Football coaches can be creatures of habit.

In general, they are normally organized to a fault and love to stick to a very precise routine.

That includes everything from practice schedules, to film review, to game-day preparations - and almost everything else associated with their program.

But last week’s Pleasant Valley football schedule was anything but routine.

This week’s Overtime column will look at an unusual week for the Bears - who played games against two different teams, on three different days, in the span of just eight days.

In addition, Rod Heckman takes a look at 200-yard rushers, a new opponent for Marian, and a big shutout by Lehighton.

********

Pleasant Valley coach Blaec Saeger admits to falling into the coaching stereotype mentioned above.

“Very much so,” said Saeger when asked if he normally maintains a strict routine when it comes to his football team. “We have a schedule that we try to maintain from day-to-day and from week-to-week. I think its helpful for the players and the coaches to have a routine, and to know what’s expected.

“But that definitely wasn’t the case last week. It was quite a different week of games and practices. Pretty much nothing was normal about it.”

Pleasant Valley’s hectic week started with a special Thursday game on Sept. 7 against East Stroudsburg South. Bad storms caused the game to be delayed initially. Then once it started, another round of storms hit that caused play to be suspended late in the second quarter. It was ultimately decided that it wouldn’t be continued until Monday, Sept. 11 - a full four days later than it started.

“I wasn’t part of the process of determining when the game would be completed,” said Saeger. “I do know that there weren’t enough officials available to play it Friday. The only other thing I know is that our athletic director came into our looker room Thursday night and told us we weren’t going to be able to play anymore that night, and it was going to be finished on Monday.

“So once we learned that, we had to scramble and figure out how we were going to handle the days leading up to the completion of our game with South, and then what we were going to do in the few days we had between the completion of that game on Monday and our game with Allen the next Friday (Sept. 15).”

The decision was to watch film of the first half of the South game (the contest was suspended with 1:48 remaining in the second quarter and the score tied at 6-6) on Friday. Saeger then gave the players Saturday and Sunday off.

“I have a pretty staunch policy of no Saturday practices,” said Saeger. “We decided we wouldn’t change that, and we just trusted our kids would do the right things so they would be ready to play on Monday.”

But while the players had off, that wasn’t the case for the coaches.

“We didn’t get together over the weekend as a staff, but we all stayed in touch electronically and worked on little tweaks in the game plan for the resumption of the East Stroudsburg South game based on our observations and film study from the first half. In addition, we spent time looking at Allen and putting together a game plan for them.”

Pleasant Valley eventually defeated South, 14-12. It then overcame a short prep week to beat Allen, 49-6.

The short week consisted of a practice in just helmets and shoulder pads on Tuesday, film session on Wednesday, and a walk through on Thursday. Extremely different from the normal practice week that includes two full days in pads.

But even that short prep schedule had a few kinks thrown into it.

“The weather forecast we were looking at made it seem like Wednesday was going to be a wash out with heavy rain,” said Saeger. “Because of that, we decided we should get out on the field Tuesday and save the film work until Wednesday. I know it was tough on the kids after just playing Monday to go out and practice the following day, but we felt like that was our only option.

“As it turned out, the storms never hit on Wednesday, so we could have done film on Tuesday and gone out on Wednesday. But I guess that was par for the course for our week.”

The good news for the Bears is the unusual week produced two victories, allowing them to improve their record to 3-1.

“The bottom line is we were able to get a couple of wins, so that made up for all the craziness the week presented,” said Saeger.

Despite the success the Bears ultimately experienced, Seager said he’d be totally fine with not having to repeat that type of schedule again any time soon.

“I’m glad it’s over with it,” he said. “We definitely didn’t play as sharp or crisp as I had hoped on Friday, but I think that’s probably understandable considering everything our kids dealt with. On the whole, I’m proud of our players and our staff for making the best of some unusual circumstances.

“That said, I’m glad the thunderstorm season is coming to an end and I’m looking forward to some pretty standard weeks the rest of the season.”

**********

RUNNING FOR 200 YARDS ... Four different Times News area players ran for at least 200 yards in Week 4. They included the Player of the Week, Panther Valley’s Brennan Kunkel (324 yards), Palmerton’s Matt Machalik (319), Northern Lehigh’s Grady Newhard (243) and Lehighton’s Dylan Moyer (214). Pleasant Valley’s Alex Ecker came close, finishing with 199.

Since 1988 (when the Times News started including individual game stats), that marked the only time four players reached 200 yards rushing in the same week. The most had been three, which happened three different times.

Other 200-yard rushing notes (since 1988) include:

• Northwestern’s Brett Snyder has the most 200-yard rushing games in a season with seven in 1995.

• Lehighton’s Robbie Frey and Northern Lehigh’s Cody Remaley have the most 200-yard rushing games in a career, with both totaling 10.

• This is the third straight year Machalik has had a 200-yard rushing game, but there is one former player who did it four straight seasons - Pleasant Valley’s Austyn Borre.

• The season with the highest number of players to have 200-yard rushing games is 2011. That year, seven different players accomplished the feat. The players were Lehighton’s Jacen Nalesnik, Tamaqua’s Jarred Muffley, Marian’s Paul Martin and Dylan Quirk, Northern Lehigh’s Trevor Yashur, Northwestern’s Ty Cunnigham and Pleasant Valley’s Rob Getz.

**********

108 AND COUNTING ... Marian rolled to a victory against Sayre last Friday.

It marked the first time ever the Colts have met the Redskins on the gridiron. Times News writer Bill O’Gurek has informed us that Sayre is now the 108th opponent Marian has played in its 70 years of existence since 1954.

During that time, the Colts have an overall record of 418-331-10. This season marks the 50th year Marian has played at Men of Marian Stadium, where the Colts’ record is 186-85.

In its history, Marian has played Panther Valley more than any other team - 55 times. To date, the Colts have played just one game against 38 different opponents.

**********

SPEAKING OF MARIAN ... The Colts got off to the best start possible in that victory over Sayre when Brandon Klitsch took the opening kickoff and raced 80 yards for a touchdown.

The last time Marian led a game after the opening kickoff was Oct. 7, 2016 - 70 games ago - when Seth Paluck also ran 80 yards to paydirt at Mahanoy Area.

**********

INDIANS ROUT WILSON ... Lehighton scored early and often, and didn’t allow Wilson to reach the end zone in cruising to a 50-0 win last Friday.

That marked the biggest margin of victory in an Indians shutout since Oct. 17, 1997 - 278 games ago - when they rolled to a 51-0 decision over East Stroudsburg.

In the big win against the Warriors, Tom McCarroll’s team registered seven sacks and allowed minus-58 yards rushing.

The last time Lehighton held an opponent to negative rushing yardage was Oct. 11, 2011 - 126 games ago - when Pocono Mountain West finished with minus-29. The last time it gave up fewer than minus-58 was Sept. 15, 2000 - 251 games ago - when Whitehall was sacked 10 times and ended with minus-71 yards on the ground.

**********

OLYMPIAN EFFORT ... Jim Thorpe’s Justin Yescavage had quite the night in his team’s loss to Palmerton last Friday.

The junior receiver caught nine passes for 193 yards and a touchdown.

The last time a Thorpe player had that many catches AND that many yards in the same game was Oct. 28, 2000 when Michael Cody’s numbers were nearly identical to Yescavage. Against Pius X, Cody also caught nine passes and gained 194 yards.

**********

BOMBER COMEBACK ... In its win over Jim Thorpe, Palmerton trailed by 10 points before rallying for a victory.

Over the past 37 seasons, that marked just the seventh time the Blue Bombers trailed by double digits in a game and still came back to win.

During that time span, the largest lead Palmerton rebounded from was 14 points, which it did on three occasions - the most recent on Sept. 8, 2017 when the Bombers erased a 21-7 deficit to defeat Saucon Valley 29-28.

Friday’s victory also pushed the Bombers record to 4-0. The last time they began the season with four straight wins was 2006. This Friday, they’ll be shooting to start 5-0 for the first time since 1994.