Indiana football coach is upset at team’s performance in 53-point victory
UPDATE: On Thursday, Charlestown (Ind.) High football coach Jason Hawkins reached out to Prep Rally directly to provide more context for the quotes which he had previously offered to the News & Tribune. Given the chance to make a statement, the coach offered the following explanation in hopes that it would clear up misconceptions that he had chastised his team on the field shortly after the game.
Those quotes came after watching the film over the weekend. I have never yelled at my team after a game in the 6 years I have been here. The entire stands are invited to come down after every game to listen to me talk and that is in no way the place to be negative. We have our biggest game Friday night against the number 6 ranked team in 3A (we are ranked 9) and I just wanted our players to understand that we have things to work on for us to be the best team we can be.
In fact, I'm very proud of my entire team. I have a QB [Aaron Daniel] that is a senior that ran for over 1500 yards last year and 30 tds and threw for over 1800 yards and 17 TDs. He has over 3.75 gpa. Last Friday he ran for 3 and threw for 3.
There are coaches who are hard to please, and then, apparently, there is Charlestown (Ind.) High head football coach Jason Hawkins.
On Friday, Hawkins' Pirates team rolled past Madison (Ind.) High by a final score of 67-14. That's a 53-point victory, and the game was as one-sided as it sounds. Still, Hawkins wasn't happy. In fact, two days after the game he tore into his team's performance, telling the Jeffersonville News & Tribune that most of the Pirates' squad had underperformed … except the defense.
"Our special teams need work, we have to get better blocking. Our offensive line has to play better," Hawkins said, noting that Leighton Brewer was the exception. "But our defense played well. At least, there's that."
Evidently a 53-point walloping isn't good enough for Hawkins. If his team was that impressive on a bad night, imagine how much they should win by on a good outing?
Consider just how efficient Charlestown was on Friday night. In the first quarter, the Pirates scored 28 points on only seven plays. Quarterback Aaron Daniel threw four passes … and three of them were for touchdowns.
To give Hawkins credit, he didn't exempt the coaching staff from blame, either. According to the head coach of one of the state's most lauded squads, the coaches failed to find enough ways to get the ball to running back Tyler Odle, who appeared unstoppable while racking up 66 yards on two carries, then never got a chance to see the ball again.
Some might say Odle's absence from further stat-building was a good thing for general sportsmanship, given how effective he was in two stints. Hawkins felt it was just bad play-calling.
"Going back and looking at it, we didn't give Odle the ball enough," Hawkins told the News & Tribune. "He didn't get enough touches.
"It was a hard game to coach."
If that was a hard game to coach because of Charlestown's alleged poor performance, it's terrifying to think of what everyone else in the state will be up against if the team ever fires on all its cylinders as Hawkins thinks it should.
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