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August 18, 2016
A preview of the upcoming Old Forge football season by Dave Lauriha
TRIBORO BANNER WRITER
This season is shaping up to be a little unusual for Old Forge football coach Mike Schuback. He even used a word that is a much better match with Halloween instead of a football field — weird — but the veteran coach made it all seem possible. Things may be a little different, with different wordage, but expectations remain the same. When he was asked a question at the Lackawanna Football Conference’s Media Day held earlier this month at the Regal Room in Olyphant, Schuback unleashed that word, talking about the side of the ball where the Blue Devils are stronger at the start of the season. “The defensive side, which is a little weird,” Schuback said. “We lose three out of four secondary starters, but we get four or five of our front seven back.” The pattern is the same on offense, where the list of skill-position players is filled with untested players while the offensive and defensive line players are in the good hands of veteran players. “Offensively, we are solid from tight end to tight end but we are replacing the quarterback, fullback and the wide receivers, so it’s a catch-22,” Schuback said. This year’s difference between the recent norm and the weird situation Schuback sees the Blue Devils going through involves the youngest group on the team. “I’ve said this before, we’re excited about the 10th-grade class coming in, and in a small-school district, the tenth-graders have to play,” Schuback said. “They don’t come in just to stand on the sidelines. “This group; we have only six or
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Old Forge High School football coach Mike Schuback speaks with players on the first day of training camp last year.
TIMES-TRIBUNE FILE PHOTO
seven seniors; so this is going to be a junior- and sophomore-laden team.” Offensively, there doesn’t appear to be a clear-cut 1,000-yard back to take pressure off an inexperienced quarterback. But Schuback’s deep belief in the sophomore group is setting a nice precedent. “I like this sophomore class. We brought in two freshmen to join them. It’s a nice group, very athletic, tough, hard-working kids,” Schuback said. “We’re hoping to build off that, because they’re going to play. We have three sophomores who may be starting, and a freshman quarterback who is only going to get better “It (the pressure to win) is on a varsity defense, especially with the way we play defense.” Those starters back for Old Forge include senior two-way linemen Trevor Brown and Dylan Wilcox, who combine to weigh 600 pounds,
and three juniors in defensive lineman King Shakim-Rose and linebackers Brendan Mozeleski and Ian Hook. Paul Cariati, a senior who played some quarterback last year as well as a defensive back, returns at wide receiver, while Mozeleski will play some running back. “This year is going to be a challenging season, to stay healthy, and definitely, definitely, never overlook anything and take one game at a time,” Schuback said. That’s not a weird concept; it’s just a deadsolid approach for a program that has made deep state playoff runs in two of the last three years. Of late, Schuback’s teams have relied on a powerful senior class, but he is looking forward to the challenges the young group may offer. (Next week, a look at the prospects for Riverside High School.) 1313 Wyoming Ave., Exeter
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