The Garfield G-Men offensive linemen leading the way for the team’s 2022 rushing success include (from left to right) Brian Stavis, Tyler Bortz, Aiden Kissell, Kaid Turnbull, Alex Carter, Jonathan Wiczen, Gavin Peska, Austin Zarrelli, Nathaniel Veccia.
Tom Nader/Portage Sports

By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

The one thing all football teams try to avoid, ironically, set the course for a new era in football for the Garfield G-Men.

Injuries.

Coaches across the county, and region, forever fill preseason conversations with thoughts that begin with: “If we can stay healthy…”

Diminishing roster sizes impact the ability to have prepared depth, or at least, sustainable depth.

Five years ago, it was the injury bug that pushed Garfield head coach Mike Moser to rethink how his team could best finish the season.

“I remember Mike came to me and asked, ‘What do you think about the single wing’?,” offensive line coach Randy Ward said.

Ward provided an honest answer.

“I told him that I didn’t know much about it, but I would research it,” Ward said.

It introduced a quick transition, with the G-Men shifting to the single-wing — an offense that features an unbalanced offensive line and a core of four backfield runners — after the season had already begun.

Not an easy task.

Which is exactly what opposing defenses have been muttering, soaked in frustration, ever since.

In nine games to close the 2017 season, the G-Men rushed for 2,213 yards as a team (246 per game).

In 2018, it was 3,569 yards (357).

In 2019, it was 3,201 yards (291).

In 2020, it was 2,830 yards (283).

And last season, in 2021, it was 3,886 yards (299).

Garfield’s Keegan Sell prepares to stiff-arm a Campbell Memorial defender during the first quarter of Friday’s game at JAG Stadium in Garrettsville.
Tom Nader/Portage Sports

Opposing teams have seen nothing but a wave of black and gold, with aggressive blocking schemes and powerful, quick runners, along with deception and confusion.

The G-Men have found their formula.

“I felt like all the really good programs that I watched had something about them that made them different from other programs, whether it was a system or style of play,” Moser said. “We wanted to play a physical brand of football that featured what we thought, as a staff, was our strength, which was hard-nosed kids.”

This season, it is another batch of players that have fully embraced the offense. Through seven games, the G-Men have rushed for 2,365 yards (338 per game).

On Friday, in a convincing 56-14 win over Campbell Memorial, nine different runners carried the ball, which is more than an average Friday night for the G-Men. At the same time, it is not unusual for the team to feature five more backs in a game.

It is a strategy that Ward does not think Moser gets enough credit for reviving.

“So many teams are going to the spread offense and Mike made a decision to go completely in the other direction,” Ward said. “You look around now, even in our area, there are teams that are all now trying to run it, but Mike was really at the start of bringing it back. For us, it gave our program an identity and the kids have bought in.”

So much so that Ward now has players dreaming of the opportunity to play the integral positions of the offensive line.

“I remember Jon Wiczen was our center last year, and he came up to me and said, ‘Next year, I am going to be the offensive tackle in this offense’,” said Ward, who followed by saying that Wiczen has fulfilled that dream. “The kids have just embraced the entire idea of the offense, which has been huge. As football coaches, we love it, too, because there is nothing we love more than to run a team over and take their souls.”

Garfield’s other offensive line coach, Howie Moore, has seen the same dynamic develop within the team’s linemen.

“I think every kid you ever meet wants to be a running back,” Moore said. “Here are Garfield, all of a sudden, we have players that want to be linemen. They have spots on that line they want to have. It is pretty awesome.”

Now inside their sixth season in the single wing, Moser and offensive coordinator Mike Paes have moved far past the learning stages.

“We laugh now, because that first year, we knew what we were doing, but not like we do now,” Ward said. “We did not know all of the intricacies and the variations that we could run. Maybe we knew some of them, but we needed time to get them in place. Every year, Mike and Mike bring some kind of new wrinkle to the plays and now we have so many variations that we truly feel this is the only offense that defenses can never take everything away from us.”

Moore, a Garfield graduate and former standout offensive linemen for the G-Men, joined the staff in 2018, remembers when the staff first began showing him the single wing and how it worked.

“I watched some stuff, and I was confused,” Moore admitted. “The numbers just didn’t make sense. But I remember staying with the guys until 11:30 at night. Night after night, learning it, studying it and understanding it.”

The results have spoken for themselves. In addition to the gaudy team rushing totals, the G-Men have posted a 44-12 record from 2017 through the first seven weeks of this season.

With no signs of slowing down.