Defense keys Bison win at Hastings

Two out of three ain't bad, but not for McCook High School head football coach Jeff Gross.

The Bison blanked Hastings 28-0 Friday in non-conference action at Hastings College Field, as McCook helped darken the Tigers Homecoming festivities.

Coach Gross saw his Bison turn in a strong defensive effort. McCook held Hastings to just 91 total yards and only four first downs.

"It was a great defensive game, and right now through five games our defense just keeps getting better and better and better," Gross said. "Maybe statistically people don't look at that and don't understand that. We held a decent offense to 91 total yards last night. We only gave up four first downs the entire night. We were really never in any jeopardy of giving up any points. You've got to feel good about that defensive effort."

"Greg Younger, I saw him make some huge plays for us. A.J. Huffman made big plays," Gross said. "Those guys are going to make some plays for you, they are our inside linebackers. Chris Farrell had a good game. Chance Pearson has really turned the corner as a safety and he made some great plays. As a whole, that unit is getting better and better and better. We're a pretty good defensive team right now."

Gross was also pleased with his special teams.

"On special teams, we played sound," he said. "We were four-for-four (extra-point kicks), we kicked off well, we didn't give up a lot of return yards, and we had a couple of nice returns of our own."

Even though the Bison scored four touchdowns and accumulated 314 total yards, the veteran coach said his offense is still not clicking.

"Offensively, even though we put up 28 points and 314 yards, the continuity was just not there," he said. "So that's still a work in progress. We've still got to get some accountability from people doing their jobs.

"As a whole, it was a good win, just frustrating because we just made a lot of mistakes that the kids don't want to make and the coaches don't want to see them make, and a little bit of frustration there."

Gross disagreed that his team may have overlooked a winless Hastings team. Instead, he said his offense missed opportunities to add points on the scoreboard.

"We challenged the kids to dominate the guy across (the line of scrimmage) from them one-on-one and we did that defensively," he said. "We dominated one-on-one matchups all night defensively. We dominated one-on-one matchups in the kicking game. We did not dominate one-on-one matchups very often offensively. We did some. But as a whole unit, and that's what we were after, to take the next step as a football team.

"We scored on four drives, we punted on four drives. On all four of those drives that we punted, had we worked and executed that domination that we wanted, we would have scored four more times. The end result of that is frustration, lack of playing time for seniors that deserve playing time, lack of playing time for some younger kids you want to get ready for next year.

"The whole game you're striving to get some continuity. So instead of being up 48-0 or somethings and playing a lot of kids in the fourth quarter, we were still trying and striving to get that next touchdown."

Gross said his Bison scored on long drives. Andy Smith tallied McCook's first score on a 5-yard run in the opening quarter. Senior fullback Deon Allen added a pair of touchdowns in the second quarter on runs of 3 and 3 yards to help give the Bison a 21-0 halftime cushion. Allen added another 3-yard scoring run in the third quarter. Shane Wallen kicked all four extra points for McCook.

The McCook coach praised his senior quarterback, Chad Stull, for a strong game. Stull led all rushers with 89 yards on 15 carries. Chad completed 10 of 12 passes (83 percent) for 115 yards. Hastings picked off one of Stull's throws.

"I just challenged Chad to be the leader out there and start taking control, make wise decisions," Gross said. "He obviously did most of the night in the passing game and that's great statistics. He made a couple bad throws. One of them we got away with because we got sacked. Another we got away with because the defender that was going to pick it off deflected it and Mark Nichols caught it for a big gain. Another one was an interception.

"You've got to take some positives away from being 10 for 12 for 115. You've got to take some positives out of the fact that Chad had 15 carries for 89 yards. We did some decent things there.

"The part of the game we wanted to focus on being better there, our power game, is you see the frustration when you look at Andy Smith. He had 10 carries for 27 yards, that's just not good enough. Me saying not good enough is nothing about Andy's performance. We're just not giving him any time to get going up front."

Smith apparently tweaked his ankle again, and he may be limited in practice this week.

"We'll see. It's no worse than it's been but it's definitely no better than it's been," Gross said. "It's probably going to be more like a couple weeks ago where we don't practice him too much this week and see how it is come game time.

"As important as beating Gering, a 4-1 team, that's still not life or death compared to our district games that start the following week."

The Bison, 4-1, host Gering Friday night at Weiland Field.

Mark Nichols caught 3 passes for 57 yards. Cody Goltl had 6 receptions for 45 yards.

Gross thinks his team's offensive struggles is a confidence issue.

"We knew where Hastings was going to be, we still struggled with that. I would say the confidence issue, to say the least, is our biggest problem. We started the year off putting up 42 points offensively (42-7 win over Sidney) and moving the ball at will. Since that point, it's just slowly regressed. After we had all those turnovers against Alliance and Aurora, just all of a sudden now everybody's second-guessing everybody a little bit."

Fun and confidence will be two words bounced around the McCook football team this week.

"Our goal for this week is to put confidence and fun back into football, because right now, if there's anything that this football team's lacking, that's it," he said. "I start every meeting out every year with the kids, I do it with the parents' meeting, telling them we need to have fun out here. Right now we've got some kids and coaches that probably aren't having as much fun, and that's ultimately my responsibility. Our motto for this week is going to be put fun back in football."

With McCook's tradition, the Bison are apt to get the opponent's maximum effort every week.

"Next week you can mark that true," Gross said. "Gering will play like this is their Super Bowl, and so we're going to have to be better than we've been all season. And that's OK. We're due for that to rise up for that occasion."

After playing three of its first five games on the road, including the last two weekends, the Bison will have three of its final four regular-season contests at the friendly confines of Weiland Field. That will be a positive for Gross' team and he also wants his players to be responsible for their effort on the field.

"We're a tired football team, I told the kids that last night," he said. "We're physically and mentally tired. They are physically beat up, they are mentally beat up, because we've been coaching them so hard. Part of coaching hard is trying to make kids accountable, getting on them a little bit. It's time to back away from all that and get some positives out there.

"As I told the kids, either you do your job or you don't. If you don't, it's OK. It's OK to make a mistake -- no one's perfect. But stand up and be responsible for yourself and let's cut the excuses out and take this thing where we want to go."

MC -- Andy Smith 5 run (Shane Wallen kick).

MC -- Deon Allen 3 run (Wallen kick).

MC -- Deon Allen 2 run (Wallen kick).

MC -- Deon Allen 3 run (Wallen kick).

McCook Statistics:

Rushing -- Chad Stull 15-89, Deon Allen 11-57, Andy Smith 10-27, Keith Wallace 4-26, Jimmy Barron 1-0.

Passing -- Chad Stull 10-12-1 115 yards.

Receiving -- Mark Nichols 3-57, Cody Goltl 6-45,