Gans looks to challenge Midway Friday

Gans looks to use its new spread offense to challenge Midway Friday night when the Grizzlies host the Chargers in a non-district game at 7 p.m.

The Class B Chargers (2-1) have made it to the playoffs the past four years, and the state quarterfinals the past two years. Although Midway graduated its entire backfield and most of its defensive starters from a year ago, that doesn‚t mean they‚re not still dangerous.

Gans head coach Brian Morton continues the process of tuning the Grizzlies‚ new spread offense that made its debut at last Friday‚s game. His charges showed promise with just one week of practice, so Morton believes another week will produce even better results.

“When we went spread, we went to a true no-back,” Morton said. “Now I‚m not going to say that our passing game has improved, but we got people in their positions to make plays.”

Big changes like this are fluid, and will take time before they are fully realized.

Morton plans to adjust the new offense by adding a running back, believing that will give the Grizzlies more offensive options to advance the football.

“I feel like this week we can counter that and, instead of trying to run power [plays] at ’em, we‚ll keep the field spread with a little more one-back. I think that‚s going to open up some more opportunities.”

The Grizzlies (0-3) will need to give the Chargers their due, since they‚re facing newly minted sophomore quarterback Gervon Washington, the younger brother of justgraduated, four-year starter Geral Washington.

Not only is Washington taking snaps this season behind a formidable offensive line, he‚s also the Chargers‚ leading returning tackler with 47 stops and four sacks from last year at linebacker.

This week the Grizzles are going to have a lot on their plate, from fundamentals to special teams there‚s no shortage of opportunities for this young squad to improve.

“We tried to throw in a complete spread offense in one week, so they‚ll be a little more comfortable with it,” Morton said. “There were still some questions on the field when we were making our adjustments, but we‚re hoping to get those knocked out.”

Morton plans to build on accomplishments from their last outing, which has created a fire in the Grizzlies‚ bellies that only the taste of success can properly fuel.