Today’s interviewee is Westminster coach Gerry Romberg, whose team is playing tonight at third-ranked Benedictine. Romberg discusses the Benedictine series, road trips, his team’s identity and his complaint against the GHSA for placing Westminster in a five-team region. This is Romberg’s 33rd season as Westminster’s football coach.
1. Benedictine is becoming a regular non-region opponent for you. (Westminster and Benedictine are playing for the third consecutive season.) How did this series come about, and what do you like about playing Benedictine? “I always want to play one of the hardest non-region schedules to get us ready for region play. We happened to get in touch with Coach [Danny] Britt a few years ago, and it worked out for us to get a game scheduled. Playing an out-of-town game is always a great experience for our team. We make it a true team bonding experience by traveling on Thursday. It builds team chemistry as well as discipline when you have to deal with hotels, meals on the road, having meetings in an environment that is not your weekly norm. As for why Benedictine, obviously they are a very talented, well-coached team. That always presents a tremendous challenge. We have great respect for their program, and the test that comes from playing them makes us a stronger team.” [It’s 262 miles from Westminster to Savannah Memorial Stadium, making this the longest in-state trip this regular season for any team north of Macon. Benedictine’s Aug. 23 trip to Buford, at 286 miles one way, is the longest overall.]
2. You and Benedictine fell into Class 3A in the reclass. Why did Westminster choose to play in Class 4A? “It wasn’t just a football decision, but an entire athletic department decision. The biggest reason was the GHSA’s plan to split public and private schools into separate playoffs. While there are certainly challenges that we would have faced in the private school playoffs, we determined as a school that playing a broader array of both public and private schools would be the better situation for us.”
3. What is the identity of this team? Westminster is relying more on the pass this season than usual. Why is that? “Coach [Neema] Salimi, our offense coordinator, does a great job of creating a game plan each week that utilizes our best abilities and puts us in the best position to score. Currently, with quarterback Michael Buhay, our strength is more in the passing game. But there may be situations we face this year where we will rely more on the run. Coach Salimi makes our offense situational. Being a smaller school in Class 4A, most schools we play are going to have bigger, stronger kids, or at least more of them. So, we have to rely on planning, execution and discipline. The same goes for our defense. As for identity, we have always believed that defense wins championships, and Coach [Adam] Pullen, our defensive coordinator, has consistently developed defensive plans that match up to our opponents. Other teams have told us that preparing for our games is one of their toughest assignments all year. It isn’t necessarily because of our talent. It’s because we do so many things, not showing the same offense or defense each week, and requiring teams to spend a lot of practice time preparing for the variety we will show on Friday.”
4. You are in a region of only five teams. What are the pros and cons of a small region? “Since four out of the five will make the playoffs, our odds are certainly better than if we were in a 10-team region. But it really was a disservice put on us by the GHSA. When the original alignment came out, our region had nine teams. They allowed four teams to leave, without replacing any of them. Having only four region games is probably not the best test of who deserves to be in the playoffs. In addition, it makes scheduling a nightmare, as we have to find six non-region games. Finding two or three in the beginning of the season isn’t hard, but since most other regions start region play by week five or so, it makes it extremely difficult to find those last two or three non-region games. Since we have to front load the schedule to get those six non-region games, it forces us to play eight straight weeks – two scrimmages and six games – without an off week. That is a huge burden on the team, and from an injury standpoint, creates unsafe situations. There should have been much better planning on the part of the GHSA region alignment committee.” [From the original nine-team region announced in November, the GHSA granted appeals to Pace Academy, North Springs and Northview to move to other Class 4A regions while Holy Innocents’ petitioned successfully to drop into Class 2A. Westminster is two miles from Pace, and 12 from North Springs, but the three schools are in different Class 4A regions.]
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