The Versailles football team has come full circle.
Gone is the ground-hugging Wing-T of legendary coach Al Hetrick; instead, the spread offense of first-year coach Bob Olwin is now playing at “The Hole” in Versailles.
St. John’s puts its unbeaten mark on the line (4-0, 2-0 Midwest Athletic Conference) and No. 3 ranking (Division VI) against the Tigers (1-3, 0-2) at Versailles.
“It’s definitely different; it’s not the traditional Versailles look. They aren’t going to strap it up and just power at you,” St. John’s coach Todd Schulte began. “Coach (Bob) Olwin ran the spread for years at Fairview with a lot of success. They like to throw downfield and mix in move-the-chains passes. They have good team speed and quickness to make up for their lack of size.
“Jon Richard is a strong, heady kid (6-3, 195) at quarterback and he has made good decisions; he hasn’t thrown a lot of interceptions. They have a couple of good receivers in Tyler Bey and Jon Murphy and their line has done a nice job in pass protection.”
The Jays counter with a defense yielding 12.5 markers, 141.8 yards rushing and 99 passing per. Leaders of the pack include Chris Pohlman (21 solos, 23 assists), A.J. Klausing (21 and 11), Joel Pohlman (17 and 12), Tyler Hayson (8 and 13), Tyler Bergfeld (14 and 7) and Bryan Cross (7 and 13).
“Defensively, they attack the football,” Schulte continued. “They want to get upfield and cause problems in your backfield; again, they aren’t very big. They are very similar to what we faced in New Bremen, so that‘s good preparation.”
Offensively, Evan Burgei (51 rushes, 351 yards, 4 scores), Wes Ulm (34 rushes, 201 yards, 3 TDs; 23-of-55 passing, 421 yards, 6 scores, 3 picks), Jay Leininger (6 grabs, 170 yards, 2 tallies - questionable with an ankle sprain), Adam Warnecke (6 for 66), Brad Hoffman (4 for 104, 2) and Jay Clark (4 for 40) are the standard-bearers for a unit averaging 32.3 points, 206.5 yards rushing and 105.3 passing per outing. Joey Grubenhoff and Alex Recker have six pancake blocks each up front.
“Defensively, we have to get pressure on the quarterback. We’ve been pretty opportunistic all season in all three phases,” he said. “Our special teams have either pinned offenses deep or set our offense up well. Our defense has forced turnovers or kept teams bottled up and we’ve had short fields for our offense.”
That happened in last Friday’s 47-16 dismantling of New Bremen.
“Jay set us up with a short field with a great kickoff return and we scored. Our defense forced a 3-and-out; we blocked a punt shortly after that,” he concluded. “Those good starts we’ve had in all four games seem to relax us. We seem to take advantage of what opportunities present themselves.”
Coming off a 42-7 loss to St. Henry, the Tigers have been slow to pick up Olwin’s schemes.
“We’ve got about 35 percent understanding of our offense. It has been a slow process for these kids to pick up; it hasn’t come as quickly as I had hoped,” Olwin noted. “Defensively, we’re much farther ahead; I’d say it’s at 80 percent for our run defense and 50 percent for our pass defense.
“Special teams have been very good at times — we’ve had a punt return for a score and a couple of long ones. Overall, we’re just not quite where I hoped we would be.”
Bright spots for Olwin — more consistent players — include Richard, defensive end Brandon Pierron and inside linebackers Zach Miller and Jordan Monnin.
“St. John’s seems like they are the same as they always were, just younger this year. Ulm is a very shifty kid at quarterback; Hoffman and Warnecke are nice receivers,” Olwin added. “They have a young, aggressive defense. This is a team that is becoming more confident every game.
“We can only do the things we can do. We have to continue to work and focus on the fundamentals. We spend a lot of time on individual work more than the team during practice. I would like to see us play with a greater sense of urgency, too.”