NICE SHOT : Realignment forces teams to adjust to new set of opponents
Posted on Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Reclassification and conference realignment have displaced several area teams from the leagues they've played in the last two years.
Greenland and West Fork, who open the season against each other Sept. 2 at Bentonville in the Simmons First Bank / Hootens. com Classic, have switched classifications. Greenland moved from Class 4 A to 3 A and will play the next two seasons in the 1-3 A Conference.
West Fork was bumped up from 3 A to 4 A. It will be the lone Northwest Arkansas team in the 4-4 A Conference, a league predominated by schools from the River Valley region of the state.
Shiloh Christian also made the jump from 3 A to 4 A but will stay closer to home, playing in the 1-4 A conference with teams from Washington, Benton, Madison and Carroll counties.
The change in leagues means having to prepare for a new set of opponents. Greenland's 2006 and 2007 conference schedule included four teams that ran a spread or one-back offense. In contrast, more than half the schools on the Pirates' 2008 conference slate employ run-based attacks.
Greenland hasn't been caught flatfooted by the realignment. Head coach Tracy Sutton has reprised the five-front, Eagle defense the Pirates used during the five seasons when he was defensive coordinator under former Greenland head coach Lee Larkan.
Transitioning from the 4-3 to the Eagle gives Greenland an extra defensive lineman to stop the run, but Sutton said personnel dictated the reconfiguration more than the schedule.
"We have tons of linemen," Sutton said last spring. "We don't have many linebackers. I don't know if we can scrap together three, so we're going to go back to a two-linebacker look."
An infusion of size provided by its sophomore class will aid West Fork's transition to the 4-4 A Conference, a league where it will be one of two teams whose base offense is the Spread. In a conference featuring the smash-mouth offenses of Booneville, Ozark and Pottsville, the Tigers will need all the size they can muster.
A physically imposing front bodes well for West Fork. With big-bodied lineman Jacob Powell and Corey Underhill at the center of its Spread offense and punishing fullback Thomas Richardson leading the way for quicksilver tailback Jacob Hoops, the Tigers enjoyed their finest season in 2006.
The golden anniversary of West Fork football saw the Tigers host their first home playoff game and advance to the semifinals of the state playoffs. An 11-3 campaign ended with a 21-18 loss to Prescott.
Then a sophomore, senior quarterback Daniel Holiday is one of the few holdovers from the 2006 squad. If Holiday can lead the Tigers to six wins this season, the 2009 Class will become the winningest class in the 52-year history of football at West Fork.
He enters the 2008 campaign as perhaps the most experienced signal caller in the state. In 24 starts, he's compiled a 14-9-1 record. Holiday has more than 3, 200 career passing yards and has thrown for 32 touchdowns while massing more than 4, 000 yards in total offense.
David Showers is a sportswriter for the Northwest Arkansas Times.
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