WARDSVILLE - The Blair Oaks Falcons open the Tri-County Conference schedule with an unfamiliar opponent.
Blair Oaks will host the Boonville Pirates tonight in their home opener at the Falcon Athletic Complex. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.
"I've never coached an on-campus game, so I think it's going to be incredibly exciting," said Blair Oaks coach Ted LePage, who last coached a home game for the Falcons in 2005. "All the times I've ever been here, we've been off-campus for our home games.
"That's going to be neat because from what I've seen the last two weeks, we've had as big of crowds as the other two teams, and that's been two-and-a-half hours away from here. I cannot wait to see how much green shows up here and how much excitement there is."
Boonville (1-1), a Class 3 program which left the North Central Missouri Conference for the Tri-County, has played both non-conference games at home. The Pirates won last Friday 49-14 against Holden.
"They're explosive on the skill level positions, my goodness," LePage said. "They've got a receiver, a running back and a tight end that can score from anywhere on the field. They get it to them in a variety of fashions."
Senior Brandon Johnson, the tight end, stands at 6-foot-3 and 255 pounds. While Johnson has the ability to do damage as a receiving tight end, Boonville has utilized him as an extra blocker. There will be times the Pirates abandon the spead offense and use a three-back set, with Johnson as the lead blocker.
"You turn on film and you just see him making play after play after play," LePage said. "He's a difference-maker and he's a guy that will give us problems if we don't know where he's at."The other key skill players on offense are junior running back Avian Thomas and junior wide receiver Tramell Coleman. Thomas leads the Pirates with 197 yards rushing and a pair of touchdowns, while Coleman has a team-high six catches for 128 yards and two touchdowns.
LePage refers to Thomas and Coleman as "one step and go" players.
"They try to get it to them any way they possibly can," LePage said. "If they have to hand it off to them, if they have to spin it to them, if they have to get it to them on screens. They're trying to get those two young men the ball, and they are very explosive.
"If they get you one-on-one in space, and they get the ball, if they make you miss they're able to put it in the house in a hurry."
Junior Nick Ferrari will be the quarterback for Boonville, while sophomore Andrew Wise will also get carries at running back.
The Pirates will have five new starters on the offensive line this season.
Defensively, Johnson leads the line for Boonville. Last season, Johnson was All-NCMC first team as both tight end and linebacker, but he will shift to defensive end this fall. He already has four tackles for loss and two sacks through two games.
"We haven't seen anybody who has been able to block him yet," LePage said. "He shuts down a side of the field very, very good."
Boonville has been a four-man front this season, but LePage said he isn't taking that for granted tonight. Both Maryville and Oak Grove showed four-man fronts on film, then used three-man fronts against the Falcons.
"We spend most of the week working on what we've seen, but we also spend part of our week expecting something else," LePage said. "We always have a Plan B."
At linebacker, senior Landon Weaver leads Boonville with 17 total tackles, while junior Josh Polk - the Pirates' other returning All-NCMC player - has 14 tackles.
"Their linebacker group is very good, very aggressive," LePage said. "They like to blitz them a bunch. They really gave Holden a lot of fits filling the gaps where they're supposed to fill."
Coleman leads the Boonville secondary at free safety. Last week, he returned an interception 56 yards for a touchdown.
In last Friday's 48-0 win at Oak Grove, Blair Oaks (2-0) said he saw better timing from his offense in its run-pass option package.
"This past week, we had two touchdown passes - one to Braydan (Pritchett), one to Ben (Thomas) - from Nolan (Hair) that were RPO-type deals," LePage said. "Those were an advancement from the first week. Now we're able to take that and go to the next level."
Defensively, only 25 of Oak Grove's 122 yards of total offense came against Blair Oaks' starters.
"When you see a defense really start to grasp it and take ownership of it, it becomes contagious to everybody on the field," LePage said. "Each player wants to fit their role."
Greg Hough is in his first year as head coach at Boonville. Hough coached at Marceline the past two seasons was at Carrollton for 10 seasons before that.
The Pirates bounced back Week 2 after a 42-0 loss to Pleasant Hill to open the season.
"First game, you're working through some things," LePage said. "Second game, it looked like they got their sailor legs underneath them and they started sailing.
"This is a team that has played in the NCMC. They played the Hannibals, the Mexicos, the Moberlys. This isn't a team that is real shy to playing people. This ain't going to be an intimidation factor for them coming here, this is actually probably going to be a motivational factor for them."
III
Blair Oaks continues to hold the No. 2 spot in Class 2 in this week's Missouri Media Rankings. The Falcons have 105 points, gaining 11 points from last week's poll. Boonville and Blair Oaks had one common regular-season opponent last fall: the Eldon Mustangs. The Pirates lost 30-15 to the Mustangs in last year's season opener, while Blair Oaks won 32-12 against Eldon in a Week 4 matchup. LePage said senior Trinity Scott was held out of last week's game due to injury for precautionary reasons, but he expects Scott to return to action tonight.
Related Media: Blair Oaks Football Podcast [Boonville preview, Sept. 7, 2018]