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Unbeaten Smith-Cotton faces battle-tested Marshall
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The unbeaten Smith-Cotton football team faces yet another test tonight when the Marshall Owls come to Sedalia. Marshall (0-2) has dropped its first two games of the season to ranked teams, but has shown improvement each game.
Marshall fell 48-14 in its season-opener against Chillicothe, but played Grain Valley tough before losing 34-14 last week.
“It’s going to be a challenge for us,” said Smith-Cotton coach Mark Johnson about facing an old rival. “They’re probably the best football team, watching on film, that we’ve played this year. They’ve played two good quality opponents. They’re very big. They were a lot better week two than they were week one, so it’s going to be a challenge for us.”
Last week Smith-Cotton (2-0), ranked No. 8 in Class 4, moved the ball up and down the field at Clinton despite the sloppy field conditions. Weather figures to play a role in this week’s game as well with the chance for more rain on an already wet field.
“It’s definitely going to favor them with their power game. Their tailback runs hard, they’ve got big guys up front. They’re going to try to run power at you. We’re going to have to step up defensively,” Johnson said.
The Tigers held Clinton to just 23 total yards of offense on the way to a 44-0 victory. Johnson was happy with the play of his defense against the Cardinals, but knows that his team will face a tough offensive opponent tonight.
“Defensively I thought we played well,” he said. “We’re going to see what we have defensively because this is the best offense we’ve faced so far.”
Tiger quarterback Bryce Johnson was effective throwing the ball last week against Clinton and running back Solomon Watkins moved the ball on the ground. Johnson finished 9 of 10 passing for three touchdowns and Watkins ran for 112 yards and two scores to pace the offense.
Even with the offensive success so far this season, Johnson has continued to push his offensive line to improve and has made several changes for tonight’s game.
“We’ve got to get better offensive line-wise. We’re still playing way too high. We’re not staying with our blocks. We’ve made some changes with the offensive line. We’ve got some new starters there. You know, a coach is never happy. We’ve got a lot of things we’ve got to get better at, and offensive line is No. 1. If we don’t get our offensive line taken care of, down the line we’re not going to be very good,” he said.
