The deeper Emporia High gets into the Class 5A playoffs, the more the Spartan defense is getting spread and stretched.
After getting by an offensively explosive McPherson team in the first round — despite allowing 419 yards of offense and falling behind 20-0 in the first half— EHS now must contend with a road game against 10-0 Bishop Carroll, its diverse spread offense and one of the higher-profile Kansas prep players in recent memory.
No breathers in the playoffs, right? Well, perhaps both fortunately and unfortunately, Carroll shouldn’t present too many things that the Spartans haven’t seen before.
P.J. Marstall, Emporia’s co-defensive coordinator, was in broken-record mode this week when asked to talk about what his defense will be facing on Friday at Carroll. A week after calling McPherson “a Salina Central/Salina South team wearing a red-and-white uniform,” Marstall made the same analogy between McPherson and Carroll, even invoking Carroll’s green-and-gold uniforms in doing so.
“They like to run a lot of counter, a little option, spread you out,” Marstall said. “They’re not gonna try to smash-mouth you too often. They’ll just pick you apart on pass, and then they’ll run counters, quarterback counter, tailback counter.”
Chances are if you closely follow prep football in the state, by now you’ve heard about Blake Bell, Carroll’s quarterback who has given a verbal to play at Oklahoma. The 6-foot-6 Bell is ranked the third-best QB in the class of 2010 by scout.com and No.4 by rivals.com, and his performance during his senior season has justified those rankings. Put bluntly, Bell’s numbers are disgusting: he’s completed 65.5 percent of his passes for 2,286 yards, with 29 touchdowns and just four interceptions.
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