Tecumseh @ Milan

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• From freep.com / usatodayhss.com

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  Tecumseh rising

  One of the biggest upsets of the first round of the state football playoffs was Tecumseh's 27-20 victory over Chelsea, which had beaten the Indians, 31-28, in Week 7.

  In the first game, Chelsea's Berkley Edwards ran for 232 yards. This time, he ran for 83 yards on 28 carries while Tecumseh's Spencer Hite ran for 114 yards to complement the 216 passing yards from Ben Dreslinski.

  "The main thing is we got a little running game going, and that makes a big difference," coach Al Romano said. "And we held Edwards to under 100 yards. I think our defense just kind of took away all the cutback lanes and we had him bottled up pretty good. It was a team defensive effort."

  Tecumseh trailed, 17-0, in the first quarter. In years past, Tecumseh would have lost the game, 42-0.

  "We've changed the culture of the program these last two seasons and they bought into it," Ramano said. "We're a two-platoon football team, so we specialize a lot. We've got a good strength coach in Joe Linde, and it's probably about the fifth year of the strength program in school and I'm the right man in the right spot right now."
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• From AnnArbor.com

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  Kyle Austin | AnnArbor.com, October 30, 2012 7:59 p.m.

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  Milan came into the playoffs with a perfect 9-0 record, barely tested in the last month of the regular season when it won each game by three touchdowns or more.

  So coach Jesse Hoskins can see the good in the punch in the mouth that was his team’s 14-7 win over Carleton Airport Friday night. The Big Reds, against a team they had beat by 41 two weeks earlier, had their weaknesses exposed while still earning the win.

  It was definitely a wake-up call, Hoskins said.

  “I think in a lot of respects, it’s the best thing that could have happened to us,” Hoskins said.

  Hoskins said his players arrived Saturday “humbled and refocused” as they began preparation for their home district title game against Tecumseh on Friday in the AnnArbor.com "Game of the Week" in which Milan will be going for its first district title since 2007.

  The Milan vs. Tecumseh game won the Game of the Week voting with 997 of the 2,064 votes cast. The Pioneer versus Saline game came in second with 745 votes.

  Practices this week have been sharp, as the coaching staff hones in on correcting the slew of offensive mistakes -- including dropped balls and missed blocking assignments -- that held the team to its lowest scoring output of the season.

  “We just did a whole variety of things that we haven’t done all year,” Hoskins said.

  In the fourth quarter of Friday’s game, needing a touchdown to avoid heading to overtime, Milan gave the ball to quarterback Robert Kanitz, who carried on every play on the last drive and scored the game-winning touchdown.

  The 192-yard performance marked Kanitz’s continued emergence over the last three weeks. In a backfield that includes Washtenaw County’s leading rusher, Arthur Dukes, Kanitz has been in the spotlight for the last three weeks, averaging nearly 200 yards per game.

  That mark includes a 256-yard performance against Lincoln two weeks ago, when the Railsplitters defense keyed in on Dukes, opening things up for Kanitz. With the game on the line Friday, Hoskins went with the hot hand.

  “We just stuck with it because it worked,” Hoskins said.

  The Milan defense, though, may need a little more help from the offense this week against the Indians. Tecumseh’s offense is averaging more than 35 points per game, led by 1,686 regular season passing yards from quarterback Ben Dreslinski.

  But Hoskins said his gameplan centers around taking away Tecumseh’s running attack -- which put up 184 yards last week against Chelsea -- and forcing the Indians to pass.

  That means Hoskins is challenging his team’s pass defense, which doesn’t see a lot of action in the Huron League, to shut down a team that has shown it can pass.

  “Defending the pass is something that we work on every single day,” Hoskins said. “I wouldn’t say we’re at a disadvantage, I’d say it's a challenge for our guys.”

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• Hey 216. Start paying attention. Adrenalin only goes so far.

• Seen them both play, should be a great game. 2 good teams that played some of the same competition.

• News flash.. playing both ways is nothing new. That should never be an excuse for a teams poor performance.

• Milan will probably win this one. The Tecumseh QB is good but not alot of depth on that team. Airport picked them 2x and dropped 2. Difference here as with the Airport game is the Milan QB. His running was the difference between a win and a playoff upset last week. Milan's D line pass rush was unstoppable down the stretch not allowing Airports QB to put together another come from behind win like the week before.

• The Airport team or S.M. doesn't deserve that comment. This was a team whose stars were up and down all year due to lack of depth. When your main receiver plays corner,qb plays safety and many lineman play both ways it will usually not end well.
  The Tecumseh and Milan games were heroic efforts by the entire team!

• Upset? Errr wouldn't really call it an upset if Tecumseh won.

• The key matchup to look for is Milan's front 7 putting pressure on Dreslinski. If they do they win, if not Tecumseh could pull the upset. I like Milan 28-14. As for 1:47 poster, it's pretty impressive that a "one man team" made the playoffs at all. Any "one man team" should feel lucky to make the playoffs. Btw smart guy its McCormick, not Mackormick. EM

• Milan fan base seem to be able to get the votes out for the AnnArbor.com game of the week :)

  Here are some keys: can Milan's secondary stop the quick post when split out wide?

  Will the offense unleash their passing game when if the run game gets stopped on some drives?

  Will Milan's special teams come through? Kick-off, punt, field goal? The kick-return put them up last game.

  Crowd: Milan folks are like fans at a Michigan game...unless it is 4th and 2 in the 4th quarter, not much noise!

  So, final question, Will the crowd make some noise?