MILLBURY — There is a new man in charge of Lake football, but he is a familiar face.
Even though Elmwood left the Northern Buckeye Conference for the Blanchard Valley Conference, Elmwood coach Greg Bishop sees Lane Bishop leave the program and become head coach at Lake.
Ironically, there is no family relation between Lane and Greg, but there is plenty of shared time coaching on the gridiron, so Lane has had a good teacher.
This is Lane Bishop’s first time at the helm, but he has assisted at North Baltimore, Van Buren, and spent the last four years at Elmwood.
As offensive coordinator at Elmwood, Bishop had several players earn All-Ohio honors and one of the top scoring offenses in Northwest Ohio’s Division V the last two years, averaging 40.7 points through 13 games last year.
However, Bishop inherited a Lake team that was 1-9 overall and 1-6 in the NBC last year. There is some consolation to that.
“Last year the team had a significant number of injuries so just about everyone on the roster played varsity at some point,” Bishop said.
So where does this Lake team fit into an NBC that brings in two new members in Oak Harbor and Maumee this year, as if the league were not already tough enough?
“The competitor in me would like to think we will finish in the upper half of the league because I really believe in what we are doing and the ability of the guys on our team,” Bishop said.
“With that said, I also know that we are in year one of a new staff and offensive and defensive systems and are coming off of a 1-9 season so there will be growing pains, but we are going to just go into every week with the mindset that we are going to compete our tails off and see where things go from there.
“As it is every year, the league is really, really tough. I look at our league schedule and don’t see any team as an automatic win,” Bishop continued.
“I think we are going to have to show up every week ready to compete for four quarters and play our best football each week in order to win.”
Bishop believes there are a couple things that must go right to make that happen.
“I feel our strengths are our guys up front,” Bishop said. “We have some big, strong, athletic, physical guys up front.
“Being able to control the line of scrimmage is always mission No. 1, having those guys upfront — we should be able to hold our own at the line of scrimmage. I also think we have some really talented playmakers, once they get the ball in their hands in space — good things will happen.”
Bishop adds that a lack of “familiarity with our new offensive and defensive systems” could hamper the team’s efforts, which he adds will fall on him and the coaching staff to some degree.
“Year one there is a lot of installing happening and getting those guys comfortable in both systems won’t be an easy task,” Bishop said.
