By Victor Parkins
Milan Mirror
Will Trenton Peabody extend their win streak over Milan to 4 games in a row? That and a lot more will be determined this Thursday night when Milan opens the 2020 season in a brand new stadium against the two-time defending Class 2A state champions.
Not only will the Bulldogs be breaking in a new stadium, they’ll do so with a new coaching staff as the Carl Diffee era begins at MHS.
“It’s a big game,” admitted Diffee. “But we can’t make it bigger than it really is. At the end of the day it’s just a game played between two schools.”
With no scrimmage or jamboree tapes to study, coach Diffee said he has been watching tapes of the last two years of the Milan-Peabody games.
“They’ve got the same staff so we know what they’ve done in the past and usually those things don’t change that much,” he said.
“Every coach has a certain identity so we’ve got an idea of what they’ll want to do. We’ve just got to prepare our kids for everything that we know they can do on both sides of the ball. As coaches, we’ve got to do a good job making adjustments in the game.”
The new MHS coach knows that Peabody is going to bring a really good football team to Milan.
“Peabody lost a lot of talent from last year but they’ll be ready,” added Diffee, “Winners just know how to win and Trenton is a bunch of winners. They’ll (Peabody) start a sophomore quarterback so you don’t know how much they’ll let him do. On defense, they’re going to be really good, especially up front and we know we’ll be outsized. We’ve got to make up for that by playing with a lot of toughness and grit and maybe we can even out those odds.”
As for his team, the new head ball coach says they’re getting better each day.
“We had a good practice yesterday (Sunday) in terms of correcting our mistakes,” added Diffee. “There’s always concerns when it’s your first time out. We have a new staff and our kids are still adjusting to a new brand of football. We’ve lost the last three years in a row to Peabody and our kids know that. If we’ll just go out and have fun and play disciplined football with confidence we should be ok.”
Game notes: Meeting between schools -100th
First meeting: 1922
Series record: Milan leads 51-46-2
Current streak: Peabody, 3 games
Shane Jacobs vs. Milan: 4-1
Last 6 games
2019 Peabody won 35-14
2018 Peabody won 27-26
2017 Peabody won 27-21
2016 Milan won 56-12
2015 Peabody won 24-20
2014 Milan won 15-7
(PHOTO: Courtesy Victor Parkins, Milan Mirror)
