August 25, 2022 at 7:09 a.m.
Time to respond
Hodags look to bounce back from Week 1 loss tonight at Denmark
Time to respond
How the Hodags respond tonight on the road at Denmark, and moving forward throughout the season, will go a long way toward proving the naysayers either wrong or right.
"A lot of people want to react to what happened on Friday and say, 'Ah, the Hodags aren't as good as they were. Coach Kraemer's not doing a great job. We don't have as much talent, whatever,'" he said. "They want to start to pass the blame somewhere or write us off. That's old Serengeti, jungle survival. You have to react because when something negative happens, it's the fight or flight mentality ... We have to figure out ways to respond positively to the lessons we learned on Friday night and make sure we can bounce back positively from that."
That has already started this week in practice as the team looked back at what worked and what didn't against the Hatchets. Rhinelander had some highs and lows in all three phases of the game.
The Hodag defense started strong, holding Tomahawk to 11 net yards, one first down, three punts and a turnover on downs in the Hatchets first four possessions. However, the Hatchets scored on five of their next seven possessions, and one of the non-scores came at the end of the half. The other came on a fumble at the doorstep of the red zone.
Offensively, the Hodags spun their wheels for three quarters before putting together a 55-yard scoring drive in the fourth quarter. The Hodags marched 46 yards on their next possession before stalling out and failing to convert on fourth down.
On special teams, Rhinelander had a splash play with Brendon Eckrich's 79-yard kick return for a score to start the second half, but followed with a failed fake punt and a 16-yard punt that both set up short fields. Those helped lead to two Tomahawk scores.
To that end, Kraemer said the team struggled with some substitution packages, especially when players needed a spell or started to cramp, and that was an area of emphasis for the coaching staff this week.
"We knew we had to change a few things, so we asked ourselves what did we do really well with and what personnel struggled at the end of the game, defensively," he said. "How did the strings that got pulled offensively affect us defensively? How did the strings that got pulled defensively affect us offensively and how could we make sure those strings don't affect us if somebody has to be removed."
Tonight Rhinelander faces a Denmark team that, in a lot of ways, is in the same boat as the Hodags. The Vikings were the runners-up in the North Eastern Conference last year, bowing out to eventual state champion Catholic Memorial (Waukesha) in Level 3 of the WIAA, Division 4 tournament. Like Rhinelander, they are faced with having to replace a strong senior class. Also like Rhinelander, they struggled offensively last week in a 7-6 loss to Appleton Xavier, which is picked to win the Bay Conference.
"We get an opportunity to go against another young team in Denmark," Kraemer said. "You read their media and look at their team, they lost 16 starters as well. They have a team that's very, very young and growing. But they're a proud team. They're a playoff team and play in a difficult conference."
Here are five storylines entering tonight's game.
Mirror images
The similarities between Rhinelander and Denmark don't end with last year's success or the makeup of their squads this year. From Denmark's I formation running game to its 3-4 defense, Kraemer said he sees a lot of similarities between the Vikings and what Rhinelander's program has tried to do the last few years.
"We see ourselves in Denmark and they should see themselves in us," he said. "They spent a lot of time with (former UW-Oshkosh head coach) Pat Cerroni. They run the 3-4 defense. We do the same thing. It's kind of a one-for-one matchup."
Denmark's offense
The Vikings replaced five all-NEC selections on the offense, including unanimous first-teamers Owen DeGrand (OL), Kenny Satori (TE/FB) and Hayden Konkol (WR).
Quarterback Lucas Miller returns after throwing for 1,453 yards with 18 touchdowns and six interceptions last year, but Miller and the Viking offense struggled in Week 1 against Xavier. Miller was only 6 of 15 for 124 yards with two interceptions. He hit Simon Alexander for a late 48-yard touchdown, but kicker Carl Heezen missed the extra point, which proved to be the difference in the game.
Meanwhile, Xavier held Denmark to only 65 yards on the ground, with DJ Vanlanen and Rheis Johnson each leading the way with eight carries for 25 yards.
"Offensively, they're a young offense. They're learning the I formation. They want to do the things I wanted to do 2-3 years ago with (former Hodag quarterback) Quinn (Lamers), downhill running game with play action passing," Kreamer said. "They run a lot of power. They run a lot of power pass. Those are their best two plays. That's a package play for them.
"Really, it's like playing ourselves last year or the year before. A lot of the same concepts they run, we ran the last few years. Our guys understand that offense and I understand it, which makes it great, because now I know what I hate to block against, and that's what we're going to give them, defensively."
Denmark's defense
The Vikings defense played fairly well, holding Xavier to 181 yards of offense, but the Wildcats' four backs were able to average 5.4 yards per carry.
That seems to be a carryover from last year when Denmark allowed 19.3 points and 213.0 yards per game. Teams averaged just over 100 yards per game rushing and 4.4 yards per carry against the Vikings.
Cayden DeGrave is a returning second-team defensive tackle for the Vikings and made 10 total tackles last week. The team also returns a pair of NEC honorable mentions in the secondary with Nolan Perry and Ethan Osvak.
Kraemer said this week the emphasis would be on simplifying the playbook and trying to get junior quarterback James Heck and the offense in the rhythm they seemed to find in their final two drives of last week's game.
"You're going to see maybe a little bit of a different offense than we saw last week," he said. "It's a little bit different than my I formation, my pro-style, maybe more like my style two, three years ago with more of a spread-style look, but we're still a power team. We're still a run team. Our best play is power. We believe in it and we're going to run power."
Go or no go?
Kraemer discussed the process on the sideline and the decision to call a fake punt on fourth-and-2 from the Hodags' own 29 in the third quarter of last week's game. Rhinelander and Tomahawk were tied 7-7 at the time, and the Hodags appeared to have momentum after Eckrich returned the opening kick of the second half for a touchdown and the Hodag defense forced a fumble on the ensuing possession.
Heck was stopped short on the play. Tomahawk's Tyler Jablonski scored three plays later, sparking a 17-0 Hatchet run that put the game out of reach.
Kraemer said there was some discussion between himself and offensive coordinator Luke Roberts. Kraemer suggested the idea, Roberts agreed to it and Kraemer ultimately pulled the trigger on the fake punt call.
"One thousand percent, I take that on me. That's my fault. Bad call in that situation," he said. "But, we're fourth-and-1, we've struggled offensively. We just got the ball back for the first time in the half. We scored on a touchdown, a momentum touchdown (on the kick return) and got the ball back right away and I thought now was the time, let's keep the football and let's go."
It set up a situation where Rhinelander's defense had to defend a short field. In fact, all three scoring drives during Tomahawk's decisive run started at or inside the Hodags' 45. That's part of the reason the Hatchets were able to score 27 points on only 251 yards of total offense.
"Defensively, we need to get better in short fields when there is something adverse that happens - like a pick or like a our fake punt that didn't work out," Kraemer said. "Our defense has to stand up and has to take care of those situations."
The long trip
Though this is Rhinelander's first meeting against Denmark as far back as River News records show, it is not the team's first trip to the high school located roughly 20 minutes southeast of Green Bay.
Rhinelander played a neutral-site game there against Milwaukee Rufus King in 2014, losing 42-6.
"It's going to be a trip for us, so can we handle the trip," Kraemer said. "We can't let the trip beat you, can't let the last game beat us ... I'm really excited for these guys to go on the road, a little bit longer road trip, see a team they haven't seen before and, get back to Hodag football - and I think we can do that."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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