Once again, it was the power of Varsity Aces on Twitter (ask for a follow back), I knew I would have some time after the Bosco scrimmage and wanted to go see a game/scrimmage/go for a run with a North Jersey program (I’m not kidding about the run) and a few kids from Bergenfield stepped up and invited me to come this afternoon.
So I went and I saw a real legend at work and a good football team trying to get better.
The legend is former Demarest AD, North Jersey icon Jerry Emison working with the Bears Offensive and Defensive lines. I had no idea Jerry was still doing that, but man, he looks good. Still enthusiastic after all these years. Emison asked me if I was reminded of LSU at all while watching the Bears go at it, and told me to make sure I said I was on the “baseball field†not the softball field. I’m not exactly sure what he meant by that last thing.
It was the Bears baseball field though. They have done some cool work around the back end of the school, 4 new shiny tennis courts are right there, so was a flock of about 30 geese that landed just before the end of practice.
Unfortunately, I was only there for the last hour of the Bears last practice of the day. I had never met Bears third-year head coach Rob Violante before, but had a really enjoyable chat with him for a few minutes.
First, lets recap, the Bears were 7-3 in Violante’s first season and 5-5 last year. They got blown out twice, losing to Pascack Valley 35-7 (no shame in that) and Lakeland, 24-0. Every other game was close, including an 8-point loss to eventual state champ Ramapo. One of the first things Violante said to me was how tough the Bears schedule is every year. Bergenfield is in North 1, Group 3, but they have 4 Group 4 schools on their schedule in 2013, including PV again and Northern Highlands. Violante’s point to me was that not all schedules are created equally. He’s correct of course, but the way the Big North was configured….there just aren’t enough Group 4 schools to go around. The Big North has 8 divisions for football, but for the 2014/2015 season everything will be shuffled around again. Remember, there are 5 classes for football now. There could be more one day. In fact, this touches on the biggest thing in New Jersey public school football in 2013 — the fact that we may be seeing the end of sectional champs depending on the NJSIAA full membership vote in December. The whole state could look a lot different in 2014 when it comes to football.
So, how did the Bears look? I tweeted out a bunch of my observations. Violante said that the afternoon was a “defense†day, meaning the No. 1 guys were playing defense, so that was why the defense looked so strong.
* Easily the biggest thing for the Bears is finding someone to take over the bulk of the running duties now that Will Rodriguez and Giovanni Ogilvie have graduated. Jovanni Haskins looks like he can run, and Aaron Vaz showed some good speed coming out of the backfield. Violante said right now, it will be running back by committee.
* At quarterback, Hassan Evans has all the tools, strong arm, quick feet, but it’s obvious (at least it was to me today) that he is still learning the position. He is a converted WR, although he started at QB last year. He had a few fumbled exchanges and Violante said at one point he wasn’t happy with the ball on the ground so much.
* The Bergenfield defense was impressive. I loved the way the DE Joe Lapi and Juwan Griffith-James crashed in from the edge. And I made special note of the two big defensive tackles Sean Mullany and John Rollason. That four really gives the Bears a strong base.
* I must say overall, I was pretty impressed with the quality of athletes the Bears had out there. Violante said he had 33 kids out there today….that’s not a lot. But the one thing Bergenfield always has going for them is their kids are always…always…hard-nosed and tough. They play a lot of close games and like to hang around.
* The best part of practice that I saw was the 1 on 1 pass protection drill. I wish I had the names of some of the match-ups, but it was like that scene in Hard Knocks a couple weeks ago with the Bengals. It was intense! Griffith-James was doing some smack talk. It was Emison who finally had to call everyone off.
* The Bears open up with Demarest on the 12th, I asked Violante if he was going to Disney World to see the Demarest game scrimmage and he just smiled. He said he would get the film maybe.
* Best hair of the day? Boris Nino, a lineman. It must hang out of his helmet a foot.