Adam Wire
Chris Creighton has been waiting a long time for today.So have his players.Wabash football supporters have looked to today with a mix of anticipation and trepidation.If Creighton and the Little Giants have their way, all the anticipation will all culminate with an explosion. That explosion, if indeed it occurs, will begin 1 p.m. today at Byron P. Hollett Little Giant Stadium against Manchester. The game is the season opener for both teams."The theme for this week is to explode," Creighton said. "It's all been bottled up for a long time, and so we're trying to explode here (today). Unlike the scrimmage (at Franklin Sept. 2), we don't want to explode for the first five minutes. We want it to be a three-hour long explosion."Junior tight end Ryan Short feels much the same way."Our mindset is total excitement," he said. "We've been working a long time for this to be our first game. It's going to be an explosion."The game will be meaningful to Creighton, but not just because it will be his first at the Little Giants' helm. Creighton was an assistant coach under current Manchester coach Dave Harms, and will be coaching against his mentor for the first time."It is fun to open up with Manchester," Creighton said. "My connections in Indiana come through the people at Manchester College. It's going to be a special way to start my career."The Spartans struggled to a 2-8 record last season, and dropped last year's meeting to the Little Giants 38-7. That doesn't mean the Little Giants (6-4 last year) will expect an easy time again."Expect the unexpected out of (Harms), especially in this game," Creighton said. "He won't leave any stone unturned. They had a fake punt and a flea-flicker in their scrimmage against Taylor."Wabash's scrimmage against the Grizzlies last week was decided pretty quickly. The Little Giants bolted to a 23-0 lead in the first five minutes."Our No. 1 goal in the Franklin scrimmage was to get better," Creighton said. "Any time you're competing against somebody, and there's a scoreboard and it's on, you want to try to win, but that was our secondary goal."Wabash expects much improvement from Manchester this time around."We expect to see a little different look in the pass," quarterback Jake Knott said. "We expect a little more zone. Last year, they blitzed us about 40 times. Teams are going to gamble on us."
