LANCASTER — Even a successful football coach with more than a quarter-century’s worth of experience can learn from the past.

Such is the case for coach Dale Amyx and his Logan Chieftains as they approach Friday night’s highly-anticipated 2008 football season opener against visiting Lancaster.

Extenuating circumstances aside, this game would be eagerly anticipated no matter what. It should be an interesting, close and exciting game between backyard rivals, and it’s the first game out of the box for two teams with high expectations for the season.
However, seeing as how Logan High School is christening brand-new Logan Chieftain Stadium at the new LHS campus on state Route 328, and that 6,000 to 7,000 fans could be in attendance, anticipation has been driven to a fever pitch.

So far as the team goes, Amyx and his coaching staff want to bring down that temperature as close to 98.6 as possible in order to keep the Chiefs focused and on as even a keel as can be expected considering all the pomp and circumstance, hoopla and general excitement of the first football game in the new facility.

And he admits the adrenaline is going to be pumping just as much for a bunch of 40-something coaches as it’s going to be for the 60 teen-agers under their guidance.

Thus there’s a different approach to this season’s first game.

“We’re approaching it a little different this year,” Amyx said. “The last couple years, especially last year, all we’d do was talk about Lancaster. All summer (it was) ‘1-2-3 beat Lancaster,’ Lancaster this and Lancaster that. I think we overdid it.”

Amyx certainly doesn’t downplay Friday’s opponent. While Lancaster’s tremendous football success speaks for itself, and he and the Chieftains have a tremendous amount of respect for the Golden Gales, Amyx also doesn’t want the season to hinge upon the result of one early-season non-conference game, either.

“They’re going to be bigger (and) stronger, and that’s just a fact of life,” Amyx said. “But we can’t get into position to score and then make a key mistake or go three (plays) and punt. It will kill our defense.

“They’re a big, strong, physical team with great skill,” he added. “They run the ball well and throw the ball well.”

Amyx says there’s one common misnomer about the Gales.

“They’re not a spread team like a lot of people say they are, but they’re a shotgun team. They run (most formations) out of the shotgun formation instead of (the quarterback) under center,” he said.

The Chiefs fell 31-7 in last season’s lidlifter on an evening so hot and steamy the opening kickoff at Lancaster’s Fulton Field was pushed back a half-hour to play more of the game under cooler nighttime conditions.

It marked Lancaster’s fourth-straight season-opening win over the Purple & White since the series resumed in 2004 after a 47-year hiatus.

What Amyx wants most is for his team to have learned from some of the mistakes they made that night. And judging by what they did the rest of the 2007 season — they closed out the campaign with nine straight regular-season victories — they did.

Logan’s Lucas Wright returned the opening kickoff 95 yards for a touchdown, only to have it called back on a questionable illegal-block penalty several yards behind the play. Not only did the Chiefs not punch the ball into the end zone on that series, they missed a field goal and came away with zero points, letting an important early burst of momentum fizzle away.

“I don’t know what happened. Obviously that kickoff getting called back (didn’t help),” Amyx admitted. “The last couple years it seems like we get touchdowns called back (against Lancaster). We need good things to happen for us early.”

“I don’t think you have to play the perfect game — I don’t know how good they’re going to be — but we can’t make the mistakes we made,” he added. “Holding penalties. Missing open men. Having that kickoff called back. It should have been a close game down to the wire.

“And then it got to the point where our defense was on the field the whole game and we got worn out. It was attrition in the fourth quarter.”

Although the Chiefs were within 17-7 following a 70-yard interception return for a touchdown by Wright with 10:21 left in the game, they never really recovered. Eventually, the Golden Gales indeed wore the Chiefs down and pulled away with two touchdowns in the final eight minutes.

“If it had been closer, that mental attitude would have been there and we wouldn’t have been on the field all that time defensively,” Amyx noted. “We would have had more drives offensively and maybe tired their defense out. It could have been a different game.

“Not taking anything away from them, because they were a darn good football team and probably will be again, but we just can’t make mistakes,” he concluded.

Read More in the Logan Daily News.