Each Week following Spartanburg Viking Football games, I’m going to take a couple of days and think about the 3 most important things I saw on the field. Some good, some great, some not so good. I’ll try to break through what mattered, and what not to overreact to. So here’s 3 things from Week 7’s 26-20 OT loss to Gaffney.
1-Spartanburg is right there at the top. It’s never good to overreact to one of anything. The Dutch Fork game showed that Spartanburg is right there as one of the best teams in the state. But, if wisely, you wanted to see again, taking Gaffney to Overtime on the road, without one of your top 2 best players and true difference maker in Keke, your leading tackler in Cam Smith and 3 other starters, the Vikings were up 5 with the ball at the Gaffney 11 with 5 minutes to go. Give the Indians a ton of credit, they made big plays, but a key after the play penalty changed the direction of the game (not a bad call) and the Vikings found themselves on the wrong side of an OT loss. Gaffney is one of the best teams in the state as they are nowhere close to who they were at the start of the season and their top player has just returned. Following what we saw in the Upper State Title run last year, and the incredible close games against Dutch Fork and Gaffney, the Vikings are right on the door step – a long way away from 2019.
2-The Vikings had some breakdown in coverage on 3 plays this past week, something that hasn’t happened a lot this season. They’ll need to clean that up going forward, but the Run Defense for Spartanburg was excellent once again. Gaffney only ran for 88 yards on 30 carries and once again because the Vikings don’t commit much extra help to stop the run, they forced 2 more INTs this week. Incredible job once again by the Viking Defense.
3-Penalties. Penalties. Penalties. If the Vikings can clean these self made penalties up – the jumping offsides, after the play personal fouls, the unnecessary holdings, the Vikings are going to go a long long way.
