After BK blowout, coach seeks Tigers willing to play
The Bishop Kelly Knights took advantage of a short field all night long in rolling to a 56-0 conference football win over the Mountain Home Tigers last Friday night at Tiger Field in Mountain Home.
Taking advantage of Tiger turnovers, the Knights averaged starting on the Mountain Home 47-yard line for the first half, as they rolled to a 42-0 halftime advantage.
For the game, the Knights averaged starting at the 50, while Mountain Home averaged starting on their own 24-yard line in the first half and their 28 for the game.
Mountain Home did not make it into Bishop Kelly territory until the second half, and that, just twice. The first time was when the Knights fumbled their kickoff return to start the third quarter.
Starting at the Bishop Kelly 16-yard line, two quarterback sacks had the Tigers giving the ball over on downs four plays later at the Knights' 33.
The second time was Mountain Home's last possession of the game, when the team made it to the Knights' 35-yard line before fumbling the ball back to Bishop Kelly.
Tiger head football coach Aaron Rodney was disappointed in his team's effort -- or lack of effort.
"What can you say? They're bigger, they're faster, they're stronger. A lot of our guys think they're too good to get in the weight room in the summer, and that's what happens. I preached it to them all year long, that's what happens.
"We have a lot of kids that quit. We had one kid that was supposed to be a captain -- he undressed himself and he quit.
"We're not going to quit here. What we're going to do is find 11 guys here who'll give the effort, and I don't care if it's freshmen. We'll pull freshmen out of the stands. We'll play freshmen if we have to -- JV kids -- we'll play sophomores -- but we're going to get 11 guys who play hard, because the 11 guys that we have out there, don't.
"A very, very big disappointment. This football team the last two weeks has underachieved and I'm extremely disappointed with them -- there's no excuse for that -- no excuse for that lackluster effort. We have a lot of guys on this team who have quit, and that's the bottom line," he said.
Mountain Home rushed the ball 42 times for just 64 yards. Ryan Eckstrom carried the ball 19 times for 77 yards.
Through the air, Jesse Cobos completed four of 10 passes for 27 yards and had two passes intercepted.
Nigel Whitfield caught one pass for 11 yards, Jordan Pendleton caught one for seven, Pete Ramadan caught one for five and Ryan Eckstrom had one catch for four yards.
The Knights rushed the ball 39 times for 246 yards and added 156 yards through the air.
The Tigers have a bye week this week, returning to action Oct. 25 at Kuna.
"We're going to find 11 guys who want to play, and that's all we're going to do," said Coach Rodney. "If we've got to sit some kids who have been starting all year, so be it. Our lower levels are doing real well right now, so some of those kids we're going to start fitting in, and some of them played tonight. Some of them got overmatched tonight, but they did what they're supposed to do. But we'll fix it. We'll find 11 guys who want to play, and the others can watch."