FAYETTEVILLE — Fayetteville is taking a long, hard look in the mirror.
The Purple Dogs were provided with plenty of blemishes to correct after absorbing a 45-10, mercy-rule pummeling by top-ranked Bentonville lastFriday night at Harmon Field in both teams' 7A-West Conference opener.
Bentonville's speed and brawn were simply too much for Fayetteville to handle. The Tigers moved the ball with little resistance and had Fayetteville guessing wrong on most snaps with three plays inexcess of 60 yards. Fayetteville allowed touchdown passes of 95 and 27 yards and another pass of 61 yards. The Purple Dogs also surrendered long touchdown runs of 73 and 24 yards. The Tigers passed for 260 yards and rushed for 293 yards, mowing down the Purple Dogs in every facet.
"We fought hard but we were just getting blown off the ball," Fayetteville coach Daryl Patton said. "Bentonville did a good job of running the football. Courtney Haskell, Shane Boedeker and that line were just incredible. We don't havethose kinds of guys on the line. They looked like men."
Defensively, the Tigers played the pass with seven and eight men in coverage on nearly every down, frustrating Allen and his receivers. Allen threw for a season-low 176 yards on 18 of 37 passing with zero touchdown tosses. Four of Allen's incompletions, though, were drops that would have given Fayetteville a first down.
"I'm sure he was frustrated," Patton said. "Bentonville's dropping eight into coverage and there weren't a lot of open receivers out there runningfree. You had to be perfect on your passes to be effective against that. We had some underneath stuff that we could have run a little more and we had some opportunities and missed them. You can't do that against Bentonville."
Despite pinpointing so much of their focus on disrupting the passing lanes, the Tigers (4-0, 1-0) were still able to apply incessant pressure against a smallish, inexperienced Fayetteville offensive line.
"Bentonville was good enough at the defensive end position that they were getting pressure on us with three," Patton said. "We knew going in that we weren't the biggest on the offensive line and we were inexperienced. But we're going to keep tryingto get better. Bentonville was just better than us at those key spots."
While Fayetteville remains at plus-4 in the turnover ratio and didn't turn the ball over against the Tigers, it also failed to force turnovers, something it desperately required to impede Bentonville's offensive flow.
Purple Dog defensive lineman Bobby Nefzger continued to perform, registering two sacks versus the Tigers. But Fayetteville's linebackers and secondary were torched.
Patton just hopes his pupils regain that competitive fire Friday against Springdale High in a tough battle between long-time rivals.
"Our goal is to the get to the playoffs and right now we're 0-1 in conference," Patton said. "If we let go of the rope and if we quit then shame on us. We need to keep fighting and get a victory next week at Springdale, which will be a big ballgame."
Fayetteville has reached the playoffs six consecutive years under Patton and Friday's tilt will be pivotal if the Purple Dogs wish to re-enter the conference race.
"Until someone officially eliminates you, you're not out of it," Patton said. "And if you can just get to the playoffs, it's been proven that anything can happen. We just have to keep fighting, keep plugging, make a few corrections and do what we do. [Last Friday], we just ran into a very, very good football team."
Sports, Pages 8, 7 on 09/28/2009