Springdale Har-Ber
Wildcats Face Challenge
Springdale Har-Ber coaches got a rare opportunity to watch their first two opponents play each other on the same night.
They traveled to Kansas City, Mo., where Webb City, Mo., beat Rockhurst 40-14. Har-Ber opens the season at Webb City on Friday then plays Rockhurst the following week in Kansas City.
Those teams have already played two games while Har-Ber has played only two quarters of football in a scrimmage against Owasso, Okla.
"It's good to have a scrimmage, but a scrimmage is not a football game," Har-Ber coach Chris Wood said. "A lot of growth on the football field is from Week 1 to Week 2 and Webb City is already on to Week 3."
Webb City scored 40 consecutive points after Rockhurst jumped to a 14-0 lead. The Cardinals took over with a ball-control offense that totaled 69 plays and piled up 22 first downs. Tyler Davidson rushed for 134 yards on 20 carries and quarterback Tyson Roderique completed 5 of 6 passes for over 100 yards.
"Webb City is very good at what they do," Wood said. "They run option football to perfection and they don't compromise. They just ate up the clock and ran the whole third quarter out against Rockhurst."
Har-Ber beat Webb City 42-35 in Springdale last year after losing 30-15 to the Cardinals two years ago. Har-Ber rallied from a 28-7 deficit to hand Webb City its first loss in the regular season since 2003, but the Cardinals recovered to win another state championship in Missouri's Class 4A.
"We know we're circled on their calendar," Wood said. "It's going to be tough. We're learning and adapting and we've got no room for error against them."
-- RICK FIRES • @NWARICK
Rogers High
Mounties Expect Battle
Rogers High defeated Siloam Springs the past two seasons when the teams were members of the 7A/6A-West Conference. Siloam Springs has left the conference but the Mounties and Panthers will open the season Friday in a nonconference game at Whitey Smith Stadium.
And fifth-year Rogers coach Shawn Flannigan said this is the best Siloam Springs team he has seen. Flannigan recently watched the Panthers' scrimmage against Fort Smith Northside.
"They have some dudes," Flannigan said. "They have some guys that are as fast and as athletic as anybody that Northside put out there. So, they have some good skill players and they have good size on the line. I think it is going to come down to who executes better and who doesn't turn the ball over."
Ball security was a plus for the Mounties last season as the they lost just eight fumbles on almost 600 carries while going 7-4 and advancing to the Class 7A playoffs. Rogers is replacing all 11 offensive starters but Flannigan has been pleased with how the offense has responded in preseason practices and in a scrimmage against Little Rock Central.
Senior Cole Evans will be at quarterback after playing some last year and slot back Sage White and fullback Bryan Grigsby both saw extensive playing time a year ago. Justice Thompson will be at the other slot back.
Alex Coffin (5-foot-11, 185 pounds) and Dylan Hagan ( 6-1, 185) are expected to start at the tackle spots while Luis Salas (6-0, 245) and Xavier Galdamez (6-2, 268) are the projected starters at guard. Billy Treacy (6-0, 218) will be at center.
"We are feeling pretty good," Flannigan said. "After looking at film of the scrimmage, I was pleased with some of the things I saw from the offensive line. I think our skill players are solid, and we have decent speed. I think our receivers have the potential to be as good or better than what we have had here."
-- Paul Nielsen • @NWAPaul
Rogers Heritage
Brackett To Start
The War Eagles will head into its season opener with senior Joel Brackett as the starting quarterback, but coach Perry Escalante said others could see action on Friday.
Brackett (6-0, 200) has taken the majority of the snaps in practice with the first team, but sophomore Joe Britton (6-0, 190) and junior Jake Qualls (6-0, 185) also saw action in the preseason scrimmage against Van Buren. Britton threw a 61-yard touchdown pass to Brackett near the end of the scrimmage, but Britton will start at safety.
The War Eagles will face Olathe (Kan.) North, which is ranked No. 1 in Class 6A in Kansas in the preseason by MaxPreps. The Eagles return 18 starters from a team, which finished 8-4 and lost in the state semifinals. a year ago.
Escalante said the Kansas team doesn't do anything fancy.
"They run a lot of counter stuff, simple stuff," Escalante said. "They don't stretch you much, but I think that's all they want to do. Keep it simple and try to run it real good."
Olathe North is led by senior running back Venus Triplett (5-8, 185), who rushed for more than 1,500 yards and 25 touchdowns. Quarterback Cole Murphy threw for 1,400 yards and rushed for more than 800 for the Eagels. He threw for 11 touchdowns and rushed for eight.
The Eagles also have a couple of Division I college recruits. Senior DE/TE Josh Moore (6-5, 255) has verbally committed to play at Ohio State, while senior LB Marcel Spears (6-1, 201) has committed to play at Iowa State.
Junior defensive end Jed Wilson (6-0, 205) will play on Friday, after being slowed the past couple of weeks by a high ankle sprain. He did not play against Van Buren. But senior linebacker Damian Gonzalez, one of only two returning full-time starters, will not play in the season opener for disciplinary reasons and his status with the team remains undetermined, Escalante said.
Junior Garrett Sheetz will slide into Gonzalez's mike linebacker spot, while seniors Tim Cole and MacKenzy Patterson will now start at the other two linebacker positions. Sheetz and Cole had been working with the first team at the outside spots during the preseason.
-- Paul Boyd • @NWAPaulB
Fayetteville
'Dogs Go Long Way
Daryl Patton can recall some long bus rides for nonconference games during his tenure as Fayetteville coach.
This year's season opener might take the cake as one of the longest ever.
Fayetteville visits Lawton (Okla.) Eisenhower for a 7 p.m. kickoff Friday, and Patton said the Bulldogs will attempt to keep the road trip as routine as possible.
"We'll leave (Thursday) at 3:30 p.m. and get to Norman that night," Patton said. "We'll work out at Norman High Friday morning, then we have a tour of the OU campus planned. And then we'll head down to Lawton for the game."
There's plenty of unknowns about Eisenhower as Fayetteville prepares to play the Eagles for the first time in school history. Danny Edelman is in his first season as coach at Eisnehower, taking over a team that finished 4-6 last year in Class 6A.
"It does make it difficult," Patton said. "We've seen film from last season, but that was a different coach. We went a watched them scrimmage, but they really didn't show anything. So you really don't know what to expect."
Fayetteville appears fully healthy heading into Friday's game.
"Knock on wood, we're going to have everybody ready to go," Patton said.
-- Vernon Tarver • @NWAVernon
Bentonville
Attention To Detail
Barry Lunney's perception on his team's performance at last week's Tulsa (Okla.) Union Gridiron Classic changed after he reviewed film of the scrimmage, but not by much.
Most of his displeasure centered toward the techniques, or lack thereof, the Tigers displayed during their 24-6 loss to Union, and most of this week's practices have been focused on technique.
"Probably about 75 percent still not pleased," Lunney said. "As always, there are individuals within a team concept that had a good scrimmage or a good game, and you have to be careful not to lump them all because what you see initially.
"I'll never fault them for effort if we have effort. Some of us, I thought our effort could be better, but our techniques that we have to play to be successful -- gap responsibilities on defense, taking the correct steps offensively, running routes the correct depth instead of cutting them short -- all those things, there was too much of that."
Lunney said the attitudes have been good in practice this week as Bentonville opens its regular season against a Kansas City (Mo.) Rockhurst team that already has two games under its belt heading into Friday's game at Tiger Stadium. The Hawklets (1-1) rolled to a 49-14 win over Columbia (Mo.) Rock Bridge, then faltered in a 40-14 loss to Webb City, Mo.
"I'm just glad its not four games ahead of us," Lunney said. "I guess time will tell Friday night. Certainly there's nothing like getting all that practices over with and playing games for real.
"I think we'll see something in between those two games. There are still a lot of unknowns. I don't think they are as bad as they were last week, and this guy hopes they're not as good as they were too weeks ago."
-- HENRY APPLE • @NWAHenry
Springdale High
Big Night For Owens
If everything goes as planned, Springdale High senior Chris Owens won't spend much time on the sideline in Friday's season opener against Class 6A power Greenwood.
Owens will play every snap at cornerback, where he started and finished with 29 tackles, four pass breakups and two interceptions as a junior last fall.
The plan for Friday is for the 6-foot-3, 180-pounder to play plenty of snaps on offense, too, if he can. He spent the spring, summer and fall camp working at receiver.
He played almost every snap during Springdale's 25-minute, running-clock scrimmages with Shiloh Christian and Booneville. Staying on the field after defending against Greenwood's hurry up, spread attack figures to be tougher.
"It'll be determined by how many reps our defense is on the field," coach Shane Patrick said. "It'll be a feel. We wanted him to (play the whole scrimmage) for conditioning purposes. We wanted to see how he could hold up, but that's not a legitimate 48 minutes of football so that's yet to be determined.
"But he's done a good job of going hard in practice because he knows he's got to be in shape to be able to play (both ways)."
Senior captain Zach Burton played safety last year, but will line up at receiver this season. He could still help on defense in a pinch, but the plan is for him to play solely offense.
Owens and the Springdale's defense will face a historically explosive Greenwood offense that returns six starters, but is breaking in a relatively new quarterback. Senior Reid Wheeler started two games last year, but takes over full-time for Tulsa signee Jabe Burgess this fall.
"They always find a way to take some kid that's never played quarterback before and put him in there and he throws for a bunch of yards and a lot of touchdowns," Patrick said. "I expect this one to do the same thing."
-- Jimmy Carter • @NWAJimmy
Sports on 09/04/2014