Week 8 preview: Paulik, receivers gaining in experience going into Southwood tilt

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Rochester (5-2, 5-1 Three Rivers Conference) at Southwood (4-3, 4-2), 7 p.m.

The evolution of the Rochester passing game continued in last week’s 62-0 win over Northfield.

Carson Paulik threw two touchdown passes, one to Wesley Meadows and one to Colton Ferverda.

Paulik’s completions tend to go for big plays. He averaged 30 yards per completion against Northfield and is averaging 29.5 per completion for the season. He has completed 15 passes this season, seven of which have gone for touchdowns.

Paulik, a sophomore, attended quarterback camps over the summer, including one put on by the Indianapolis Colts, to prepare for this season.

While Rochester still had more than four times as many rushing attempts as passing attempts against Northfield, it’s also true that Paulik’s seven passing attempts were a season high for a game.

“You can prepare and prepare all you want, but until the bullets start flying around you, you don’t know how a kid’s going to react,” Coach Ron Shaffer said. “Is he going to stick to his reads? Is he going to rush things? And those are the things we’re trying to slow down for Carson through preparation, but … there is no replacement for actually being right there in the midst of it. So a lot of on-the-job training is going on for him to the point where he gets to be a junior and a senior, he’s going to be telling me what he wants to run because of what he sees rather than me telling him what he should be throwing to. It’s a long maturation process, … but he catches on to things quickly.”

While Paulik receives his on-the-job training, it’s also an adjustment for his receivers too.

Meadows, Ferverda, Zakk Parks, Dylan Hook and Maddox Jewell have all caught at least one touchdown this season.

Ferverda’s touchdown came out of the shotgun formation and part of a four-receiver set. It was not like the wing-T Rochester has run since Shaffer became coach in 2021.

Shaffer said these plays have always been in the playbook. First, though, mastering the wing-T and its running plays – trap, counter, sweep and belly among them – took priority, according to Shaffer.

“You have to be selective of what you’re going to do,” Shaffer said. “It doesn’t do us any good to be practicing those plays if we can’t execute the core of what will make us successful in 70 to 80 percent of our games. So we had to be good at our base first, and then we start to add. And then you look at it and say, ‘Do we have to subtract?’ Because if you want to get better at something, you’re taking away from something else. So we have to weigh what it costs us to add something, so that’s where we’re at right now.”

It’s possible Southwood might be more concerned with its run defense than its pass defense going into this week’s game. Southwood allowed 421 yards rushing in a 61-7 loss to Peru last week, and Rochester ran for 412 yards against Northfield last week.

“It’s a lot of personnel matchups for them,” Shaffer said. “They’re playing a lot of young guys, a lot of sophomores. I know coach (Dave) Snyder is trying to develop the program back again with these young guys. They’re just struggling a little bit, as anybody would, playing that many young guys in the lineup.”

Rochester beat Southwood 35-21 at home in the 2022 season opener, but they have lost their last two trips to Southwood. They have not beaten the Knights at Southwood since 2013.