D3 R12 Semifinal Jackson 7 vs. Jonathan Alder 28 Final Score

[pappy1]

In no way is the following statement meant to belittle JA.

JA would not have went undefeated in the SEOAL this year.

[bman]

Alder would have steamrolled everyone in the SEOAL. Alder just beat the SEOAL champions by three touchdowns. Some of the posts on here are ridiculous.

[C-Bolt]

Pappy you must have taken too much of your medication,are you serious???? Jackson was by far the best team this year nobody even close in the league,,,had they been SEO just a lot more ugly games this league is down right now

[Keyser_sozeThrice]

If Shawnee beats Alder next week, all I have to say to trip4 is karma is a !@#$%^^&*

Ah hell, I doubt he even shows up if Alder loses.

[FridayNightLights]

First good game Ironmen nothing to be down you went 11-1. The lack of post season experience showed tonight as i though you tried too hard and it resulted in mistakes.

Alder stayed true to form all night. We forced turn overs. Every post said that this was uncharacterisctic of Jackson, We forced them. We capilized on them early with a couple of quick hitting plays. We were up 21-0 so we played a bit more conservative as we didnt want to make mistakes. If in a dogfight we would have opened up the offense ...we didnt run much to the outside. We didnt run our QB more than a couple time because WE DIDNT NEED TO and we didnt want to get him hurt. You didnt even see the option and our RB had some decent runs against you.

Defensively you and other teams had some luck moving the ball. Great job but WE DIDNT LET YOU BREAK THE BIG ONE. Bend but dont break. We did come up big on some short down situations. Ervin is a great RB but he want able to break it tonight... he was one tackle away from breaking it multiple times tonight but AS A TEAM we made those tackles.

I am not taking away anything from Jackon they are great team and have a promising future. Could this game have been closer...yes. But the same thing is that had it been closer you would have seen a more balance Alder offense. More QB keepers, more passing, more hitting the outside, and Wrightsel would have been in on offense... But again we didnt need to go there.

Ironfans you need to accept what is done and look foward. Lets not try to turn this game into something that it wasnt.

[pitt87fan]

First I wasn't at the game, don't care about either team.

Turnovers are a big part of the game. I saw a Warren team move the ball on Jackson easily except for turnovers and special teams mistakes Warren could/should of won that game the way most of you are thinking. Jackson won that night and Alder won last night. Simple the only stat that matters is the score.

[noreply66]

First I wasn't at the game, don't care about either team.

Turnovers are a big part of the game. I saw a Warren team move the ball on Jackson easily except for turnovers and special teams mistakes Warren could/should of won that game the way most of you are thinking. Jackson won that night and Alder won last night. Simple the only stat that matters is the score.

No kidding---did someone help you come up with that

[pitt87fan]

First I wasn't at the game, don't care about either team.

Turnovers are a big part of the game. I saw a Warren team move the ball on Jackson easily except for turnovers and special teams mistakes Warren could/should of won that game the way most of you are thinking. Jackson won that night and Alder won last night. Simple the only stat that matters is the score.

No kidding---did someone help you come up with that

No. I was not educated in the Logan School System so I am able to think for myself.

[ironman02]

First good game Ironmen nothing to be down you went 11-1. The lack of post season experience showed tonight as i though you tried too hard and it resulted in mistakes.

Alder stayed true to form all night. We forced turn overs. Every post said that this was uncharacterisctic of Jackson, We forced them. We capilized on them early with a couple of quick hitting plays. We were up 21-0 so we played a bit more conservative as we didnt want to make mistakes. If in a dogfight we would have opened up the offense ...we didnt run much to the outside. We didnt run our QB more than a couple time because WE DIDNT NEED TO and we didnt want to get him hurt. You didnt even see the option and our RB had some decent runs against you.

Defensively you and other teams had some luck moving the ball. Great job but WE DIDNT LET YOU BREAK THE BIG ONE. Bend but dont break. We did come up big on some short down situations. Ervin is a great RB but he want able to break it tonight... he was one tackle away from breaking it multiple times tonight but AS A TEAM we made those tackles.

I am not taking away anything from Jackon they are great team and have a promising future. Could this game have been closer...yes. But the same thing is that had it been closer you would have seen a more balance Alder offense. More QB keepers, more passing, more hitting the outside, and Wrightsel would have been in on offense... But again we didnt need to go there.

Ironfans you need to accept what is done and look foward. Lets not try to turn this game into something that it wasnt.

Alder certainly deserves credit for capitalizing on the turnovers, but I think only one of those mistakes was truly forced. The fumble on Jackson's first possession where the Alder defender punched it out from behind was a very nice play, and then returning it all the way down to Jackson's six yard line was also very impressive. The muffed punt, several bad snaps in the shotgun, and the offsides penalties are what I was referring to as "uncharacteristic" mistakes. By saying that, I'm not trying to discredit Alder at all. I'm simply saying that as a Jackson fan, those are mistakes that our football team hasn't made. I said it last night, and you hit the nail on the head too...I honestly think the Ironmen were just trying too hard to play a perfect game because they knew that Alder was a great football team.

You also make another great point. Jackson had two 16 play drives and one 17 play drive, grinding it out on the ground. However, the Alder defense did a great job of "bend but don't break". They only gave up a TD on one of those three drives, and obviously only one TD the entire game. They didn't allow Ervin or Osborne to break the big play that Jackson has benefitted from all season. Because of that, small mistakes (like bad snaps and illegal procedure penalties) helped to kill drives and Jackson couldn't stick it in the endzone against the stout Alder D.

I think the Jackson fans are simply disappointed for the same reason that I'm sure our team is disappointed. There were opportunities there to make this a great football game, but it just didn't happen that way. Alder didn't make mistakes, they capitalized on ours, and that's how great teams win playoff games. Again, Alder deserves complete credit for getting the job done. No doubt about it.

I just feel bad for our kids, and especially the seniors. The reality of playoff football is that the season only ends with a win for six teams in the entire state. Despite that, it's an honor to compete for a state championship against quality teams like the one Jackson played last night. It's a tough pill to swallow, but this season was a dream come true in many different ways.

[FridayNightLights]

as i said it was a great game and Jackson is definately a good team. I think they played with class.

Final stats were like 260 yrds and 17 first downs for Jackson and 228 yards and 11 first downs for alder. So not really too lopsided.

Second guessing your coach on one of those drives - what was he thinking with 2 screen plays when you were sucessfully pounding it up the center. If your at the 30 you take a shot at the corner of the endzone... nice safe pass with little chance for interception. 2 screen passes in a row are not going to work. I think that they must have seen something in a film that thought they were going to get away with something.

Also Jackson wasted the WHOLE 3rd quarter on a stalled drive. I get wanting us to get the ball and a grind off the clock and we make a few mistakes and put us in 1 or 2nd and long and we stalled and were forced to punt. I think that Jackson should have been trying to score quicker and yes you had great sucess running but you needed to pass to keep our DBs honest. I really think the reason you didnt break one was that our DBs were cheating the box.

Fourth quarter you were forced to pass but they were very safe passes but you didnt stop the clock. No sense of urgency.

Again great season Jackson i hope to see us match up again down the road sometime.

[tl895]

In no way is the following statement meant to belittle JA.

JA would not have went undefeated in the SEOAL this year.

dumbest thing ive heard all morning they beat ironton and jackson 45-7 combined! who would beat them? logan

[GalliaGrad78]

Turnovers and penalties killed Jackson tonight, especially the muffed punt. I think that Jackson was starting to build some momentum before that point, and it was a game changer.
IMHO the game could have been closer if not for those things. I was impressed with Jackson's heart after falling behind early, they played with much intensity. I can't comment on what coulda/shoulda/woulda happened but I think it coulda been closer.

To Alder, I could not believe how many players were dressed and their size. If some of those were freshmen, you guys must be putting something in the water up there.

[FridayNightLights]

GalliaGrad78 no freshman starters for alder... but they have a VERY talented class. They will be a real threat in 3 more years. Nothing in our water. They are just corn-fed country boys.

[Tjhtygeverve]

It takes a turnover free game & some good weather &/or turf to keep up with Alder. This is not as good of a team as they fielded last year. It's my gut feeling I'm not afraid to throw out there. They have a much better chance in div3. As they went out early last year in a tougher region in division 4. They might have one more week to hang around as they will face undefeated Springfield Shawnee who took out Thurgood Marshall! So two undefeateds against one another again. Based on S.O.S, I'd give PCJA the regional championship unless Spring.Shawnee can provide some solid "D"
YOUNGSTOWN CARDINAL MOONEY TOOK w/3 tuff losses took out the always overrated Steubenville big reds. I'm not sure of regional set-ups for div3 state semis,but this is where PCJA will start to get friction. Again, my Gut feeling. I've watched each regions favorite &mine ALL year & the box scores & awesome game briefs/box-scores on Cleveland live sports page, & that's what I base my opinion on + 20 years of studying the regions before I moved to Orlando in 1997.
It's tough to play with these teams that are on the grow based on slight Urban Sprawl in PCJA's sitch.. As we all know, Seo Ohio teams are moving down in size while facing areas on the grow once into the final 16/8...
Jackson had a great season!!! Way to represent.
Sorry for a lil off topic, just my opinion as teams I support get eliminated I don't always invest as much time in studying each possible scenario of next match-up. (complete deciphering of everything you can do on computer & some sites I follow)!!!
Good luck PCJA.

[YOU'RE TIGER BAIT]

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE JACKSON IRONMEN, AND COACH ANDY ON AN AMAZING YEAR.

[trip4]

Trip4,

One more insult to a player, and your days of posting here are done!

umm..whom did I insult..

I was suprised the fans could spell JACKSON

[ironman02]

You have a personal message. Read it.

[bman]

Alder is a team that isn't going to beat itself. Last week against Logan Elm, they were outgained nearly 100 yards, but had no penalities and no turnovers. LE had five penalties, one of which kept an eventual touchdown scoring drive going for Alder, and LE also threw an interception inside the Alder 10 while they were going in for the game tying score.

Alder is a good, physical football team. They are beatable, but you can't shoot yourself in the foot repeatedly. LE did it last week and it sounds like Jackson had a major case of self-inflicted wounds this week. Obviously, it's a formula that works for Alder. We'll see what they do against Shawnee, which beat a pretty good Thurgood Marshall team last night.

[billcox]

It is always a shame to see a team diminish their chances of winning a big time game by committing penalties and turning the ball over. However, not making those critical mistakes in high pressure situations is a big part of what makes a great football team that can play on the state level. I'm not sure if the Ironmen simply played too tight while trying to play a perfect game, faltered under the pressure or struggled due to a lack of experience in these types of games. I don't view it simply as a combination of uncharacteristic mistakes by Jackson. There are reasons why kids who rarely if ever make mental mistakes go out and make a number of them.

I have heard many people say that they are not very impressed with Alder and I can understand why. Jonathan Alder is not a flashy football team. They don't wow you, they win ugly. They win because they are fundamentally sound and disciplined. That is the formula for winning football!

[bman]

^ I don't think they win ugly. They have a formula that works. Pound the football, wear down the other team with your offensive line and play clean football (few or no turnovers and penalties). I know folks are bringing up that they only rushed for these many yards, but part of that is do to scoring on short fields. Then, you are going to protect a lead. That's sound football. They've beat Marysville, Massie, Ironton, Logan Elm and now Jackson. Pretty impressive resume of wins.