LOGAN — For the Logan Chieftains, there’s no resting on the laurels of last week’s impressive performance at Hamilton Township.

The Purple & White, ranked No. 4 in Division II of this week’s inaugural state football poll by The Associated Press (and No. 1 by JJ Huddle/ONN), hit the road again Friday (7:30 p.m. kickoff) to pay a visit to Southeastern Ohio Athletic League rival Gallipolis.

While it will be a meeting of the unbeaten (the 3-0 Chiefs) and the winless (the 0-3 Blue Devils) for a second consecutive week, it doesn’t appear to be as big of a mismatch as Hamilton Township (0-3) was.
This game won’t count in the SEOAL standings. The league is in its final season of a rotating schedule created in 2006 to accommodate 10 teams, in which each team was originally slated to have two teams rotate off the league schedule every two seasons.

It will, however, be Logan’s first trip to the French City since a water-logged, come-from-behind 31-26 victory at Gallipolis in 2006. The Blue Devils visited Hocking County in both 2007 and 2008.

“We still treat this like a league game,” said Logan coach Dale Amyx. “It’s an important game — they’re all important games — but this is a rivalry game against a team with a lot of tradition.

“The kids on this team have never played a (varsity) game at Gallipolis,” he added. “It’s going to be a very hostile and competitive environment down there.”

New Gallipolis coach Mike Eddy has the Blue Devils playing primarily a wing-T offense.

“It’s kind of like old school when coach (Brent) Saunders coached them,” Amyx said. “They’re a little more run-oriented and a little more physical, which you have to be to run the wing-T.

“They looked good against Hillsboro (a week-two 35-34 loss),” he added. “They ran the ball well, they mixed up their plays and threw the ball a little. (Receivers Austin Wilson and Kyle Dingess) will line up in different places. You have to know where they are at all times.”

The Blue Devils may be 0-3, but by no means are the Chiefs looking past them.

“They are better than their record,” Amyx noted. “They had a lot of turnovers against Athens (a 21-0 opening-game loss), and Athens (3-0) is a much better football team this season.”

Coming off a 49-7 rout of Hamilton Township, in which they scored on their first six possessions and played a nearly-flawless first half of football, Amyx said there’s always room for improvement.

He was asked if the coaching staff culled anything in particular from the game films.

“There always is,” he said. “Our defense is still standing up — they need to get lower — and our linebackers need to do a better job with their reads. Our offense didn’t fire off the ball well a few times. There are a lot of things to improve upon.”

But the Chiefs had terrific focus last week, something Amyx hopes carries over into this Friday and beyond.

“They were really focused. They were all business,” Amyx said of his charges, “and that’s the way it has got to be every week.”

As Amyx noted after the game, the Chiefs achieved two very important things (other than the victory, obviously) from the Hamilton Township game: some dinged-up players (Patrick Angle, Mason Mays, Ralph Robinson and Zach McDaniel, to name a few) got some much-needed rest — they only played about a quarter-and-a-half — and several backup and junior varsity players got plenty of Friday night experience.

One player in particular was junior Dylan Cavinee, who played more than a half and wound up leading the Chiefs in rushing.

“We’re developing some depth,” Amyx noted. “We’re getting better on both sides of the ball. Dylan Cavinee is getting a lot more time at running back and linebacker, and we’ll definitely need him as the season goes along.”

Angle did a terrific job on those first six drives, completing a perfect 15-of-15 passing for 252 yards and four touchdowns, but the Rangers, efforting to prevent Angle from completing long balls behind their defense, chose to play a soft zone and keep play in front of them.

It backfired because receivers such as Mays, McDaniel and Jordan Rutter would likely be tailbacks in a regular offense. Not only can they catch the ball, but they are exceptional when it comes to gaining additional yardage after the catch.

“They can scoot,” Amyx praised. “That’s the whole idea of what we do. There are a lot of things Kelly (offensive coordinator Kelly Wolfe) does with this offense (such as) getting the ball out in the flat to our receivers, where we put our best athletes against their best athletes one-on-one.”

The Chiefs even used a shovel pass last week — McDaniel took a quick pass from Angle in the backfield near the line of scrimmage and turned it into a 58-yard catch-and-run touchdown — for the first time this season. And there are other wrinkles they can turn to as well… when they’re good and ready to do so.

“We still have some tricks up our sleeves, but we’re not going to show all of them yet,” Amyx noted. “There are some things we still have to get down (in practice), and we want to have a lot (of options) like that, but not too much.”

That’s because the coaching staff doesn’t want to complicate things with a multitude of formations and plays that can confuse their own personnel.

“That’s my theory,” Amyx said, “keeping it simple.”

Simple for the Chieftains, maybe, but awfully complicated to their opponents. And that’s exactly what they want.

chose to play a soft zone and keep play in front of them.

It backfired because receivers such as Mays, McDaniel and Jordan Rutter would likely be tailbacks in a regular offense. Not only can they catch the ball, but they are exceptional when it comes to gaining additional yardage after the catch.

“They can scoot,” Amyx praised. “That’s the whole idea of what we do. There are a lot of things Kelly (offensive coordinator Kelly Wolfe) does with this offense (such as) getting the ball out in the flat to our receivers, where we put our best athletes against their best athletes one-on-one.”

The Chiefs even used a shovel pass last week — McDaniel took a quick pass from Angle in the backfield near the line of scrimmage and turned it into a 58-yard catch-and-run touchdown — for the first time this season. And there are other wrinkles they can turn to as well… when they’re good and ready to do so.

“We still have some tricks up our sleeves, but we’re not going to show all of them yet,” Amyx noted. “There are some things we still have to get down (in practice), and we want to have a lot (of options) like that, but not too much.”

That’s because the coaching staff doesn’t want to complicate things with a multitude of formations and plays that can confuse their own personnel.

“That’s my theory,” Amyx said, “keeping it simple.”

Simple for the Chieftains, maybe, but awfully complicated to their opponents. And that’s exactly what they want.