Columbus North quarterback Asher Ratliff throws a pass as Columbus East’s Bige Asher (0) closes in during Friday’s football game against Columbus East in Bob Gaddis Stadium at Columbus East High School.
Mike Wolanin | The Republic
The Columbus North and Columbus East football teams find themselves in the same position again this year.
Like last year, the Bull Dogs are off to a 2-0 start again and will begin Conference Indiana play by hosting Southport. The Olympians are 0-2 again and will look for their first win of the season when they travel to Seymour in their first Hoosier Hills Conference game. Kickoff for both games is at 7 p.m. Friday.
North is favored to still remain unbeaten facing the Cardinals. The Class 6A No. 9 Bull Dogs have dominated the series the past decade, having won eight of the past nine years with their only loss coming in overtime 2019.
North coach Logan Haston said it starts with having a good week of practice with the meat of the schedule coming up the next several weeks.
“It definitely starts in practice week, and to be quite honest, I don’t know if we had our best week of practice (last week) leading up to into the game (a 52-7 win at East), and it really showed in the first half,” Haston said. “It’s a great learning opportunity for our team to say, ‘It starts in practice.’ If you want to be an elite team, elite teams don’t have bad practices. It’s getting refocused. We have a big conference game Friday, so it is going to be a good challenge for us ahead.”
Bull Dogs senior quarterback Asher Ratliff, who threw for 395 yards against the Olympians, ranks third overall in the state in passing yards and first among 6A players.
East will look to get back on the winning track when it plays the Owls. It was at this point of last season where the Olympians turned it around and won six of the last seven games and finished undefeated in the conference.
East has played a tough non-conference schedule, falling to 5A No. 3 Bloomington South and 6A then-No. 10 (now No. 9) North the first two weeks of the season.
The Olympians should be the favorite to pick up their first victory of the season. They defeated Seymour 30-14 in last year’s matchup.
“We were in this same boat last year, and we were able to right the ship and continue to get better every week and win the conference,” East coach Eddie Vogel said. “It’s a similar message. We’ve still got a lot to play for, and we don’t have time to continue to think how bad we were for the week. We’ve got to flush it and get ready for the next game. We are pretty focused on Seymour this week.”
One thing the Bull Dogs have to clean up to keep posting wins is limiting the penalties, especially with 12 first half penalties in last week’s match against their city rival.
“We were very undisciplined in the first half. You can make any excuses that you want to about the officials, but the fact is, we were undisciplined as a football team,” Haston said. “We have to learn from it. It’s easier to learn when you win. It doesn’t sting as much, but we have to learn from the mistakes and play better if we want to win conference games.”
The Olympians have been in this position before and hope to have the same big rebound to finish the last seven weeks of this season strong.
“I reminded them that we’ve got a lot to play for. We set goals at the beginning of the year. We want to win non-conference games, and we want to try to win conference again and we want to compete for a sectional championship. We still have those goals ahead of us,” Vogel said. “This week has been about focusing on us, while still preparing for our opponent and trying to clean up some of those things that we need to improve.
“I told our guys (Tuesday) night that when we show up to practice, we’re not just playing for Friday night, we’re playing November,” he added. “We’ve got to go out and continue to fine tune, improve and get better every day so that we’re really playing our best at the end of the season and giving ourselves a chance to win Friday nights.”
