Over 600 reasons to love the Bearcats

BY CHRIS OGRYSKI
EDITOR

Heading into Saturday’s Division 7 state final match-up with Traverse City St. Francis, Ubly has racked up 616 points in 13 games and nearly 5,500 yards of total offense. The 616 points put the Bearcats eighth all-time on the MHSAA’s list for points scored in a single season, with one game to go.
The question most people are asking is, “How is that possible for a team with such a thin playbook?”
“I get a kick out of it,” Ubly coach Bill Sweeney said after beating Reading 47-8 in the semifinals. “I used to hear a lot about running a fourth play from all the prognosticators. But 600 points on three plays isn’t bad for a year.”
Defensive coach Jim Becker added, “We don’t put in plays just to thicken our playbook. Bill believes in the Wing-T or the Full-T and we are going to run the Full-T.”
“We have a couple of wrinkles, but when it boils down to it, we are going to run the middle trap, we are going to run off tackle and we are going to run the quarterback.”
Scoring 600 points in a season is tough enough (it has only been done 10 times in MHSAA history); doing so with a base offense that consists of just a handful of plays, seems to defy logic.
But the numbers speak for themselves. Quarterback Jordan Kaufman has 1,596 rushing yards and 22 scores to go along with his 757 yards passing and 16 passes heading into the finals. When you add in Kaufman’s 81 yard TD return on a kickoff return in the semis, he has 39 total scores.
Kaufman believes the key to his success, as well as that of running backs Justin Cleary (1,113 yards rushing and 12 scores), Alex Peruski (819 yards and 13 TDs) and Mitch Cleary (over 670 yards rushing with 14 scores to go along with over 200 receiving yards and six TD catches), has been the play of the line.
“If you see it from my perspective, you come around that end and there are holes you can drive a truck through,” he explained. “(With blocking like that) you know you are going to score points.”
“As the fullback, I just read my blocks and the linemen pretty much do it all,” Justin Cleary contributed. “You can’t run anywhere without a great line (like this).”
Kaufman added, “Our line creates holes, we have good backs who will exploit defenses and with (Eric) LaBuhn and our guards pulling, the holes are there.”
A 6’5” and 315 pound tackle, LaBuhn anchors Ubly’s O-line, which includes Steven Gilbert who seems to be Kaufman’s personal pulling guard on many of his big gains this year. “(On those plays, I’m thinking) the first person I see, I’m going to hit them,” Gilbert said.
He added, “It feels good knowing you made that hole so they can run wherever they need to go.” LaBuhn credits Sweeney’s blocking schemes as the reason the line is able to dominate like they have all year. “The way coach has his offense set up, it is dummy proof. He just makes it so easy, just protect the inside seam and go,” he said.
“If anything I’ve learned in coaching is you have to keep it simple. If it gets too complicated, it will confuse them, and they’re just not going to perform,” Sweeney said.
Becker agreed. “If you can teach a kid to do something one or two ways and do it well, you can be successful,” he said.
He added that even when the coaches threw in some wrinkles, it never fundamentally changed what the team was doing (not even the blocking). “We ran some spread, but we don’t block the typical spread way, we block it like the Wing-T, so it is nothing new for our kids. We don’t make lots of (unnecessary) changes,” he said.
He went on to explain that while there is the perception that this team has a much different offense (a more wide open playbook) than in 2007, it is really the same basic offense run out of different formations. “What people see as big changes and as something different, when you really look at what we are doing, we are really doing the same thing,” Becker explained.
Sweeney added, “We’ve done our base stuff out of the T and it’s been extremely successful. We’ve made little tweaks to get Jordan loose.”“The real success is Bill has created a lot of wrinkles within his offense based on how he knows the offense in and out and as to how (he knows) the other teams will defend it,” said assistant coach Craig Jacobson.
“When you keep it simple, teams have to defend it a few different ways and based on how they are defending it, we can adjust. Bill has those wrinkles within the system,” Jacobson said.
Kaufman has his own theories about reality vs. perception in terms of the team’s offense. “I don’t think we made any changes at all (from last year),” he explained.
“We just really bore down after that Harbor Beach game. Most of the guys that didn’t play basketball were in the weight room every day in the winter and we started heavy football July 4,” he added. “We had over half of the team and the entire starting line there.”
Peruski said, “We all went up there during the summer and worked for hours; weightlifting and running plays out of the offense for 2-3 hours a day.”
Sweeney was impressed with the desire shown by this team in the off season. “That’s all you can do in athletics, is to ask the kids to get the most out of themselves and we have several that have done that,” he said.
“They start seeing the results of the weights, then they start buying into,” he added. “Then you get a special group like this, where everyone buys into.”
That includes the line, who Kaufman thinks are deceptively small. “Our center Brandon Lemke is 160 pounds, but benches with LaBuhn at 300 pounds. So they may be small, but they are strong and quick,” he said.
And when it comes to quickness, there is no one shiftier that Peruski (known to teammates as AP), who has emerged as a credible threat on offense, despite his size (he is listed at 5’7” and 145 pounds, but is closer to 135).
LaBuhn said, “It’s not like he (AP) is a weak kid (even though he is small). I have Advance PE with him and his lifts have gone up 50 pounds in the last year and he hasn’t gained a pound.”
Peruski was the fourth back on the depth chart early in the season, but an injury to Adam Glaza opened the door for him to move up in the rotation. “He never complained (when he wasn’t playing); (but eventually) he got his shot to start and he never relinquished it,” said Sweeney. “AP has been hot ever since then.”
Sweeney explained, “He runs behind those big kids, then gets in the open field and that’s where he’s good. He’s just a great open field runner.”“I wouldn’t want to tackle him in the open field,” Kaufman added. “I guarantee I would have to pick my jockstrap up after (trying to stop) him. He’s one shifty kid.”
Team speed is one major difference between this year’s team and great teams from the past like 2003 squad. “It’s been a magical year, we’ve blocked really well and we have the speed to take it to the house,” Sweeney said. “We just have natural ability and speed this year… it just opens the whole thing up.”
That has given the team the opportunity to turn a lot of 3rd and long plays into first downs. “If it was third-and-nine (in past years), we were looking to get the ball to mid-field to punt,” Sweeney explained. “Now, if it’s third-and-nine, you bank on Jordan making a play. That’s what Jordan adds offensively.”
“He gives you a guy that can take it to the house at any time and can make a play when you need it most,” he added. “His work in the off-season has really helped him reach his maximum potential.”
That off-season work has also allowed the Bearcats to physically dominate opponents and wear them down as the game progresses. “If you look at our points, we don’t score a lot in the first quarter. It’s usually in the second quarter, into the third quarter, where the physicality starts wearing on people,” Sweeney said.
“Those five yard gains, those six yard gains start becoming 15. This year, with the ability and talent we have, they start becoming touchdowns,” he said.