Editor’s note: “What Did We Learn” is a new feature that will take a look at the lessons we can pull from each Friday’s football game. The stories will appear on Mondays throughout the football season.

IMA SPORTS

You can have the football players with the fastest 40-yard dash times or the heaviest lifts, and while all of that matters, what’s most important is what a player does with it on the field.

Speed and strength are key to football, but success usually comes down to one question: Are you tougher than the guy across from you?

While Maumee lost 21-14 at Napoleon in Week 2, the Panthers showed they are plenty tough. You don’t go on the Wildcats’ home field and have a chance to win the game in the final seconds without it.

That’s what made Week 1’s loss to Springfield so surprising — the lack of toughness. The Panthers got hit in the mouth on Springfield’s second play of the game and never recovered. They weren’t tough.

When you ask Panthers coach Evan Karchner what he wants out of his team, the first thing he mentions is toughness. Win or lose, he wants opponents to feel physically and mentally tested after playing Maumee.

A college coach once told me toughness develops differently for each player — and sometimes it never develops at all. Sometimes, it just takes a little longer.

Outside of hockey and wrestling, football is the most violent sport. To be successful, players not only have to accept the physicality but also welcome it.

This season, Maumee is relying on a large group of players either seeing their first varsity action or playing both ways for the first time — and some of them doing both. The physical violence of a varsity football game seemed to catch some of them off guard in Week 1.

High school coaches often say the biggest jump a team makes is between the first two games. That’s not just in execution and scheme, but in toughness and experience as well.

Does it hurt that Maumee is 0-2? Absolutely. Looking at the schedule before the season, this team could easily have been 2-0. But there’s no ignoring the difference between Weeks 1 and 2. If you don’t see improvement, you’re not watching closely.

So what did we learn?

This Maumee team is tough. Tough enough to take Napoleon to the wire. Tough enough to tie the game at 14-14 in the third quarter. Tough enough to stonewall the Wildcats on a fourth-and-one at the Panthers’ 6-yard line late in the fourth quarter to give themselves a chance to win. Tough enough to not give up on themselves or each other.

That toughness, combined with the talent on Maumee’s roster, should lead to plenty of victories.

Could this team be 6-2 heading to Oak Harbor in Week 9 with a chance to win the Northern Buckeye Conference? Don’t rule it out.

And maybe it really is this simple: Are the Panthers tough?

Ask Napoleon. The Wildcats were tested plenty.

Photo courtesy of Pride of the Panthers
Reach IMA at insidemaumeeathletics@gmail.com