Peabody head football Mark Bettencourt expected his team’s toughest test of the season, and the Winthrop Vikings provided a challenge in a hard-fought 24-7 loss to the highly ranked Tanners.
Bettencourt, a former Boston College baseball player, praised Winthrop in his post-game remarks to the media. Some of his Viking-related observations follow:
On keeping Peabody off the scoreboard for most of the first half
“Winthrop was blitzing different gaps and disguising their stuff up front, and we were confused,” said Bettencourt. “A lot of guys came in untouched, and we were having little success on first down, but we made some adjustments and started to move the ball much better in the second half.”
On Winthrop’s ball-control offense
“We knew what Winthrop’s offense was all about. They run this offense, and they don’t care if you stop them ten times in a row, as long as they beat you on the eleventh play, and you saw that today. They make big plays. If you don’t have everybody on the same page defensively and understanding what their responsibility is, it just takes one play. We had them third-and-25, and they hit the belly and [Robert Rich] goes 93 yards for a touchdown. On the pass play (Matt Noonan to Chris Cappuccio for 76 yards), we had a blown coverage. That’s what Winthrop does. They run their offense very, very crisply. If you stop them, it’s because you’re disciplined. But if one player isn’t disciplined, they get you on a big play.”
Peabody’s defensive focus on Nick Cappuccio
“We knew all about No. 20 [Cappuccio]. We watched him on film. We practiced against him for the three days that we had. We know he’s their Eli Baptista – he’s their playmaker. The goal was to contain him, and we weren’t sure we’d be able to stop him, but just contain him and keep him to 3-4 yards per carry and keep him from having the big play, and as it turned out, we were able to do that. Mr. Rich, on the other hand, got his big play. We knew No. 4 was a very good running back, too.”
On Batista’s tackle of Cappuccio at the 3-yard line
“The fact that he [Batista] ran down that play doesn’t surprise me. He has no ‘quit’ in him, and our team follows his lead. As it turned out, it was one of the biggest plays of the game. If Winthrop goes up 14-0, that’s a whole different ballgame for us.”