North Farmington Football Riding High

The varsity football team enters the final two weeks of the regular season tied at the top of the Oakland Activities Association Blue Division, holding a 5-2-0 record on a 5-game winning streak.

A win tonight at Bloomfield Hills Andover will give the Raiders at least a share of the OAA Blue title and their first post-season shot in six years.

Going into the season, the Raiders had not won more than three games in a season since 2005, but head coach Todd Schultz liked what he saw from his squad.

“We knew we had some good experience coming back, about half of the starters on both sides of the ball,” Schultz said. “We also knew we had some good talent coming up.”

After utilizing a spread attack on offense the past three seasons, the Raiders have gone back to what Schultz calls a traditional North Farmington system.

“We try to take our offense and build it around our players,” Schultz said. “For the last three seasons, we had Zach Washington as our quarterback, and the personnel we had were suited more to a spread offense. I’ve been here at North Farmington for 25 years, and traditionally, we’ve been an I-formation team. This year, we have the guys where we could go back to that, and it’s been successful.”

Even working through injuries, senior running backs Kevin Miller and Jacquis Woods have still been perhaps the most prominent players in that running attack. Schultz also pointed out the backfield contributions the team has gotten from junior Itoh Buley, senior Jason Ervin, junior James Ward and sophomore Chauncey Bridges.

While the players in the backfield have racked up the yards and found the end zone plenty of times, Schultz said that the performance from the Raiders’ offensive line has been every bit as important.

“The unsung guys have been the offensive linemen,” Schultz said. “We’ve got six or seven players that we rotate in there because some are playing defense as well. Those guys don’t get the yards behind their names in the newspaper, but they are really doing the job up front, and I give a lot of the credit to them.”

Loss inspired confidence

The success that North Farmington would have was not apparent early in the season, as the Raiders lost to Birmingham Seaholm and Birmingham Groves in their first two games. The loss to Groves came on a last-minute touchdown by the Falcons, and despite that, Schultz said the team found its confidence in that game.

“I think that was the turning point where we said, ‘Hey, we can play. We let one get away from us, and we can’t let that happen again',” Schultz said. “At that point, our guys realized they could play and really that’s where the epiphany occurred.”

North Farmington’s final OAA-Blue game comes on tonight at 7 p.m., at Bloomfield Hills Andover, a team that comes in with a 0-7-0 record.

“Andover does not have the record that they want, obviously, but they have been very competitive,” Schultz said. “They are at home, and it’s their homecoming, so I told our guys that they will be coming at us with absolutely nothing to lose and everything they have.”

With the team one victory away from earning its first postseason berth since 2005, Schultz said it’s more important than ever to drive home the values that have gotten the Raiders to this point.

“We have to focus just on what’s next for us,” Schultz said. “That’s what we’ve done since game one … Now, we’re near the end of October and each game, especially for the seniors, really means something. So our message is to not take things for granted, and life is really that way.”

The Raiders conclude their season by hosting Waterford Kettering in a non-conference game on Oct. 21 at 7 p.m.