Under Mallory's guidance, Lawrence North football headed in the right direction

After Carmel defeated Lawrence North by three touchdowns in the fifth week of last season, then-Carmel coach Kevin Wright pulled Pat Mallory aside to a quiet corner of the Lawrence North field.

Wright, a four-time state champion at Warren Central and Carmel, wasn't there to offer advice. Just his respect. And a nod to Mallory that he was on the right track.

"I just want you to know something," Wright told Mallory, the second-year Lawrence North coach. "Unbelievable. You shore up that defense and people won't be able to stop you."

As the clock ticks to the start of the 2015 high school football season, there is optimism at Lawrence North. Yes, football. The Wildcats haven't enjoyed a winning season in a decade and own a single victory in the past three seasons combined. But the energetic 38-year-old Mallory feels the program is on the verge of a breakthrough, as tough as that can be to accomplish in the loaded Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference.

"We're big enough now and we're fast enough now," Mallory said last week.

When veteran coach Tom Dilley resigned after an 0-10 season in 2012, Mallory called Center Grove's Eric Moore to get his thoughts on the job. Mallory, who coached with Moore at Center Grove for a decade before taking his first head coaching job at Knightstown, watched every Lawrence North game from 2012. It was ugly. There were four shutouts – 70-0 to Lawrence Central, 63-0 to Carmel, 77-0 to Center Grove and 75-0 to Ben Davis.

Yet Moore's advice was this: Take it. If they offer the job, absolutely take it.

"(Lawrence North athletic director Grant Nesbit) didn't sugarcoat any of it," Mallory said. "They said, 'Here's where we are and here's where we've been. We'd like to get back to having competitive games. They didn't talk about winning one time."

Mallory, a former Indiana offensive lineman, jumped in headfirst. The first order of business was keeping kids in the Lawrence North system.

"I attacked my middle school," he said. "Those kids weren't coming here. They were going everywhere else. Our top 20-25 players, Lawrence North wasn't even on their radar coming out of eighth grade."

So the new coach went about recruiting them. Mallory drove a mini-bus to the school to pick up eighth graders for workouts. The problem was getting them on the bus. He found just two takers.

"I'm like, 'Holy cow, this is going to be bigger than I thought it was going to be,'" he said.

But Mallory kept at it. This spring, he needed a full-size bus and two mini-busses to transport all the eighth graders to the high school.

"This freshman class is probably the best freshman class I've ever been around," he said. "We have size and plenty of it. We have speed and athleticism and kids who want to play."

Mallory immediately installed the ball control, wing-T offense that Moore has utilized for years at Center Grove. In the 2013 opener, Mallory's first game as coach, the Wildcats trailed defending state champion Lawrence Central just 7-3 late in the first half. Though the Bears won easily, 49-3, that first half was a small step in the right direction.

"On the headset I was telling the (assistant coaches), 'We're going to be OK,'" Mallory said. "'We may not have enough to win this game, but we're competitive.'"

Lawrence North went 0-9 that season and followed it by going 1-9 last year. In addition to a 32-13 to win over North Central – ending a 23-game losing streak – there were competitive games against Noblesville (36-33), Brownsburg (28-14) and Carmel (42-20).

Carmel's big plays doomed Lawrence North. But the blueprint for success was evident – the Wildcats ran 73 plays from scrimmage to 27 for Carmel and had 24 first downs to Carmel's six.

"I know a lot of people say, 'It's still Lawrence North, it's still Lawrence North,'" Mallory said. "Well sure, it'll take some time to get that stigma off of this program. I get it. But we're not afraid of it. Where we've come from to where we are now, that's what's important. That's what we have to look at."

Lawrence North has legitimate players. Brandon Martin, a senior Ball State recruit, played running back last year and will anchor the defense this year at linebacker. The junior class – Mallory jokingly calls it his first "recruiting class" – is full of talented, experienced players, including 6-9, 320-pound offensive tackle Caleb Jones, who has an offer from Indiana.

At some point, probably in the near future, Mallory knows the program's success will be judged by wins and losses and not competitive games. But he's willing to stick by the words of John Wooden: "Plan your work and work your plan."

In other words, believe in what you're doing.

"It's cool to see it starting to come together," Mallory said. "My first year I felt like a freshman team playing varsity football in the MIC. Last year I felt like a JV team playing in the MIC. Now we're going out there with a varsity team. We believe we can beat anybody on our schedule."

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.