First-year Wilmington College head coach Bryan Moore joked his 1-0 career record would go down in history.
“I am thinking about retiring right now and going out on top,” Moore said.
Quaker fans, don’t worry one bit. This football coach isn’t going anywhere any time soon. After opening with a 49-20 win over Earlham last week, Wilmington College has its annual bye week before entering the Ohio Athletic Conference portion of its 10-game schedule.
“For where our program is, I think it is a perfect time for a bye week,” Moore said. “Our players get to enjoy it (the win) a few extra days now than if we were already preparing for Otterbein. I do think our approach would be different if we would have lost, but right now we have a very hungry, anxious and excited family of football players. Therefore I believe we can ride them a little harder this bye week. Not sure if they could have handled that after a loss.”
Wilmington will face Otterbein 2 p.m. Sept. 16 in Westerville.
Looking back on the Quaker Bowl victory, Moore said his thoughts on the game changed from Saturday afternoon to the rest of the weekend as he and the coaches broke down the game film.
“This was my first game on the sideline in over 13 years,” said Moore, a long-time assistant coach. “I have been locked away in the press box calling plays for a while now. So it is amazing how much you miss on the sidelines.”
On film, as expected, Moore and the coaches saw good and bad from their Quakers.
“One thing on the positive side that I did not notice during the game was just how well our defense was running to the football,” said Moore. “That definitely caught my eye when we watched the film the next day. On the negative side, the film really showed how poorly we executed once we got tired in the third quarter. That will continue to be addressed during our bye week.”
In the end, Moore put the win in perspective, a win that was just the program’s fourth in the last 81 games.
“We talked before the game about the only thing that was truly significant about this game, or any game, is what we become in the process,” Moore said. “We continue to emphasize that changing the culture is our No. 1 priority.
“We have re-enforced with our players that all we accomplished Saturday was beating another 0-10 football program. We did what we were supposed to do and what we expected to do. We didn’t play great, we didn’t play a clean game. Our performance was not good enough to beat OAC teams week in and week out.”
As with coaching in any sport, game day is merely a small portion of the job. This week, without a game, Moore said his squad practiced in helmets only Tuesday then did some light hitting on Wednesday and Thursday as they began to implement the Otterbein schemes and game plan ideas.
It’ll also be a time to step away from college ball for a brief period.
“It is a great week for our coaches to put the hammer down with recruiting, too and spend a little extra time with our families,” Moore said.
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