Bob Lutz: Northwest’s outstanding season shouldn’t be a surprise

When folks around the City League were talking over the summer about how good they expected Northwest’s football team to be this season, Steve Martin went into full downplay mode.

“Our kids have never been in the limelight,” said Martin, in his fourth season as the Grizzlies’ coach. “We didn’t really want people to start talking much, but the coaches who know knew we were going to be good. (Carroll) Coach (Alan) Schuckman called my bluff during the summer and I just giggled.”

Well, Northwest is good. Really good. Ranked No. 2 in the state good.

Martin, whose Grizzlies will resume their game against South on Saturday after lightning forced suspension early in the second quarter Thursday night, can’t hide his team anymore.

Northwest has one of the best players in the state in senior quarterback Kevin Folsom, who has passed for 1,015 yards and rushed for 504 through five games.

“When he got here as a freshman, we didn’t know if he could read anything as a quarterback,” Martin said. “It seemed like he couldn’t do anything right.”

But Folsom stayed at it and by his junior year was a standout until he suffered a broken ankle in a game against West.

“He’s a two-time state placer in wrestling, he runs the 4-by-4 in track and he has guts,” Martin said. “He’s such a great leader and our team will do anything he wants them to do. The kids follow him wherever he goes.”

Martin was the defensive coordinator at Heights from 2009-11, when the Falcons were really taking flight under Rick Wheeler. They finished second in Class 6A in 2009 and 2011 and won the state championship in 2010.

“What stood out with Steve was his attention to detail and his work ethic,” said Wheeler, currently the Heights athletic director. “Mike Schartz had left to take a job at Campus and Steve applied and I really didn’t know him. But we knew some of the same people.”

Martin, who is from Andale, had coached some at Halstead. He was the head coach at Troy, a Class 2A school in northeast Kansas, for four years, where he was 31-11.

“They hired a 24-year-old who had just graduated from college, just gotten married and thought he knew it all,” Martin said of his experience at Troy. “I was going up against a lot of coaching veterans in that league and I was humbled real fast. It doesn’t take long to find out you don’t really know much after all. It was a great blue-collar town and those people carried me for four years.”

But after Martin’s mother died, it was time to come home and he got a chance at Heights.

“It was a tremendous honor to coach on Coach Wheeler’s staff at Heights,” Martin said. “I learned a lot about running a big-school program. I’ve been blessed to be around some tremendous coaches. If I wasn’t paying attention or listening when I was with them, then shame on me.”

It took one game for Northwest to open eyes across Kansas. The Grizzlies started 2015 with a 31-24 win over defending 5A champion Carroll.

“I wasn’t shocked,” Martin said. “We did a pretty good job this summer of playing possum, keeping quiet. And when we met with our seniors in the spring, we talked about the only way to beat Carroll was not to turn the ball over and (not) make mistakes. We knew we would have to out-Bishop Carroll Bishop Carroll to beat them.”

Northwest has been scoring points at an incredible rate, averaging 54.6 through five games. Folsom provides much of the firepower.

“We’re hard on our quarterback and we expect a lot from our quarterback,” Martin said. “We try to make him feel uncomfortable on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so that he’s his worst critic on Friday. Kevin has just grown up so much and that’s the big thing. It’s fun to watch a kid come into your program as a freshman and watch them mature and grow up.”

Folsom said he appreciates Martin’s disciplined style of coaching.

“He’s on everybody, pushing us to be our best,” he said. “He expects greatness on every snap of the ball and that makes us better and better. And not only that, but off the field he’s somebody who helps us if we ever have problems. He’s my football coach but also basically a guardian, someone who wants the best for me.”

The toughest part of Northwest’s schedule will be in district competition against Dodge City (3-2), Garden City (5-0) and Hutchinson (5-0). The Grizzlies have home games against Garden City and Hutch.

“And we still have South, which is doing a phenomenal job of turning around their program,” Martin said. “Dodge City is averaging 54 points and lost in shootouts to Heights and West. Nobody is talking about Garden City and that’s a very good team. Then there’s Hutch in Week 9.

“I think we have a chance to compete for a state title, but I also want these guys to know that we have a chance of not making the playoffs.”

This story was originally published October 9, 2015 at 3:15 PM with the headline "Bob Lutz: Northwest’s outstanding season shouldn’t be a surprise."