Fairhaven Football Coach Addresses Dartmouth Thanksgiving Game

Since Saturday night's big semi-finals win over Hudson, there's been one question looming in the backs of the minds of many Blue Devil fans and Dartmouth fans alike.  Will Head Coach Derek Almeida play his starters for the annual Thanksgiving game this Thursday?

In the world of football there are two schools of thought.

The Bill Belichick Way

There's the old school, Bill Belichick way.  The belief is that these are football players, and football players play football.  When football players don't play football they get rusty.  The Bill Belichick way is full steam ahead, run your offense and stop their guys on defense just like it was any other game.  Pretty simple, but the drawback is that there is a risk of a particularly untimely injury.

The Modern Way

Most modern NFL teams will take a more conservative approach.  The idea is to protect their players so that they are healthy and available when they are needed the most--in the playoffs.

So where does that leave Fairhaven's Thanksgiving Day game?  We asked Coach Almeida on Michael and Maddie.

Coach Almeida's Way

"Well, I'll say this.  Thanksgiving is important to me, it's important to our school.  It's important to our town and it's important to these kids.  We're going to honor that tradition, and we're going to do what's best for our program.  We just came off a really tough matchup. a real physical game on Saturday evening.  If our kids had to play football yesterday it wouldn't have happened.  We were a little banged up, but I think as we get closer to Thanksgiving we'll have a better idea of how they feel and who's ready to go, and we'll play from there."

My guess is that Fairhaven will start their starters and pull them out in the second half.

Fairhaven plays in the Division 6 Super Bowl at 3pm the Thursday after Thanksgiving.  The game will be against the Salem Witches at Gillette Stadium.