Kerstetter doesn’t sugar-coat what happened to Taft
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
It was the first time I had ever met face-to-face with Taft Coach Matt Kerstetter, shown in the photo, so I didn’t want to come on too strong when I asked my first question about Birmingham’s 50-7 Championship Division quarterfinal victory over his boys.
I really wanted to tell him, ‘Man, you guys got worked,’ but I held it in. Instead, I used my sympathetic reporter-to-football-coach-whose-season-just-ended tone of voice and said, ‘So, coach I know you guys put in the effort, but in the end, you fell short against a really good team...’
Kerstetter interrupted: ‘Fell short? We didn’t fall short. We got destroyed. There’s no other way to look at it. Like you said, they’re a good team and the best we’ve played all season. But they were even more impressive tonight then they were two weeks ago.’
Kerstetter’s biggest head-shaker centered on the Toreadors’ total inability to get anything going on offense. They finished with negative-23 total yards of offense, much to the chagrin of QB Bam Goodall, who got ‘bammed’ behind the offensive line at least five or six times. Brothers Malik and Marquis Jackson coupled with LB T.J. Rosas spearheaded the rushing effort for Birmigham’s defense.
‘They just dominated the line of scrimmage and their defensive line was five yards deep in our backfield on everything,’ Kerstetter said. ‘So, it made life real difficult for our skilled guys and made it tough for our defense because we went three and out so many times.’
The good news for Taft is it’ll have at least six returning starters next season, but this is the kind of game players will always have a hard time forgetting. It’s a game that will remain as a painful memory for a while before it morphs into motivation.
-- Austin Knoblauch
