherty said.
“We don’t control that, we control our attitude, our effort, and our toughness. But I don’t like it.”
The 35-7 loss to Burlington last Friday in Fort Madison was the first time the Bloodhounds had dropped a season-opener since 2016 under then-head coach Andy Mitchell.
“We had some realizations on Monday. We didn’t hold anything back and they didn’t hold anything back. We had an open floor discussion. Sometimes you have to get burned by fire to realize how hot it is. I hope we learned our lesson,” Doherty said.
“We were not us on Friday. That’s not the brand of football we play and it showed.”
Doherty said the coaching staff has made some adjustments and has moved some players around while challenging others.
The Bloodhounds managed 266 yards of total offense against the Grayhounds, but 147 were on the ground on scrambles and keepers from senior quarterback Marcus Guzman. He threw for another 88 accounting for 235 of the 266 yards.
The Hounds travel to Fairfield Friday night to take on the 0-1 Trojans. Fairfield lost in overtime last week to Mt. Pleasant 13-12 in a game that saw the Panthers snap a 23-game losing streak that started three years ago.
The Trojans bring in a squad similar to Fort Madison in experience with two sophomores leading the way on offense. Voss Richardson and Zandrick Allison accounted for most of the offense in the low-scoring affair last week.
Richardson threw for 66 yards on 5-12 passing, and Allison had 61 yards on 15 carries including both of Fairfield’s touchdowns.
Doherty said the Trojans are an historical football program and they will continue to improve and grow. He said every game this year will be a dogfight for the Hounds.
“Those are two teams that are physical and they battle and you’ll always get that out of a team like Fairfield. There’s a lot of pride in that program and, even when they’re quote-unquote down, they are going to fight. Our guys may not like to hear it, but we’re not good enough to just show up and beat people,” Doherty said.
“It’s just where we’re at. Accept that and build on it, or pout about it and get burned again. Coach (Ryan) Smith’s famous for saying there’s no do overs. We brought that up again last night. I would love to get another shot at Burlington this year, but that’s not how this works.”
Doherty said he wasn’t disappointed with the score last week, but the fact that Fort Madison left BHS on the field too many times when they had them stopped on third down.
“We’re not disappointed because of a scoreboard. We’re disappointed because we know we are capable of more. And that’s them owning it, saying my effort wasn’t where it needed to be, my attitude wasn’t where it needed to be, and my toughness wasn’t where it needed to be,” he said.
“That’s all we’re ever going to ask of our guys, year in and year out. There’s been times we’ve won games and I haven’t been happy with the product on the field. Consistency in attitude, effort and toughness are what we will ask for.”
Fort Madison got a strong effort out of Aaron Warner on defense last week. The 5’8 230 lb. lineman racked up nine tackles to lead the Bloodhounds. Gavin Callahan had 6.5 tackles and a 74-yard pick six that was nullified by a couple penalties.
Doherty said Fort Madison suffered many penalties on action that was completely away from the play.
“That speaks to our youth and we’re gonna clean that up. We’re gonna fix this because it means something to us.”
Fort Madison’s non-district game kicks off at 7:30 p.m. at Fairfield High School.
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