Two years ago, the Bryant Hornets were using their fourth quarterback and running a lot of the Wildcat offense with Chris Rycraw serving as a de facto fifth QB in a set that utilized up to 10 offensive linemen.
The Springdale Bulldogs sported a college-bound quarterback and a stable of receivers with gaudy numbers.
And when the two teams were paired up in the first round of the Class 7A State playoffs, most felt Springdale, despite being the No. 5 seed to Bryant’s No. 4, would win. After all, the Red Bulldogs played in the powerful 7A-West Conference and competed every week. The Hornets were battered and had had to win their last two games of the season just to make sure they were in the playoffs, tying for fourth in the league.
So, it wasn’t a huge surprise that Springdale[more] was made a favorite. And that was no big deal until one of the statewide prognosticators did the Bryant Hornets a huge favor, picking the Bulldogs by 30 points.
The ‘diss’ gave Bryant an additional emotional jolt and they won 22-13 despite completing just one pass all night. Rycraw rushed for over 200 yards and the defense, while holding Springdale to a season-low point total, forced four turnovers.
Tonight, the Hornets and Bulldogs meet once again in the first round of the playoffs. Springdale is once again the fifth seed from the West and the Hornets, for the third year in a row, are seeded fourth but, this time, only because of the controversial power rating system employed by the Arkansas Activities Association this year. The Hornets are fourth despite earning a piece of a tri-championship in the 7A-Central Conference.
And this time, Bryant’s favored. Granted, by a whole lot less than 30 points, but favored nonetheless. In part, that’s because Springdale’s stellar running back Rahmon Taylor is out with a knee injury.
Of course, little has been made of the fact that all four of Bryant’s running backs are nursing injuries. It is uncertain how much the Hornets’ top two rushers, Stephen Clark and Karon Dismuke, will be able to play.
“We’ll limp one out and limp another one in,” quipped Hornets’ head coach Paul Calley. “They’re all suffering from some type of injury. Karon’s hand — you know there’s a lot of things we wanted to do with him at quarterback, special packages — but he can’t catch a snap. He’s going to play. Steve’s probably the most injured right now. Jalen (Bell) sprained his ankle at Central (last Friday) and Jacob (Powell) sprained his ankle at Central. We’ll just tape them up and see if they can go.”
Springdale’s star quarterback in 2008, Ashton Glaser (now a third-string quarterback as a redshirt freshman for the nationally-ranked Missouri Tigers), was knocked out of that game for a while. A sophomore named Joseph Calcagni (son of the former Arkansas Razorback star) came in and completed 2 of 6 passes before Glaser returned.
Now, Calcagni is the starter and star, orally committed to play college ball at Tulsa next year.
Bryant, meanwhile, has been playing a sophomore all season at quarterback, Hayden Lessenberry who’s managed games well though he hasn’t really been called upon to provide the primary offensive force to this point. He’s been efficient passing, completing 87 of 125 attempts (nearly 70 percent) with only three interceptions and six touchdowns.
“It’s going to come down to our ability to throw and catch and pass protect,” Calley stated. “They play a lot of man coverage.
“They usually have more in the box than we can block,” he explained. “It’s going to be difficult to run. They eliminate the run game because they have you out-numbered, similar to Fayetteville’s defense when we played them in the playoffs in 2006 and 2007. They just always seem to have one more than we do. That makes it difficult. We’re having to scheme up ways to get numbers in the run game.
“In the passing game, they’re really hard to pass protect against because they run so many twists and they bring linebackers,” Calley added.
“We base out of 4-3 on defense,” said Springdale head coach Shane Patrick. “We’re going to have a four-man line. We may shuffle some people around behind them. Our starting linebacker Corey Williams is a senior and does a good job for us along with Kyle Camp at defensive end. We’ve got a young secondary that has had some issues during the year but they’re getting better each and every week.
“When we’ve been pretty good, we’ve played pretty decent defense,” he added. “We don’t give up the big play and we try to shut down the run game. The games we haven’t been able to do that haven’t turned out very well for us.”
Looking at Bryant’s offense, Patrick said, “Foremost, they’re very fundamentally sound. They’re extremely well coached and they play as hard as any team we’ve seen all year. They run the ball extremely well. It’s going to be a real challenge for us to slow down their run game. Then, when they throw the ball they’re effective. Their run game allows their throwing game to be very effective for them. Overall, they’re a really good offensive football team, we think.”
Springdale runs a spread offense but plays ball control out of it.
“We’ve been able to run the ball effectively and then use our passing game when we wanted to,” Patrick said, noting that Calcagni makes it all go. “He’s obviously one of our big leaders. We lost Rahmon Taylor about three weeks ago. He’d scored 23 touchdowns for us. We hope we get him back next year.
“Henry Hernandez is probably our most productive receiver,” he continued. “He’s done a real good job all year. We’ve got Keenan Sanchez, another receiver, and Kempys Robinson. They do a good job. Then our running backs, Colton Laughter and K.D. Jones, have stepped in in the absence of Rahmon. We try to spread the ball around to those guys.”
“They control the ball on offense out of the spread,” Calley said. “I think, unless we can get them off the field, we’ll probably be able to run 45 or 50 plays on offense. We’ve got to make sure they’re all good. There’s some things that we feel good about.
“The hard part for us is one of our starting guards will be missing this week,” he revealed. “Jordan Murdock is the state FBLA president and he’s going to the convention in New Orleans. So we’ll be starting a sophomore (Kordell Boykins) who’s back-up is a sophomore (Cortez Williams). And Springdale’s defensive line is really good, probably the best we’ve seen overall. They just pin their ears back and come. It eliminates a lot of things that we’ve done in the running game. So, it’s going to be, for us offensively, a chess match.”
“The first thing that jumps out at you is they’ve got a big, strong offensive line,” said Hornets defensive coordinator Steve Griffith. “The left offensive tackle (Mitch Smothers, 6-4, 290) is a really good football player. Calcagni is a good solid football player. Being committed to Tulsa tells you that there’s guys on the next level that feel he has the skills that they’re going to be able to use. He throws the ball well and runs the ball well. They don’t run him a lot but when he does run, he’s a threat.
“Hernandez is an outstanding wide receiver,” he continued. “We always want to know where he is. Robinson, at 6-3, 230, is a really big target, has soft hands. He plays on the outside but also comes in on the inside. Those are some of the guys you really have to be aware of. They lost their best running back but the other guys have run the ball well. They’re very capable.
“They’re a football team somewhat similar to Conway,” Griffith stated. “They throw the football but I think they’d rather run it. That’s their first preference and it really was when they had Taylor.
“Exactly how they’re going to attack us, I’m not sure,” he concluded. “I think the big thing for us is make sure we’re lined up soundly and then play with a lot of intensity. We weren’t as intense as we could’ve been at Central last week. The conditions, the situation probably played into that. We’ve got to come out and play intense like we did against Conway. If we do, I feel like we’ll be right there and have a chance to win the game.”
Patrick assessed the Bryant defense, saying, “They’re very strong up front. They’ve got some really good players. I think their linebackers do a great job of running downhill. The big thing you see about them is you don’t see many tackles get broken. If they get their hands on you, they get you one the ground. That tells me they’re well coached. They do a great job with that.”
Griffith mentioned that the defense should be aided by the return of senior safety Tanner Tolbert who’s been limited to punting and kickoff return duties the last couple of weeks by a strained neck.
