Home / Sports

For a squad that was 1-7 and playing merely for pride Friday night, one had to admire the resilience of Muscatine’s football team in the second half.

Trailing by 15 points to Pleasant Valley at halftime in crummy conditions, the Muskies could have simply gone through the motions, bussed home and called it a season.

Instead, they pieced together arguably their best half of football this season in the last 24 minutes to stun the Spartans, 22-21.

While it was a victory to savor, particularly for the seniors, a two-win season and tie for eighth in the Mississippi Athletic Conference is no cause for celebration.

As the Muskies head into the offseason, what needs to happen for this program to make a quantum leap next year in the MAC standings?

When I posed that question to head coach Tony Napierala last week, he cut to the chase.

“We need to change our work ethic towards the weight room and the amount of effort it takes,” he said. “We’ve got to make ourselves better athletes through that. We’ve got to put in the time, and we can’t take days off in there.

“You don’t get stronger by osmosis. You’ve got to put weight on the bar and you’ve got to show up every day you’re in there and make a pointed effort to get better. We’ve got to make a commitment to that because our overall team speed and team strength is below average.”

Yes, inexperience, turnovers, bad luck and lack of consistency on both sides of the ball largely factored into Muscatine’s record, but nothing was more magnified than the team’s troubles up front.

The Muskies have to get bigger, stronger and faster on the offensive and defensive lines. Senior Ian Naber, who missed the last two games with an injury, was the only lineman to weigh more than 250 pounds.

The rest of the guys on the line ranged from 195 to 240.

By comparison, Bettendorf has seven linemen above 250 and conference champion Clinton has six.

I don’t discount the effort of those players in the trenches, but the Muskies had difficulty opening holes or sustaining any type of push.

Granted, Muscatine likes to spread the ball around, but you’ve got to average more than 2.5 yards per rush to have consistent success — especially for a team that averaged nearly 28 rushes a game.

Tanner Bohling was the team’s leading rusher for the season with just more than 250 yards. There are backs who compile that in one or two weeks.

In the two games this season Muscatine surpassed 100 yards on the ground, it blasted Davenport North and lost the other against Davenport West in overtime.

Defensively, the Muskies were near the bottom of the MAC in rush defense. While the second half against PV was encouraging, limiting the Spartans to 85 total yards, there were too many occasions this season where Muscatine was bullied up front.

With a solid offseason in the weight room, Muscatine can start to neutralize those disadvantages.

Turnovers were another critical part in the season. The Muskies had 19 interceptions, including five games with two or more.

After matching Bettendorf for three-plus quarters in week two, Muscatine turned it over twice in the fourth quarter and lost 40-19. The next week, it had five turnovers in a 31-0 loss to Davenport Assumption.

“We turned the ball over too much in there,” Napierala said. “When you do that, you put your defense in a tough situation. The Assumption game was the highlight of that.”

With the graduation of Nick Garretson, Paul Jindrich will probably get first crack as the team’s starting quarterback next fall.

If anything, this season should have served as a good learning experience for Jindrich, who threw for 642 yards and completed nearly 50 percent of his passes but offset that with 14 picks.

There are reasons for optimism in 2010.

TJ Husar, Jeff Failor, Jared Hetzler, Tanner Bohling and Griffen Gaeta return at the skilled positions. Failor, Hetzler and Gaeta are all tall, athletic targets at receiver.

Hetzler showed his capabilities with seven second-half receptions for 106 yards against PV.

Isaac Ales is back to anchor the defense up front, while offensive linemen Lucas Sears, Austin Barker, Andrew Rogalski and Marcel Warren are back.

Plus, Muscatine has several sophomores capable of contributing next season, Among them are Cortez Barfield, Brayden Woodburn and Earl Wooten.

To top it off, the freshman squad was 8-1 this fall and tied for the MAC crown.

So, there are brighter days ahead for the Muskies.

But for that potential to translate into wins, the weight room needs to become this program’s closest friend.

“We’ve got to keep getting after it in the weight room,” Ales said. “I know we’re going to miss the seniors, but we know (us juniors) have to start stepping up, be leaders and get this turned around.”