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Tuesday Q&A With Lake Forest Football Coach Chuck Spagnoli

Coach defends two-quarterback system as the Scouts prep for North Chicago in Friday night's Homecoming contest.

Three wins in a row has the football team feeling confident as they host North Chicago in Friday night's Homecoming game. The defense continues to shine, and the offense showed more versatility in the Sept. 16 win over Zion. 

In our weekly Inside the Huddle chat with head coach Chuck Spagnoli, he says despite the Scouts outscoring their last three opponents by a combined score of 123-20, his team will not be taking the Warhawks lightly.  

After looking at the film, what impressed you the most about the win over Zion?

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Consistency. They started out well, . Look at what they got (90 yards rushing, 120 passing) and two were on fluke halfback passes. On those plays it was more than anything a lack of focus. We have to clean those up vertical routes on the top. We got caught looking back. 

The team cut down on their mistakes as well (five penalties). Game was cleaner than last week against Mundelein (11 penalties). 

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We didn’t kill ourselves with penalties. Nothing that was a drive killer or nothing to give them momentum with a drive.

Jordan Beck had an efficient game (13-of-21 passing, 205 yards, one touchdown). How about Andrew Clifford? Two touchdown drives, 3-of-4 passing, 64 yards. He looked very comfortable out there. Beck and Clifford seem to be developing more chemistry with receiving core of Bo Dever, Cam Douglass and Luke Bernardi (four catches, 87 yards, two touchdowns).

We have to give him (Clifford) credit and the people coaching him credit. . Our hope is that we’ll have some rhythm offensively and there will be opportunities for people to make plays. They should know what’s about to happen rather than wonder. We’ve practiced so many times now there will be trust between quarterbacks and receivers. 

At what point do you tell the team Clifford is coming into the game? 

At the pre-game personnel meeting, 4 p.m. It’s not something that's a secret through the week and its not like he anticipated it. He understands when he’s going to go in and what he’s expected to do. 

In the series (third) after Clifford’s touchdown, Beck came back in and threw an interception. People who don’t agree with a two-quarterback system say this is an example of why it doesn’t work, that the starter wants to come in and make a play right away. What do you say to that? 

Those are the people who would rather listen to sports talk radio. I don’t care what they think. . Advocates will say look from the sidelines and look at the other guy and learn from what he’s doing. No one’s house is clean. What he (Beck on interception in second quarter) was doing was a miscommunication by two guys, and the guy he was looking for wasn’t there. 

You may be facing the best quarterback you have all season this Friday in North Chicago’s Anthony Burton (167 total yards in 20-14 win over Round Lake Sept. 16). How do you stop him? 

That’s what we have to figure out these next few days. He’s pretty good and when we line up Saturday he’s as good as it gets. He plays well and keeps them in the game and keeps them in situations where they can score. He scares the death out of us, not sure what we are going to do.

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