Park Record, August 19, 2022--Last week’s game against Uintah wasn’t just South Summit football coach Mike Ruf’s first game in charge of the Wildcats, but it was the first game of his first head-coaching job for football.
If South Summit needed an adjustment period, the Wildcats didn’t show it. Thanks to two early touchdowns and a safety, South Summit had a 16-0 lead after the opening quarter. The Wildcats scored two more points off another safety and then piled on another 22 points in the third quarter in their 40-8 win over the Utes. Ruf couldn’t have asked for a better first game in chargesaid. “Just running through everything we needed to do. It was big-time validation for me, being able to know that what we’re trying to do there works. And we can be successful doing it.”
South Summit’s defense dominated against Uintah. In addition to forcing two safeties, the Wildcats recorded six sacks and limited the Utes to just eight points, which came after South Summit was already up 40-0. Junior Brady Freeman returning an interception for a touchdown was the highlight of the night for the defense.
“We knew our defense was going to be tough this year, and all they did was prove that,” Ruf said.
Junior Bracken Lassche is taking over the reins at quarterback this year, and Ruf was impressed with his first start of the season. Lassche completed 20 of his 26 passes for 261 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.
“There’s a lot of people that, if they wouldn’t have known he was a new quarterback, would not have realized that that was his first varsity start,” Ruf said. “It helps he’s got a bunch of weapons around him, but he just was confident, stepped up and threw, did what we asked of him to do and was very successful.”
Friday’s win felt like validation for Ruf and his staff’s work getting his team ready for the season, and South Summit didn’t show any early rust or nerves.
“It did not look like a Week 1 team,” Ruf said. “It felt to me like these kids were playing as though we were kind of midseason. They knew where they were supposed to be. The kids just executed so well and believed in what we were trying to do. The highlightf or me was being able to watch that happen.”
Ruf knows there’s still plenty of work left to do this year for South Summit, a team with aspirations of a state title. The Wildcats went on the road to face rival North Summit on Friday and will face Idaho’s Marsh Valley on the road next week. But now he knows what it’s like to watch his team play a complete game and come away with a win.
“We’ll face some challenges week to week, and it’s not going to be easy,” Ruf said. “We’re going to have to go out and fight for it every week to be able to do it. But I believe even more now after watching these boys and the way they work together and play together, the sky’s the limit for this team. They can absolutely be in the mix, play for and absolutely win a state championship.”