Varsity 2008 record: 9-3 (6-2 SEC)

In the Chelsea football coaches’ office, there is a small hand-painted sign with a simple but meaningful four-word message: Friday night means football.  From August through November, that message drives the weekly routines of thousands of high school football players in Michigan; from the beginning of Monday practice through the inimitable moment at which those athletes run onto the field against the backdrop of a setting sun and amidst the spectacle of what is a major community event in many towns, those four words are the motto that brings into profound focus the motivation for enduring the hottest preseason two-a-days and the coldest postseason practices.  Why spend hours under the scorching August sun?  Because Friday night means football.  Why toil in a frigid November snow flurry?  Because Friday night means football.  There is no other sport with such a singular weekly focal point; there is no other sport that defines one night so irrevocably as its very own.  In autumn there is no ambiguity; there is only one night with one unmistakable meaning: Friday night means football.

Sadly, not all schools observe this important tradition; sometimes an opposing team forces a change to the schedule, choosing to play not on Friday night but instead on Saturday afternoon.  Earlier this decade it was Farmington Hills Harrison forcing Chelsea to alter its calendar; this year, in the state regionals, it was a team the Bulldogs had never before faced in football: Inkster.  And if that wasn’t bad enough for all us Friday night folk, the situation got a little more confusing: a facilities issue prompted Inkster to move the game to Romulus, a city which is neither Inkster nor Chelsea.  (Hey, all the cities blur together when you get east of Ypsilanti.  If these things aren’t spelled out, I get lost.)

Look!  His hair is cold!  It’s turning blue!

The 2008 season marked Chelsea’s third consecutive trip to the state regionals; unfortunately, the two previous trips didn’t end well, and Chelsea was still looking for its first consecutive regional championship.  This game didn’t promise to be any easier than the last two: not only was it an away game — the previous two had been home games — but Inkster came into the game on a nine-game winning streak, including two playoff wins by a combined score of 102-0.  In other words, the Inkster Vikings were as good at football as the Actual Vikings were at colonizing Europe.  (They weren’t as good at football as the Actual Vikings were at wearing amazing horned helmets, because as disappointing as it may be, it turns out the Actual Vikings didn’t really wear amazing horned helmets.  What would the Purple People Eaters think of that?)

On a cold November day under cold gray November skies and in a cold November rain/sleet/snow mix — did I mention it was November? — Chelsea kicked off to Inkster, and the Vikings held onto the ball for the next three hours.  Well, okay, it wasn’t three hours, but it felt like three hours: they held the ball for eight minutes — a full one-sixth of the game — before colonizing the end zone to take an early 8-0 lead.  Chelsea handed the ball 12 times to Nick Hill as part of a 13-play drive, but the drive stalled just outside the Inkster 20; the 40-yard field goal attempt fell short, and Inkster took over at the 20.  But if the Vikings’ first drive was crazy long, their second drive was crazy short: they went three and out and were forced to punt.

Tyler Fischaber would like to show you to the turf.

Pat Dignan doesn’t feel cold; he feels only wins and losses.

“I don’t care what Ebert & Roeper said; I’m giving Quantum of Solace two thumbs up.”

Once again, Chelsea put together a strong drive, using 11 plays to move inside Inkster’s 20; once again, the drive stalled, this time on a fumble at the 15.  To make matters worse, Inkster returned the fumble inside the Chelsea 40 and took full advantage of the Bulldogs’ gift by scoring a touchdown to go up 16-0 with a minute and a half left in the second quarter.  That proved to be enough time for Chelsea to move to the Inkster 15 but the Vikings intercepted a second-down pass at the goal line with 12 seconds left to end the threat and the half.

The Bulldogs received the ball to start the second half, but this time they didn’t get a chance to move the ball into Inkster territory: Hill took the kickoff 81 yards for a touchdown to cut Inkster’s lead down to 16-6.  After that burst of excitement, the teams settled down into a quarter’s worth of relatively short possessions that were as threatening as a lethargic kitten sitting on a stack of Barry Manilow albums; neither side came close to scoring, and Inkster took its 10-point lead into the fourth quarter.

Nick Hill doesn’t appreciate your invading his personal space.

When the coach says “huddle,” this isn’t what he means.

Early McGowan will be on time.  You can count on it.

The first half of the fourth quarter was consumed by another three-hour Inkster drive, but this time the drive ended in a punt.  Chelsea took over on its own eight and moved all of seven yards before fumbling the ball away; with five and a half minutes to play and Inkster on Chelsea’s 16, the Bulldogs’ chances for a comeback seemed faint at best.  But the Vikings helped turn the volume back up when they fumbled the ball right back, and Chelsea had four minutes to put a dent in Inkster’s lead; three minutes later, that’s exactly what they did thanks to a 13-yard Michael Roberts touchdown run.  The extra point cut Inkster’s lead to three, but that would still be a difficult lead to overcome: there was only a minute left in the game, so the Bulldogs’ hopes rested on a successful recovery of their onside kick — something that happens only about 21 percent of the time in the NFL.

“Hey!  Look up there!  It’s a Northwest jet!”

When Early McGowan and George Clark are happy, you’d better be happy, too.

Cody Schiller really, really likes snow.

After the … wait, what?  The Bulldogs recovered the onside kick?  Hey, they did!  How about that.  So, as I was saying, after Chelsea recovered the onside kick, the Bulldog offense took the field with a chance to pull even — or to take the lead.  It didn’t look good at first: three no-gainers left Chelsea with a fourth and 10.  But Roberts threw to Jake Mantel for the first down, and the Bulldogs had a first down and another chance; three plays later, Roberts lofted a pass to Steven O’Keefe at the five, and it looked like Chelsea would score the winning touchdown … until an Inkster defender reached O’Keefe right after the ball did: his bone-crunching, teeth-rattling hit knocked the ball loose, leaving Chelsea with another fourth down.  Roberts’ final pass fell incomplete, and Inkster took over with eight seconds left; one knee later, Chelsea’s season came to an end with a 13-16 loss.

Leftovers:

• Each of Chelsea’s three first-half drives made it inside the Inkster 25, but each of those three drives ended with zero points (missed field goal, fumble, interception).
• Inkster entered the game with a high-flying reputation for scoring enough points to bail out Wall Street: the Vikings had scored over 40 points in six games to that point.  But the Chelsea defense not only held them to 16 points, but also held them scoreless in the second half.
• Nick Hill rushed 35 times for 182 yards, giving him a season total of 279 rushes for 2,090 yards and 24 rushing touchdowns (along with two kick returns for touchdowns); that gives him an average of 7.5 yards per carry.  His all-purpose yardage total was 2,773, which accounts for a little over half of Chelsea’s total all-purpose yardage (5,193).
• Full photo gallery.

Next week:
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