By Craig Dunn
Logan Daily News
LOGAN — When taking into consideration recent history, Logan’s week-eight game at Warren didn’t look to be anything more than an ordinary Southeastern Ohio Athletic League game when the Chieftains’ 2009 football schedule was first announced.

Boy, how times have changed.

Had it not been for a resurgent Portsmouth team, the Chiefs and Warriors would have met in a late-season “meetin’ of the unbeaten” this Friday (7:30 p.m. kickoff) at Warren High School.
While Portsmouth’s 28-7 victory over the visiting Warriors last Friday keeps this game from being a matchup of two 7-0 teams, it’s still a huge game with league and post-season playoff ramifications for each.

As an observer from Marietta said last week, “there won’t be enough room on the hillside (above the Warren football field) for that game.”

Not only are the Chiefs (7-0 overall, 2-0 SEOAL) and Warriors (6-1, 1-1) SEOAL rivals, but they’re also in the same playoff region.

The Chiefs are No. 2 in Division II Region 7 this week while Warren is No. 14. The winner stands to pick up a big chunk of computer playoff points.

“We know we’re going to play a better-than-good football team… this a very, very good football team,” Logan coach Dale Amyx said of the Warriors. “They still have (league and playoff) aspirations with the success they’ve had this season and are gaining more confidence in themselves.

“We know we’ll have to play a great football game,” he added. “It’s also a team in our region and there are a lot of computer points on the line.”

The Warriors are off to their best start since 1996, when they went 9-1 and finished second to Jackson in the SEOAL. Warren went 8-2 the year before, tying Jackson and Gallipolis for its only SEOAL championship.

Until this fall, the Warriors’ last winning season was a 6-4 slate in 1999, which was also the last year they finished above .500 in the SEOAL. From 2002 to 2008, they were 13-57 overall and 4-38 in the SEOAL, and three of those league wins were over Athens, which is no longer a member of the SEOAL.

However, under head coach Jim Pifer — who doubles as the school’s athletics director — the Warriors have shown steady improvement. Counting their 6-1 slate this season, they are 13-14 since 2007 and have already clinched their first winning season in a decade.

And a lot of people have noticed, including Amyx and the Chieftains.

Pifer “has done a really good job,” Amyx said. “I think he’s gotten his message across to them to do it his way. The kids who are seniors were sophomores when he started out with them.”

Stressing the fundamentals appears to have been one of those messages.

“They’ve done a good job executing their game plans and they’re doing all the fundamentals - blocking, tackling - very well,” Amyx noted.

“They’re fundamentally a wing-T team but they’re also proficient passing the ball,” he added. “They have some pretty good skill kids. Their quarterback and receivers do a good job and their running backs run hard behind a pretty good line.”

The Chiefs, meanwhile, are coming off a 48-3 rout of visiting Marietta last Friday in a game that took less than two hours to complete.

Marietta, which has been decimated by injuries, had less than 20 varsity players available, and coach Andy Schob and Amyx agreed to play a running clock in the second half after Logan took an insurmountable 35-3 halftime lead.

(A running clock can be utilized only if both head coaches agree to do so. Game referees are not permitted to propose a running-clock situation).

“They’ve been taking a very business-like approach. They did that (against Marietta), and that’s something we hope continues,” Amyx said of the Chieftains. “They know how important this game is. We’re the only team that’s unbeaten in the league, and they control their own destiny.”

Amyx said a couple comments he heard from Nick Saban, head coach of the unbeaten Alabama Crimson Tide, make perfect sense when applied to the Purple & White.

“It’s all about ‘what is it going to take to make sure you’re not complacent in a game or in practice?’ ” Amyx said Saban asked his players, telling them ” ‘the higher on the mountain you get, the harder it is to climb.’ “

What it all boils down to, Amyx noted, is how the Chiefs approach each game and that they realize their trip up that proverbial mountain can be a precarious one.

“The higher up on the mountain you get, the more treacherous it becomes and the harder it is to stay focused,” Amyx noted, because other teams are always aiming for a chance to knock off the Chieftains.

And one of those teams is Warren.

“This is a team that’s tasted some success this season and is hungry for more,” Amyx said of the Warriors. “They’ve been playing some great football this season.”

Needless to say, so have the Chiefs.