Sioux City East at full strength gave them the best game and they were a playoff 1st round winner with a ton of injuries from QB to Safety.. And even in that game they were not full strength after the 1st quarter with Nash going down early. My point being East was beat pretty bad by Valley twice at the end of the year but there were no where near full strength so they would have made those games a bit more interesting and would have been a better gauge to how Heelan matched up with the 4A Top teams. As good as Valley, Dowling, Xavier, IC West, Bett, Ames, and others were this year I still think heelan would have been on the outside looking in if they were in 4A this year when it came to getting to the dome. You never know obviously but i think the Elite 4A teams still beat heelan even with a year like they just had but it would be a tough match up for anybody. No one would have stopped Heelan really but im sure those Elite 4A teams would have moved the ball just fine against them and it would have been a shootout.
If Heelan was in in 4A this year.
- Thread starter badben44
- Start date
East wasn't at full strength...two of the starting WR were out and they lost Nash a play or two into the second quarter when he hyper extended his knee.
I'm not looking for an argument....Ive seen all three play
My guess is that on the west side of the state Heelan would be third or tied for third best. They don't beat Valley or Dowling and Waukee's only losses were to those two teams. All of those teams would be able to put great athletes on the field in the secondary that could match up with the Crusaders.
Watching Heelan Play Clear Lake and Washington....they didnt have the ability or the coaching to defend the pass. My guess is that both defenses were "drop spot" defenses. Meaning that...as an example....when the secondary sees pass they drop to a spot regardless if they are threatened or not.
Valley, Dowling, and the elites are well versed at reading the route progression and defending tendencies.
The game I would have paid a lot of money for is Ames vs. Heelan.....it would be fun.
I'm not looking for an argument....Ive seen all three play
My guess is that on the west side of the state Heelan would be third or tied for third best. They don't beat Valley or Dowling and Waukee's only losses were to those two teams. All of those teams would be able to put great athletes on the field in the secondary that could match up with the Crusaders.
Watching Heelan Play Clear Lake and Washington....they didnt have the ability or the coaching to defend the pass. My guess is that both defenses were "drop spot" defenses. Meaning that...as an example....when the secondary sees pass they drop to a spot regardless if they are threatened or not.
Valley, Dowling, and the elites are well versed at reading the route progression and defending tendencies.
The game I would have paid a lot of money for is Ames vs. Heelan.....it would be fun.
Heelan's QB & receivers were among the best in the state in any class, and they would be a handful for any defense. The only real disadvantage I see them having against the 4A elite--and I do mean only Dowling, Xavier, and possibly Valley--is that they didn't have a lot of depth in the lines this year. The ones they played were very good; there just wasn't enough of them, which would come into play against a team that has big, physical linemen who go mostly one-way. If they'd had just 3-4 more decent-sized kids there--like they often do--that would make all the difference.
The SC East game was interesting. East did lose a player or two during that game, but they were closer to full strength then than they were at any time during the remainder of the season. And Heelan had a pretty ho-hum game themselves. As the season progressed, they were playing at a much higher level than in that first game. That was certainly true in the playoffs.
The SC East game was interesting. East did lose a player or two during that game, but they were closer to full strength then than they were at any time during the remainder of the season. And Heelan had a pretty ho-hum game themselves. As the season progressed, they were playing at a much higher level than in that first game. That was certainly true in the playoffs.
my thoughts were that heelan got better as the year went along, ..i do agree some of the better 4a teams , like dowling , would have caused heelan problems...i watched dowling, they have a defensive end that is a stud.from what i saw , he would have been in heelans backfield causing soma problems..also. dowling probably has some defensive backs that could have done better than washington.....then again, after watching heelan, you sometimes think they could play with dowling...one will never know until heelan goes 4a again, but it would have been fun to see them in 4a this year
This post was edited on 11/22 1:46 PM by ronsss
This post was edited on 11/22 1:46 PM by ronsss
I can't see Heelan scoring more that 14 against Xavier's Defense. Watching them last night I do think they have the best passing attack in the state. Any class. But in 4A you have to protect and run the ball and that would be the problem. Plus too many kids go both ways.
Xavier looses a lot this next year but perhaps we will see how these 2 match up in the 3A final in the years to come.
Xavier looses a lot this next year but perhaps we will see how these 2 match up in the 3A final in the years to come.
I agree and that is what im trying to say is that east got handled pretty good by valley but if they would not have had some many injurys to their studs how different would those bad losses at the end of the year been different? Heelan got their best for about a quarter when Nash went down. Nash was most likely the best player they saw all year and he only played that small amount of time... East was down those other guys too and pretty much ran with qb the rest of the game... Heelan was playing some new guys on the line and with a healthy Nash that game could have been a loss. Solsm had like 375 that game so he was not too impressed but if there was a game that they could have lost this year it was that one... Candy from a baby the rest of the year...
After watching both the 3A and the 4A games, I would like to see a Heelan vs Dowling game with this years teams.
I'm to lazy to look but did Heelan even have a D1 athletic on that team last year.
They where a very good TEAM I do know that.
It appears to me that 3a was down some what.
They where a very good TEAM I do know that.
It appears to me that 3a was down some what.
I honestly can't remember that team very well. Was it that the TEAM was so much better, or was it that last year's Heelan didn't have a guy like Wegher? Wegher was a special back who could almost single-handedly take over a game in 3A, which you don't see very often (the only other guys I've seen capable of that, in any class, while playing against elite teams were Jason Scales, Nate Meier and Levi Ferguson).
Heelan definitely didn't have a guy like that last year, but I'm not sure if that means the team was worse than 2008's. All they had to do in 2008 was give the ball to Wegher.
The '13 team certainly spread it around to a lot more people than the '08 team did. They were just different. The '13 team was more finesse-oriented and preferred not to get into push & shove matches with opponents. The state title game was an illustration of that. The '08 team was more physically hard-nosed--more typical of Heelan teams--and could impose itself on opponents. They were really just a great all-around team. Just about every position seemed to have a great athlete. A lot of casual observers thought that they were all Wegher, but people who really watched them believed that they would have won the 3A title even without him. It wouldn't have been as much of a slam-dunk, but they likely would have.
Similar threads
Latest posts
-
-
-
-
The “WE’RE NUMBER ONE” lounge is temporarily closed for remodeling…..
- Latest: HONKifUvCOACHED4BAMA
-
