By Mike Moore
Staff Writer
Concord — It was a year that began with big ambitions, and one that ended with heads held high.
As the Concord football program looks back on the history books, the 2016 season will down as one of the best the Yellowjackets have ever known.
And given where this team and program has come from, that’s saying plenty.
“I grew up with this program, and as a player watched the success we had.” coach Max Clark said Wednesday, just five days removed from the season-ending loss to Cassopolis. “It was a matter of doing the right things and sticking with the right things. At the same time, knew it wasn’t going to be an overnight thing. Still, this probably all happened quicker than people wanted.”
What ‘this’ was, was a 9-3 season that included a host of records and a trip to the Division 7 regional final.
Keep in mind, when Clark took over prior to the 2013 season, Concord had won 15 games in nine years.
Football was an afterthought at the school.
But Clark wanted to tap into something he experienced as a player from 1998 through 2001.
The program wasn’t great in those years, but it was building, slowly, until his senior season when the Yellowjackets went 10-3 and made it all the way to the state semifinals.
The same path has been laid here, with the team going 1-8 in both 2013 and 2014 before figuring it all out last year.
Concord went 7-3, got back to the state playoffs, and put momentum rolling forward into 2016.
This year’s group opened with a 22-0 shutout of Hanover-Horton, which opened Clark’s eyes to just how good things may be.
Then, against rival Homer, Concord went to 2-0 with a 28-26 overtime victory.
“Getting past Homer was a huge monkey off our back,” Clark said. Concord had lost five in a row to its chief rival. “Once that happened, we really knew this could be a special year.”
The Yellowjackets won five in a row to start the season, and entered the playoffs with a 7-2 mark.
In the first round, they snuck past another rival, Springport, in a 21-14 decision. Then went on the road and beat Homer a second time, 48-32, to earn the program its first ever road playoff victory.
Last week, Cassopolis proved to be too much, ending Concord’s year with a 51-14 decision.
“That’s a very good football team,” Clark said of Cassopolis. “They just had too many athletes for us to handle. They blocked well and played great defense. It was a tough match.”
Cassopolis wasted little time taking control, jumping out to a 14-0 lead after the first quarter and a 22-0 lead before Concord found the end zone for the first time late in the first half.
The Yellowjackets got on the board when Tony Brooks Jr. scored from a yard out, making it 22-7.
But Cassopolis (11-1) answered right back, taking a 30-7 lead into halftime.
“Us getting that score before halftime was huge,” Clark said.”But then we needed a stop and couldn’t get one. Then at the start of the second they scored again. That made things tough.”
The Rangers added 15 more points in the third quarter and eventually led 51-7 before Brooks Jr. scored on a 1-yard run in the fourth.
“Too many things we couldn’t afford to do, we did,” Clark said. “We turned it over. We had some mistakes, and those take the wind out of your sails.”
Concord closed the season with a 9-3 record, the second-most wins in program history.
“To put up the numbers we did and put up some of the wins we did, considering we’re smaller team, really showed you what can happen when you play team football,” Clark said.
The 2016 team won the first conference title in program history, set a record for wins in a two-year span (16), and won the first road playoff game in program history.
“For me, even at the end of last year, knowing what we did, who we had coming back and who we had coming up, I knew the potential was there for a good year,” Clark said. “This is a senior class that went 7-2 or something on JV. These are kids that have been through a lot. They committed themselves to being part of this success. Everything we’ve done here is on these kids.”
So to, however, is what happens next.
After years of disfunction, and now two with an abundance of success, the goal is to maintain this level of production moving forward.
“That’s the goal now,” Clark said. “It’s on the juniors to step up, commit in the weight room and work hard. They know what it takes to get to a regional, now it’s about getting over that hump and getting to the next step. The ultimate goal here is to win a state title. There’s a belief that this is a program that has the potential to do something like that. It’s about the process, building character and doing things the way we know will lead to success.”
Mike Moore is a play-by-play commentator and Sports Writer for JTV Sports. You can reach him at mjm12@albion.edu. He’s also the author of ‘Love, Defined; A Dedication to the Love, Sacrifice, and Magic of Motherhood.’
Love, Defined is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Tate Publishing or by contacting Mike directly.
Visit http://lovedefinedbook.weebly.com for more information.
