Is Aberdeen’s “Gritty” defense enough to get past perennial power West Side in 3A semifinals?
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ABERDEEN – Derek Jolley grew up in Aberdeen.
For anyone who hasn’t ventured far off of Interstate 15 in east Idaho, imagine a postcard of what small-town rural Idaho looks like, with acres of farmland rolling over the horizon and the powerful Snake River nearby. Mountains off in the distance already topped with snow as November winds down.
“Hometown,” Jolley said. “It’s definitely been a special place for me.”
If anyone knows anything about Aberdeen, it’s Jolley. If anyone knows anything about Aberdeen football, it’s Jolley, who proudly played football on a Tiger team that was competitive, but never made a serious playoff run.
That was in the early 2000’s. The town hasn’t changed much, but over at the high school there’s been a concerted effort to bolster a football program that hasn’t generated a lot of headlines in the last 20 years or so.
That history is starting to change. Aberdeen, which has not won a state football title, played in the state semifinals in 2022.
The Tigers (9-1) are back in the state semifinals this year in arguably the toughest division in the state.
Aberdeen will play perennial power West Side (9-1) Saturday at 7 p.m. in the ICCU Dome in Pocatello.
The winner advances to play the winner of the Firth vs. Declo semifinal for the 3A state title.
“It’s fun to kind of be a part of it all,” said Jolley, who’s seen the hard times and a few good times with Aberdeen football during his 18 years with the program. This is his first year as head coach.
“Over the last 20 years we’ve been working on trying to build a program and a culture,” Jolley said. “There’s been a lot of guys that have invested a lot of time and effort to try and build a program … We want to set the standard that every year it’s possible to make that run.”
And that means defense.
Oh, it didn’t start out that way, as Jolley noted he didn’t know what to expect on the defensive side of the ball when the season started. There were some key returners, but the defensive line was relatively untested.
“We got our butt kicked,” senior linebacker Campbell Harris said of some early scrimmages.
But with time, the defensive unit started to gel.
“When we actually started playing games the D-line focused in,” Harris said.
Jolley likes to call them “Gritty.”
A gritty defense can do a lot for a program.
“We’re not real big, but we’ve made it tough for teams to run the ball,” Jolley said. “That’s kind of our goal, we have this bend-but-don’t-break attitude.”
So how’s that working out?
Aberdeen gives up just 7.4 points per game. That’s second in 3A only to conference foe Declo at 6.3 points per game.
“Our mentality every game is to dominate,” linebacker Tannon Nelson said. “Strike fear on the other team.”
“One thing we do is we fly to the ball and we don’t like giving up points and we’re physical,” added strong safety Lupe Ortiz.
In what proved to be the epitome of an old-school defensive battle, Aberdeen beat Declo 8-0 in a regular-season showdown.
“That’s when I realized, OK, we’re a pretty good defense,” Ortiz said. “It was just physical the whole game, trading blows.”
The Tigers lost to West Side 14-12 in a key regular-season game. It was Aberdeen’s lone loss of the season.
Saturday’s rematch will likely be another test for the Aberdeen defense against a program that’s thrived on the pressure of playing deep in the postseason.
Jolley noted that if there’s a program that exudes culture, it’s West Side, which has won four of the past five state titles.
“We’re preaching about doing the hard things,” he said. “You watch West Side and their kids are relentless. They’re well coached, they’re hard working. They’re smart kids.
“We tell (our players) we can do things that we talk about … those things are attainable if you put in the work.”
So will a dominant defense prevail? Will the team with championship experience roll to another title game?
Program history is on the line for Aberdeen, not just the football team, but maybe even the town.
Jolley said the school and community support has been uplifting.
“We’re excited for this game,” Ortiz said. “It’s a chance for us to prove that we belong in the championship.”