FOOTBALL FRIDAY: #5 ICC PIRATES (1-0) GAME PREVIEW

Last week America’s Team… The ICC “DreamU” Pirates started their season with a 38-20 beat down of Dodge City… On the road.

This Saturday the Pirates play their first home game, and everyone is pumped. The Pirates go into this game 1-0 and ranked #5 in the country. They will be playing the Hutchinson Blue Dragons who are also sitting at 1-0.

📍Home Opener at Emmot Field

5 Days | #BeThere #DreamU pic.twitter.com/I4eEKTXy9a

— Jordan Remsza (@CoachJ_Remsza) August 27, 2018

Last week: Jeff Carpenter “Independence jumped on Dodge City early in-route to a 23-10 halftime lead, and then put the game away midway in the 3rd quarter by extending their advantage to 38-10. Coach Jason Brown then inserted his reserves to finish out the victory, which was the first season-opening win for him as the DreamU Head Coach in his 3 years at Indy.”

The Pirate Offense finished with nearly 400 yards of total offense, including 186 on the ground. Back up QB Chase Hildreth lead the way, going 16 of 21 for 201 yards and 3 TD’s.

Image – Twitter DreamU

Also, the defense turned Dodge City into Sack City last week. The DreamU Defense tallied 5 sacks and 1 INT. (DE) Tamarion Johnson registered 2 sacks and fellow (DE) Jermaine Johnson with 1.5 sacks as well.

🚨Week 1 Defensive MVP: Tamarion Johnson (@TamarionJ) 🚨
Stats: 3Tkls, 2Sacks, 2TFLs, 1FF and 1FR. pic.twitter.com/567dgYb6Rc

— INDEPENDENCE CC FOOTBALL (@DreamU_IndyFB) August 29, 2018

Now the Pirates eyes are square on their next Jayhawk conference opponent, and plan to bring the Thunder at Schultis Stadium tomorrow night!

Hutchinson relies big time on their ground game. They are going to ground and pound all night, but they may play right into the hands of Coach Brown and the DreamU defense.

Coming for everything they said I couldn’t have💯 pic.twitter.com/Z7RotG7q35

— Tre Howard (@TreHoward_33) August 29, 2018

When asked about the keys to this game for ICC Jeff Carpenter said:

“Independence will need to get off to a fast start and ignite the anticipated overflowing sellout crowd at Schultis Stadium.

The Pirate offense will need to improve on their rushing attack against a stingy Hutchinson defense.

Indy has a stable of speedy wide-outs, which could prove to be deadly for the Hutch defensive secondary.”

It seems that both defenses are big, strong and athletic. Because of this, I believe whoever wins the turnover battle (as per usual) will win the game. The Pirate offensive will need to be smart, move the ball efficiently, win the time of possession battle. And, when the time is right have Coach Brown dial up a few dagger plays to their speedster wideouts.

ICC and Hutch know each other well. Last year ICC was up 17-3 at the half. However, Hutch battled back to make it a game. The Pirates defense held-off a late Blue Dragon rally to prevail 24-19, and secure their 7th consecutive win of the season.

Everyone in Independence and around the country is looking forward to this game. Remember, the DreamU Pirates have turned into America’s Team and all of us are on this ride with them, in their pursuit of the elusive National Championship.