BENTONVILLE — Fort Smith Northside head coach Darrell Henry said there's no secret about his program producing a dual threat at quarterback year after year.
Following in the footsteps of recent QBs Kodi Burns and Dax Dupire, Northside junior Tanner Knight appears to be another that can hurt you with his arm and his legs.
Knight leads the conference with 1,077 yards passing and eight touchdowns and has also rushed for 275 yards and eightmore scores.
"Tanner has done a great job for us in the first three ballgames," Henry said. "We're really proud of the progress he's made in terms of getting comfortable with the offense and going through his reads. We're proud of our receivers,obviously, for doing a good job."
Northside's Arthur Poole and Shaquille Jones have combined for 45 catches and 672 receiving yards in three games. Poole (25 for 289) has caught four touchdownswhile Jones (20 for 383) has two. Kendrick Burns, the younger brother of Kodi Burns, has 16catches for 153 yards and a score while Tevin Williams has 11 catches for 176 yards.
The Grizzlies (2-1) host Rogers Heritage at Mayo-Thompson Stadium on Friday in both teams' 7A-West Conference opener.
The War Eagles ( 3-0) made quite an impression on Henry last season leading Northside 25-20 at halftime before the Grizzlies rallied to win 59-38.
"They were wearing us out," Henry said. "Obviously they're ayear older which makes then a year more comfortable with their offense and more comfortable with their defense."◊ ◊ ◊
Fort Smith Southside stayed in state - and in the same classification - looking for a challenging nonconference schedule.
The Rebels (2-1) are the only team is the 7A-West that played three 7A-Central teams during nonconference.
Little Rock Catholic beat Southside 21-10 in the opener before the Rebels beat Conway 28-14 and Little Rock Central 35-0.
"Like everybody else, we have difficulty getting games a lot of times," coach Jeff Williams said. "But we're fortunate enough a couple years ago to pick those teams up. We want to play good competition nonconference to try to prepare for our conference. I think we did that."
Northside and Fayetteville each played two Central teams and Bentonville and Rogers had one nonconfernce game against the Central.
The West went 6-2-1 in those nine games. The Central's only wins were Catholic victories against Southside and Northside.
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Nobody on the Springdale or Har-Ber coaching staffs will have to worry about effort this week when the Bulldogs and Wildcats play their annual rivalry game Friday at Jarrell Williams Bulldog Stadium.
"Both group of kids are going to give their best effort," said Har-Ber head coach Chris Wood. "They play at a high level every week but these are the kids they grew up with, played little league with, youth football all the way back to Kiwanis. The families know each other, the players know each other. Anytime you're playing against your brother the players are going to give more of an effort."
Har-Ber leads the overall series 2-1 since the first playing date in 2006. Springdale won that game 40-8 but Har-Ber (3-0) has taken the last two games in the series 38-14 and 20-14.
Springdale High is 2-1 behind the strong arm of quarterback Joseph Calcagni, who's thrown for 823 yards and seven touchdowns. If the name sounds familiar in Springdale, it's because Calcagni's older brother Patrick was the starting quarterback for Har-Ber in 2006 and 2007. Both Calcagni boys are the sons of former Arkansas Razorback quarterback Mark Calcagni and nephews of 2009 Arkansas Hall of Honor inductee and former quarterback Ron Calcagni.
Wood said Jospeh Calcagni, though playing on the opposite team as did his brother Patrick, is another strong branch in the family tree.
"He can chuck it down field," Wood said. "A really talented quarterback."
Sports, Pages 5, 6 on 09/24/2009