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 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.
On top of that, Bell is also Carroll’s leading rusher with 698 yards on the ground, forcing the Spartan D to deal with an extra dimension that McPherson’s similarly tall quarterback, Joel Piper, didn’t offer. Bell’s ability to run, in fact, seems to be what the Spartans are most concerned with.
“Just to give you an idea, if you haven’t seen him,” Marstall said, “I’d say he has the running ability like the tall kid from Topeka West (Tyrell Brown), and comparable — not as good, but comparable — passing to the kid from McPherson. So that’s what we’ve gotta go stop.”
“He’s pretty fast,” cornerback Bryce Childs said. “We’ve just gotta contain him, keep him in the pocket, and I think our coverage will be better this week. We’ll be on the receivers good and be right there. We’ve just gotta make sure he doesn’t get out in open space where he can create plays with his feet.”
When Bell stays in the pocket, or when he decides to throw on the run, Childs, Cody Lindquist and the rest of the Spartan secondary will once again have their hands full. Five Carroll players have at least 20 catches this year, led by Tyler Nance’s 44 receptions and Brandon Weber’s 40. Blake Rollins is both a running and receiving threat — he has 27 catches for 229 yards, and his 610 rushing yards are second on the team behind Bell.
“Receivers, I don’t know, it’s hard to say — they might not be as good as McPherson’s receivers,” Marstall said. “But it’s hard to say, because you’re not looking at comparable competition.”
For what it’s worth, although Carroll is 10-0, their opponents this season are a combined 40-56. Emporia High’s 8-2 record has come against opponents that are now a combined 61-36, and just one of the Spartans’ opponents finished below .500; the Golden Eagles have faced five sub-.500 teams.
Still, EHS, both defensively and overall, figures to be the underdog.
“We’ve been the underdog in almost every game this year,” said Spartan linebacker Brock Sheldon, in what’s probably something of an overstatement. “So we love that. We love proving people wrong.”