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Neosho, Mo. —
In 2010, three of Neosho’s five losses came against teams ranked in the top five in the state. In 2011, their first loss came against No. 3.
Neosho hosted the Bolivar Liberators at Bob Anderson Stadium on Friday night to open up the 2011 high school football season. Thanks to a slow start and a number of mistakes by the Wildcats, Bolivar left Neosho with a 42-0 victory.
Neosho started the game with the ball and on the first play from scrimmage of the season someone jumped offside and sent Neosho backwards.
From there, the Wildcats’ offense seemed to struggle finding a rhythm for the rest of the first half.
Neosho managed just 40 yards of offense before halftime.
On the other sided of the ball, Neosho seemed to struggle defending the Bolivar option attack in the first half. And Bolivar sprinkled in just enough passes to keep the defense honest.
Bolivar opened up the scoring with just over eight minutes to play in the first quarter. The Liberators had a short field to start their drive and it culminated in a five-yard touchdown run by Bolivar running back Colby Follis.
Bolivar would strike again with two seconds left to play in the first quarter. The Liberators covered 73 yards, all on the
ground, in less than four minutes. Bolivar quarterback Rafe Peavey scored on a one-yard option keeper to give his team a 14-0 lead.
It looked like Neosho swiped momentum with less than seven minutes to play in the second quarter when a pass by Bolivar was tipped into the air and Neosho safety Justin McKee came up with a pick to stop a long Bolivar drive. However, after gaining one first down, Neosho stalled on offense and had to punt the ball back.
Ultimately, Bolivar would score three touchdowns in the last five minutes of the second quarter to take a 35-0 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Despite their struggles in the first half, Neosho played much better in the second half.
“In the second half, our guys didn’t quit,” Neosho coach Jared Schoonover said. “I still saw guys flying to the ball, I still saw guys hustling. I didn’t see moping or bickering or fighting and I think that they will come together after this.”
Knowing that they had to throw the ball on offense if they had any chance of getting back into the game, Schoonover put McKee in at quarterback and moved Tyler Rathmann outside to receiver.
In 2010, three of Neosho’s five losses came against teams ranked in the top five in the state. In 2011, their first loss came against No. 3.
Neosho hosted the Bolivar Liberators at Bob Anderson Stadium on Friday night to open up the 2011 high school football season. Thanks to a slow start and a number of mistakes by the Wildcats, Bolivar left Neosho with a 42-0 victory.
Neosho started the game with the ball and on the first play from scrimmage of the season someone jumped offside and sent Neosho backwards.
From there, the Wildcats’ offense seemed to struggle finding a rhythm for the rest of the first half.
Neosho managed just 40 yards of offense before halftime.
On the other sided of the ball, Neosho seemed to struggle defending the Bolivar option attack in the first half. And Bolivar sprinkled in just enough passes to keep the defense honest.
Bolivar opened up the scoring with just over eight minutes to play in the first quarter. The Liberators had a short field to start their drive and it culminated in a five-yard touchdown run by Bolivar running back Colby Follis.
Bolivar would strike again with two seconds left to play in the first quarter. The Liberators covered 73 yards, all on the
ground, in less than four minutes. Bolivar quarterback Rafe Peavey scored on a one-yard option keeper to give his team a 14-0 lead.
It looked like Neosho swiped momentum with less than seven minutes to play in the second quarter when a pass by Bolivar was tipped into the air and Neosho safety Justin McKee came up with a pick to stop a long Bolivar drive. However, after gaining one first down, Neosho stalled on offense and had to punt the ball back.
Ultimately, Bolivar would score three touchdowns in the last five minutes of the second quarter to take a 35-0 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Despite their struggles in the first half, Neosho played much better in the second half.
“In the second half, our guys didn’t quit,” Neosho coach Jared Schoonover said. “I still saw guys flying to the ball, I still saw guys hustling. I didn’t see moping or bickering or fighting and I think that they will come together after this.”
Knowing that they had to throw the ball on offense if they had any chance of getting back into the game, Schoonover put McKee in at quarterback and moved Tyler Rathmann outside to receiver.
McKee hooked up with Rathmann on two consecutive plays for 17 yards and the Wildcats had their spark. Ethan Pogue then found the edge on an outside run and accelerated for a huge gain. He was finally pushed out near at the Bolivar 25-yard line.
That was as far as the drive would go.
Darnell Walker, one of the top 20 high school players in Missouri according to rivals.com, jumped in front of McKee’s pass attempt on the next play and ran it back 75 yards. It would have been a Bolivar touchdown if not for an illegal blocking call back at the 30-yard line.
“Justin came in and completed some passes. I was pleased with how he threw the ball,” Schoonover said. “On that interception, the play call was a double slant call and the outside linebacker jumped the slant and the safety jumped the slant over the top which means that the outside receiver was open. And we missed that read, but that’s going to happen with a sophomore. Justin is going to get better every week, he is a sharp young man, he’s a good kid and I think he has a bright future.
“Putting Rathmann out there on the edge definitely gives us a weapon. That could help us create mismatches down the road in the COC. I see Johnny Lowe and Dalton McDaniel really being able to feed off of Tyler out there on the edge. But, by no means does this mean that we are flipping over to Justin McKee at quarterback. I am going to stick to the plan of easing him into the scenario, obviously Tyler Rathmann is one of the better receivers in the COC, but we are not going to put it all on Justin’s shoulders. A sophomore in his second game isn’t ready for that and we are going to try to put him in a situation to succeed.”
On defense, Neosho looked more comfortable against the option in the second half. They allowed just one score in the second half that came by way of a 31-yard strike from Peavey to Walker.
The Liberators came close to scoring on one other occasion, taking the ball to the Neosho one-yard line. On fourth and goal to go, a Neosho defender caused a fumble and Johnny Lowe recovered and returned it to the 25-yard line.
“The key to defending the option is playing good, disciplined team defense,” Schoonover explained. “I felt in the second half we did a good job of sticking with our assignments. In the first half we didn’t really do a bad job as far as assignments go, we just missed some tackles. We’ll get better at that.”
Schoonover stated after the game that the biggest positive that he saw (before watching the film) was that the mistakes made on Friday were problems that could be fixed in practice.
“We are going to look at the problems we had tonight as a staff and we are going to fix those problems,” Schoonover said. “I’m pretty confident in what (Bolivar) was running. I felt like we had opportunities to be hat on hat offensively and we didn’t get that done. That’s not to point fingers but that’s just something we have to be able to do better execution wise. We will get better.”
Next week, Neosho will travel south to take on Rogers, Ark. and former Neosho coach Shawn Flannigan.
“I know this,” Schoonover said. “The boys on this team are not going to walk off of this field with their heads down low. They’re going to walk out of here as a group, as a unit and with a goal of getting better. I have confidence that we will gel as a unit. Good things are still going to happen for this team.”
