Are halftime adjustments a myth, or an actual benefit?

NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning has called halftime adjustments “the biggest myth in football.”

The break is better, he’s said, for gobbling orange slices and using the bathroom than for gearing up for the second half.

Wauconda football coach Chris Prostka disagrees. He’s got an 8-0 team to prove halftime adjustments have value.

“It’s been big because we have quite a few two-way guys. So chances to talk to them during the half are few and far between,” said Prostka, whose Bulldogs are No. 2 in the Illinois High School Association’s prospective Class 6A playoff rankings.

“It’s not a whole lot of drawing up anything new, but (reviewing) things that we’ve prepped for the week, things that happened that we maybe weren’t expecting and were expecting, and then how do we adjust within what we’ve planned for the week,” he said.

Senior running back and middle linebacker Jackson Rudolph had a concrete example of an effective halftime session.

The Bulldogs played at Grant in Week 6 and trailed 20-14 at halftime. Wauconda rallied to win the Northern Lake County contest 43-39.

“Being a two-way starter, I didn’t get to talk to my coaches or didn’t get to talk to my teammates, stuff like that. So being able to sit down and talk with them and look at the film on the tablets and see what we’re doing wrong, we were able to make our adjustments in the second half to stop them more,” Rudolph said.

“Offensive-wise, we were able to see where the holes are opening up and we realized that they’re trying to stop the run so far inside, that we were able to bounce it outside and we were able to get more yardage.”

Rudolph and teammate Cole Korycanek ran for the game’s next two touchdowns. Wauconda never trailed again.

Korycanek said at halftime that he’ll talk with his linemen and fellow running backs, then review things with Wauconda running backs coach Shawn Rudolph, Jackson’s father.

“Halftime adjustments, very big for us,” said Korycanek, a co-captain with Jackson Rudolph and fellow seniors Eric Alvarado and Martin Corona.

“Our linemen, if they see a different front … It’s crucial that we know the defensive line, how our linemen are going to block. That way we can find the gaps and then just get yards for our offense ,” Korycanek said.

Alvarado, who starts at right guard and inside linebacker, had a similar tale about last week’s game hosting Antioch. It was another tight one, Wauconda winning 25-20.

He said Antioch showed a defensive line technique Wauconda hadn’t seen on film.

“We knew they might be cutting (firing low off the snap), but they didn’t show it all year,” Alvarado said. “So once we get that halftime readjustment, we know they’re cutting, and we adjust to it as we can.”

Prostka believes strongly enough in halftime adjustments that this season he’s incorporated them into practice.

Wauconda spends the first half of practice working on offense. Then the team goes into a building near the field. Players can take a breather, watch game and practice film, and hear Prostka address the defensive plans for the second half of practice.

“That is very helpful,” Korycanek said. “After about an hour and a half of offense, we get tired. So that extra 15 minutes that we get in the building to watch defensive film, get our minds off offense, that plays a big role. That way we come out here and we can execute to our best.”

It helps to have brilliant football minds on staff such as Illinois High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Famers Bill Mitz (Stevenson, Jacobs) and Denny Hall (New Trier, Evanston).

A two-way lineman, Corona said at halftime, he’ll “regroup” with the linemen, running backs, and quarterback Jake Thorstenson before hearing “whatever Coach Mitz wants to tell us.”

The Bulldogs hold the offensive coordinator’s instruction as “the standard,” Corona said.

“He tells us what we have to do from what he sees on the field and what they see from the press box, and then we translate it on the field," Corona said. "We effectively do it, we execute it,”

That’s right, after all the talk, the players have to make it happen.

“It helps to have smart players,” Prostka said. “They can do the things you’re asking them to do.”