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Two football coaches with plenty of experience in running high-powered offense gave fans a show at the Ozark-Neosho football game.
There was a total of 885 yards of total offense put on the board and in the end a giant offensive first quarter was enough for the No. 7 ranked Neosho Wildcats to hold on to a 47-39 victory.
The game pitted former Ozark offensive coordinator Shawn Flannigan, now Neosho’s coach, against his former boss, Chris Allison.
In the first half, the Wildcats’ offense was clicking. In the second half, the visiting Tigers’ offense was the one rolling.
Ozark though found itself trying to dig out of a 44-15 hole in the first half to cumbersome to overcome. The Tigers did make it very interesting and in some cases, very nerve-racking.
“I think I got an ulcer,” Flannigan said shortly after sitting down for his post game interview.
The Wildcats, after dropping a spot in the AP Poll despite winning its first two games, got off to a great start. A seven-play drive ended with Alex Wise passing to Kyle Dickens for a 23-yard touchdown. After stopping Ozark (1-2 overall, 1-2 in COC play) on a fake punt on fourth down, Neosho struck again. This time it took only six plays to hit paydirt, with Wise throwing to Jared Brown for an 18-yard touchdown.
Neosho then got an interception from Blake Stauffer, which led to a 3-yard touchdown run by Jared Shurley.
Ozark took advantage of penalties, back-to-back of the 15-yard variety, to set up a 2-yard run by quarterback Drew Crain. Crain ran in the conversion to make it 21-8.
Will McDaniel, filling in for a injured Jake Middleton, ran for a 54-yard touchdown at the buzzer to end the first quarter. Logan Burr’s point after attempt made it 28-8.
The Wildcats’ offense continued to steamroll its way to points. McDaniel ran for his second touchdown of the game midway through the second quarter.
Wise threw to Michael Lowe for his first career touchdown later in the quarter, which made it 42-15. In between the two scores, Jake Bebout ran for a 2-yard touchdown for Ozark.
Neosho then capped off the first half when Ryan Doty sacked Crain in the end zone.
“We did a lot of good things in the first half there is no doubt,” Flannigan said. “We played well, but had penalties that cost us. The first quarter we scored on all but one drive. To get five possessions is remarkable in and of its self. Only punting one time and scoring four touchdowns … that speaks how we were running the ball and throwing the ball. It was a good first half on both sides of the ball. And on special teams, we had a lot of big plays.”
Two football coaches with plenty of experience in running high-powered offense gave fans a show at the Ozark-Neosho football game.
There was a total of 885 yards of total offense put on the board and in the end a giant offensive first quarter was enough for the No. 7 ranked Neosho Wildcats to hold on to a 47-39 victory.
The game pitted former Ozark offensive coordinator Shawn Flannigan, now Neosho’s coach, against his former boss, Chris Allison.
In the first half, the Wildcats’ offense was clicking. In the second half, the visiting Tigers’ offense was the one rolling.
Ozark though found itself trying to dig out of a 44-15 hole in the first half to cumbersome to overcome. The Tigers did make it very interesting and in some cases, very nerve-racking.
“I think I got an ulcer,” Flannigan said shortly after sitting down for his post game interview.
The Wildcats, after dropping a spot in the AP Poll despite winning its first two games, got off to a great start. A seven-play drive ended with Alex Wise passing to Kyle Dickens for a 23-yard touchdown. After stopping Ozark (1-2 overall, 1-2 in COC play) on a fake punt on fourth down, Neosho struck again. This time it took only six plays to hit paydirt, with Wise throwing to Jared Brown for an 18-yard touchdown.
Neosho then got an interception from Blake Stauffer, which led to a 3-yard touchdown run by Jared Shurley.
Ozark took advantage of penalties, back-to-back of the 15-yard variety, to set up a 2-yard run by quarterback Drew Crain. Crain ran in the conversion to make it 21-8.
Will McDaniel, filling in for a injured Jake Middleton, ran for a 54-yard touchdown at the buzzer to end the first quarter. Logan Burr’s point after attempt made it 28-8.
The Wildcats’ offense continued to steamroll its way to points. McDaniel ran for his second touchdown of the game midway through the second quarter.
Wise threw to Michael Lowe for his first career touchdown later in the quarter, which made it 42-15. In between the two scores, Jake Bebout ran for a 2-yard touchdown for Ozark.
Neosho then capped off the first half when Ryan Doty sacked Crain in the end zone.
“We did a lot of good things in the first half there is no doubt,” Flannigan said. “We played well, but had penalties that cost us. The first quarter we scored on all but one drive. To get five possessions is remarkable in and of its self. Only punting one time and scoring four touchdowns … that speaks how we were running the ball and throwing the ball. It was a good first half on both sides of the ball. And on special teams, we had a lot of big plays.”
Said Allison, “A good football team’s going to be able to do that to you. We thought we could get into a heart/lung contest with all our conditioning since we knew we were a smaller club. We thought the more plays we could get in on the field at a faster pace — I felt like that was our only chance.”
The second half saw only three points put on the board in the 12 minutes – that coming from a Logan Burr field goal from 32-yards out.
Neosho (2-0, 1-0) was able to hold onto a 47-15 lead going into the fourth quarter.
The fourth quarter belonged to the Tigers, who were on the move when the quarter switched ends. Two plays into the fourth quarter, Crain scored on a 2-yard run. Crain ran in the conversion, making it 47-23.
Ozark started to blitz heavily in the second half and forced Neosho to have a drive stall out after only seven yards were netted. Getting a short field, Ozark raced down the field on passing and scored again, this time with Zach Hoyt running it in for a 3-yard touchdown. Crain went for two and found Thomas Ligon open for the conversion, making it 47-29.
The Wildcats were forced to punt again, but this time, the team pinned Ozark down to the 1-yard line. How did Ozark respond? Well it responded by driving 99 yards in 1 minute, 35 seconds to score. Crain, who threw the ball 57 times in the game, kept on chucking it all over the field. Crain completed six passes, the biggest was a 47-yard strike to Ligon, that moved it to the 2-yard line. Hoyt then ran in for a touchdown. Crain ran in the 2-point conversion to make it 47-39.
The game was essentially over when Brown recovered an onside kick for Neosho with 2:20 left in the game. Neosho ran six plays and the clock ticked off and Neosho held off the late rally.
“They did a good job packing the box on us,” Flannigan said. “The first two games we haven’t demonstrated we can throw the ball consistently. If I was a defensive coordinator playing us after watching our first two games I’d do that on us too. I’d put more guys in there than we can block and that is what they did. They had seven (in the box) most of the night.
“We had to rely more on the pass than the run this week. It is good to be multifaceted. It is good if someone takes one thing away that you can do something else and do something effectively.”
Wise passed for 290 yards, completing 16-of-27 passes. The ground game racked up 155 yards. Shurley ran for 88 yards to lead Neosho, but it was the first time all year a team limited to him to less than 100 yards.
Dickens and McDaniel both had 69 yards receiving.
The Wildcats did lose 111 yards in penalties.
Ozark’s Crain was 25-for-57 for 343 yards against Neosho.
Ozark ran for 94 yards on the ground.
