Another game, another overtime.

The opening month of Northwestern’s football season certainly hasn’t been for the faint of heart.

For the second time in three weeks, the Tigers battled one of the Colonial League’s preseason favorites on even terms for 48 minutes.

After beating Notre Dame, 42-41, in OT on the opening week of the season, Northwestern dropped a 35-34 overtime decision to Palisades last Friday.

This week’s Overtime column will open with a look back at the Tigers’ decision to go for the win after scoring on their first possession of OT. Rod Heckman will then provide some interesting facts and figures about overtime games in the area, he’ll also look at the dominating starts to the season by both Tamaqua and Jim Thorpe, and he’ll have a few more interesting items from Week 3.

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A former offensive standout at both Northwestern High School and Lehigh University during his playing days, Josh Snyder has always stayed true to that offensive mentality in his seven years as the Tigers’ head coach.

“We don’t punt the ball a lot,” said Snyder. “We like to stay aggressive. We go for it a lot on fourth down.”

It’s a mindset that has served him well during his coaching days at Northwestern.

So when the Tigers won the coin toss to start overtime on Friday, Snyder was already focusing on being aggressive.

“Once we knew we were going to be on defense first, I was already talking to my assistants about going for two if it came down to that decision,” said Snyder. “We all agreed that if we had the opportunity we would go for the win.”

And they did.

Palisades scored first in OT and booted the conversion. The Tigers countered with a fourth-down, one-yard run by Deven Bollinger to pull to within a point. Snyder knew what he wanted to do.

The Tigers, like most teams, have a couple of special two-point conversion plays that they work on in case they are needed.

The problem with playing a pair of high-scoring, back-and-forth games early in the season is those plays get used up quickly.

“We had a pair of conversion plays we liked that we put in before the season, “ said Snyder. “But we burned through both of them against Notre Dame in our opener. Then we added another one especially for Palisades, but we used it in a goal-line situation during the second half when Josh Rodda scored on a little reverse play.”

Despite that, Snyder and his staff were confident they had a play ready for the situation.

“We ran a play earlier in the game that worked like we had hoped, but we dropped the pass,” said Snyder. “That’s a play we thought we could come back to and have success with, and we felt the conversion try was the perfect time.”

Unfortunately for the Tigers, Bollinger’s pass into the end zone fell incomplete.

About 72 hours after the failed conversion produced the Tigers’ first loss of the season, Snyder wasn’t second-guessing himself.

“Hindsight is always 20-20,” he said. “But I have no regrets. If faced with that exact situation 100 times, I would go for the two-point conversion every time.”

The ‘no looking back’ philosophy is something that Snyder instills in his players as well.

“Win or lose, after we watch the film of the game, we put it behind us and focus on what’s ahead,” said Snyder. “Whether it’s an overtime win against Notre Dame that is emotionally uplifting, or a tough loss like Friday against Palisades, you have to put it behind you.

“I think I’m more excited about this week’s game against Wilson than I have been about any game this season. Because after watching the game film today (Monday), I know our kids believe they can beat anyone in this league ... and I could sense they are really excited to get back on the field again and start proving it.”

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OT FACTS & FIGURES ... With Northwestern playing two overtime games already this season, we thought it would interesting to look at some area overtime facts and figures involving Times News area teams.

• Tamaqua has played the most overtime games in the area with 10. With their two this season, the Tigers are next at nine.

• Northwestern also owns the longest area OT game, playing a four-OT game against Catasauqua on Oct. 31, 1997. The score of that game was 3-0 in favor of the Rough Riders. Only one other area game has gone longer than two overtimes. The other was a three-OT contest on Nov. 21, 2009, in which North Schuylkill defeated Panther Valley, 35-28.

• Northern Lehigh has played the fewest amount of overtime games, just two since it became part of the PIAA in the mid-90s. The Bulldogs are 1-1 in those OT games.

• Panther Valley was the first area team to play an overtime game (a 20-18 victory over Nativity on Nov. 3, 1995) and the last to register a tie (12-12 versus North Schuylkill on Oct. 29, 1993).

• This is the seventh time that an area team has had two OT games in the same season, the last being Tamaqua in 2011. No area team has ever had more than two OTS in one year.

• There have five overtime games in which both teams were from the area. The last one was Sept. 21, 2012, when Panther Valley edged Jim Thorpe, 49-48.

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POINTS FOR US, NONE FOR YOU ... Jim Thorpe and Tamaqua not only extended their shutout strings to three straight games to start the season, they also accomplished something only two area teams have done in the past 40 years.

The Olympians and Blue Raiders both topped the 100-point mark without having allowed any points. Thorpe has put up 147, while Tamaqua now has 119. Since 1978, the only other teams to reach the century mark before allowing any points were the 2003 Jim Thorpe team, which tallied 103, and the 1979 Slatington squad, which reached 138.

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THREE ARMS BETTER THAN ONE ... In last Friday’s game against Saucon Valley, Palmerton’s Aaron Stasko, Cody Waterhouse, and Lucas Heydt all completed at least one pass.

The last time three different Blue Bombers threw for at least one completion in the same game was Oct. 22, 1999 (197 games ago) when Kyle Versuk, Jason Northington, and Brenton Gruber did it against Catasauqua in a 30-6 loss.

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PASSING FANCY ... While three weeks isn’t a huge sample size, it’s enough to start seeing trends among area schools.

For Panther Valley and Lehighton, the passing game has become a vital part of each team’s offense.

So far this season, 71.3 percent of the Panthers offense has come through the air. The Indians aren’t far behind at 70.2 percent.

Whether the two squads continue down that path remains to be seen, but if either one does, they will become the first area team since 1998 to have 70 percent of their offense come via the passing game. That team was Tamaqua, which threw for 1,474 of its 2,042 yards of offense. The quarterback that year was Adam Knoblauch, the uncle of this week’s Times News Player of the Week, Brayden Knoblauch.