The Cardinals of Triad have had ups and downs, not only over the past two seasons, but this season as well.
They have suffered injuries in key positions, but have weathered the storm and turned their program around with a 4-1 record.
Head coach Joe Cardinal has been on the sidelines for every call, every up and every down. Now he has his full roster back and is ready to show the full potential of his team.
“This will be the first game where our offense that we envisioned in the offseason will be in play,” he said. “We have been moving parts the entire season.”
The Cardinals were able to get QB Jordan Simonelli back last week from an injury earlier in the pre-season. To fill that gap, the Cards have utilized several different quarterbacks along the way, mostly wide receiver Logan McCoy. This week the Cards will put Simonelli on the field full-time.
“Last week he was limited reps, just to make sure his shoulder was good, but he is off of that now so he is going to go under center for us,” Cardinal said. “Anybody who was at the game last week, they know that he is back and in good shape.”
Simonelli will get his start against the 1-4 Northeastern Jets tonight. The Jets have struggled this year with the only highlight of their season coming from a 23-16 win over Madison Plains in Week 3/
Cardinal, though, isn’t going to underestimate the Jets with their 5-2 front and variable styles of offense.
“It looks like they mostly play cover three and they got some kids that do a good job of getting to the football,” he said. “They are a bend, but don’t break type of defense. They going to try and make you make mistakes. So we have to execute to beat them.”
Cardinal said Northeastern’s offense is the real mystery. The Jets have shown everything from five wide outs to several backs in the backfield.
“Offensively, they are an unknown, “ he said. “We have some film on them and we see they utilize an H back, but last week against Greeneview they were five wide and some of the other weeks they looked kind of like us.”
The player that Cardinal is keeping his eye on will be the Jets’ quarterback, Mac Davis. He went 18-28 last week against Greeneview for 137 yards, while rushing for 63.
“Davis, is a real runner,” Cardinal said. “So he is definitely a dual-threat kid.”
In order to keep Davis on a leash, Cardinal said his team is going to have to read its keys. That duty will fall to his linemen.
“We’ve got recognize formations,” he said. “We tried not to overload them (his team) this week, because we are unsure of we are going to see. So it really is going back to basics.
“It is going to be tough for the line this week,” he said. “A lot is going to be on them.”
Even with all of the variety from the Jets, Cardinal believes Triad has what it takes to increase its record to 5-1.
“We are fairly pleased with where we are,” he said “We just want to take it one week at a time and if we are 1-0 enough, we will be in good shape.
“Being 4-1, I can’t complain especially where we have been at the last couple of years,” Cardinal said. “ I’m very pleased with our guys. They have given it 100 percent every game they have played.”
The game will start at 7 p.m. at Northeastern High School.