Regardless of whether you think it’s old-fashioned or not, Whiteland football coach Darrin Fisher places a lot of importance on winning the Mid-State Conference championship.
If you’re going to be in a league, he figures, you might as well try to be the best team in it.
The Warriors have other goals, of course, but claiming the title in what has become one of the strongest football conferences in Indiana is the first big-ticket item on the list.
“A lot of people say it’s all about the tournament,” Fisher said. “Us winning the conference, it always starts there.”
It was certainly a good starting point for the Warriors a year ago, when they rallied from a game down to earn a three-way split of the league crown alongside Decatur Central and Mooresville. That paved the way to a much-enjoyed 48-13 rout of recent nemesis New Palestine in the sectional championship game.
A year later, Whiteland wants to continue building on those successes.
“We need to get one level past what we got last year,” senior tight end and defensive lineman Max Sullivan said. “Winning the sectional championship last year was our level then; we need to achieve, if not practice like, we’re regional champions.”
Though Fisher lost some key performers to graduation, he’s got plenty of holdovers in the lineup, including senior quarterback Brant Kunz, a third-year starter. And while Whiteland has long been known as a ground-bound team — it ran the ball 10 times for every pass last fall — it has at least developed enough of an aerial attack to keep defenses honest.
Of the 23 passes Kunz completed last season, 11 went for touchdowns. The senior knows he needs to make it count when the situation calls for him to air it out.
“I always approach it with an open mindset and a ready mindset, because I know the few times it might happen in a game, it’s important,” Kunz said. “It means a lot every time we throw the ball; there’s a lot riding on it. Usually a big third down, or sometimes it’s end-zone throws. Those are big plays for us.”
Still, the Warriors will rely heavily on their ground game, which generated more than 360 yards a game in 2020. Even with three of their top four rushers gone, they’ve still got six returnees who gained at least 99 yards last year, led by junior Jonathan Crowley (439 yards, 5 TDs).
If it ain’t broke …
“Everyone knows — we’re Whiteland, we run the fly sweep,” Sullivan said. “We’re going to keep pounding the rock.”
That’s an oversimplification, of course — even teams that operate within the same system year to year make adjustments. But no matter what tweaks need to be made, Fisher plans on having them figured out by the time October comes around.
When the calendar flips to that month, the Warriors are usually set to get down to business. They’re a stellar 46-14 in October under Fisher, with a 6-0 mark over the last two seasons.
“We want to get to Oct. 1 playing the best football we can possibly play,” the coach said. “We want all the people in the right seats on the bus; any experimentation that you’re going to do, by Oct. 1, you need to know who you are, who your guys are, and how your plan to win incorporates — and once you get to Oct. 1, then you’re just emphasizing what you’re good at. That’s always our goal.”
