Tim Bless has been around for 22 Columbus North-Columbus East matchups as head coach of the Bull Dogs.
Eddie Vogel has been around for the past 20 of those games, the 18 most recent as the Olympians’ defensive coordinator.
Of those past 20 games (they met twice in 2009), 10 have been decided by a touchdown or fewer. That could be the case again tonight when the teams battle beginning at 7 p.m. at East.
“If you look at history as an indication, every one of these games goes down to the wire, and it’s definitely going to be a treat for the fans,” Bless said.
While Bless is in his 22nd year as North’s head coach, Vogel is in his first at East and will be calling his first North-East game as a head coach.
“I’m sure it’s going to be another game where it may come down to the team that has the ball last, like it usually does,” Vogel said. “There have been a lot of them. This is my 20th North-East game, and a lot of them have come down to whoever had the ball last and somebody stopping somebody or somebody scoring. It’s been a pretty entertaining game for fans to watch.”
Both teams are looking to bounce back from losses to highly-ranked opponents on the road in their season openers. The Olympians fell 28-7 at Class 5A No. 5 Whiteland.
“I thought our kids played hard, and if your kids don’t play hard, you don’t have much of a chance,” Vogel said. “The effort was there from our guys. We’re inexperienced, and we’re not going to use that as an excuse, but we made some mistakes at critical times. There’s a lot of mistakes that we made critically that our guys made on the field, and then there were some decisions that in hindsight, I should have done a little bit differently, as well.”
The Bull Dogs fell 43-20 at 3A then-No. 4 Gibson Southern, which moved up to No. 2 in 3A in this week’s poll. Purdue recruit Brady Allen threw for 378 yards and five touchdowns for the Titans.
“Across the board, we need to get better,” Bless said. “We need to be a better football team Week 2. Offensively, we have to be able to sustain drives and not turn the football over. Defensively, we have to get better in pass coverage, but they also had some success in the run game, so we have shore up gap control, especially coming into a team with such a rushing attack like Columbus East.”
The Olympians faced a Whiteland team that ran the ball on almost every play. But they’ll see a Bull Dog squad that mixes up the run and the pass.
“Whiteland was run-first, and North is very balanced,” Vogel said. “Not only are they balanced, but their quarterback makes a lot of plays with his legs, even on passing downs when the play is not there, so that adds another dimension. They’re a good football team, and I’m sure that they’re going to get some things fixed from their game, as well.”
While East came away mostly healthy from its opener, North did not. Senior running back Dyllan Redmon left the game in the first half with a sprained MCL and did not return.
Redmon is hoping to be ready to go for tonight’s battle. Senior middle linebacker Connor Essick also likely will get some carries whether Redmon can play or not.
“We have to get healthy,” Bless said. “At this point, we’re hopeful that we’re going to be at full strength with our No. 1 running back. But obviously, he was down last Friday, and next-man-up mentality will continue.”
