The Rio Americano football team had a month with ups and downs, but the October rollercoaster will be worth it in a year or two down the road.
It would be great to see the Raiders this year or next, but this year’s freshman class will see at least one playoff team by the time they graduate.
Before anything, this is not taking any credit from the players, the people to actually play these games.
Here’s why:
The Raiders finally have a good coach. Max Miller is the first good coach in the past several years.
He is a player’s coach. This could have been witnessed at the Cordova game. He stepped into a job that was spotlighted by nearly every media source in Sacramento.
Miller got the players ready for the first league game, one where they would have to give Cordova a first quarter head start. None of the seniors that had quit two weeks earlier were able to play that quarter as a punishment for leaving the team for a few days.
The Raiders were ready to play after a week of getting used to the new scheme that Miller implemented. The new coach made the players stay late for extended practices, and it paid off.
Rio won their league opener at Cordova, beating the Lancers 30-6.
One game and one win kicked off the Max Miller era for the Raiders’ football program that had been struggling for the past few seasons.
Rio then went 1-2 in the next three games, leaving them at a 2-2 record in league with a chance of a winning record if they can beat El Camino on the road on Saturday.
(Sidenote: game vs. El Camino at 2 p.m.)
Max Miller does have a great track record, too. He has coached Cordova When they were a state power that produced plenty of D-1 college players.
Even more recently, he coached Folsom to a state championship in 2010. To get there, Miller’s Folsom squad defeated a Grant team that had several players who would soon end up at top college programs such as Washington and Cal.
So, principal Brian Ginter, do what you can to keep Max Miller as our coach. He had a great past, has improved the Raiders’ present, and if he continues to coach at Rio, he will have a great future.