2010 DNA chain: B'ville, H-B, "Eldo"/Tulsa Union, SHV Evangel, Florida 4A semis

[OPoraquê]

2010 Arkansas 7A champ Bentonville beats 2009 7A champ Har-Ber at home 55-41, and at B'ville, 48-20,

H-B beat in September at home El Dorado, 2010, 2009 Arkansas 6A state championss (and 2008 runner-up), and Tulsa Union, 2010, 2009, 2008 Oklahoma 6A state champion (and 2007 runner up), by 1 point in the one-week-before-preseason scrimmage at Union;

Union beats Shreveport Evangel 44-32 at Shreveport - SHV Evangel is the 2010, 2009 Louisiana 2A state champs, as well as 2008 runner up.

For that 2010 state championship, SHV Evangel beat, tonight, New Orleans John Curtis Christian in the Louisiana Superdome, which this past September beat Gainesville FL away (at Nicholls State in Thibodeaux, a friendly place for Curtis but still an away game), and Gainesville is playing in the Florida 4A semis tonight.  (I'm through tracking these scores, and this will be tough for Gainesville to win tonight, although...)

"Six degrees of separation" doesn't mean that much, maybe, but...

1.  When a team beats a reigning state champion (either the current year or the year before) on their home field that means something;

2.  Har-Ber, in many ways, was "all that" this year.  If only they'd had a bit more defense, but they beat some GOOD teams this year.  (Obviously, so did Union, and so did SHV Evangel.)  Bentonville's offense, in retrospect, was just that good as well, and...

3.  Don't know what more B'ville could have done.  This was a fun season all around.

4.  I expect we'll see SEVERAL out-of-state matchups with NWA big schools in the future, and frankly I expect the opponents to get stronger...

[businesstron]

Your arguement falls apart in two places....

1.  The 'scrimmage' against Union  doesn't mean that much.  Wasn't it only 1 or 2 quarters?  If it had been a full game  who knows what would of happened in the second half.

2.  Harber had two good victories this year.  Fayetteville and Conway and that's it.  Other than that they were overrated in their defense sucked. 

That's really it...  It be nice to see some of the elite 7a west schools step out and play some tougher matchups.     I mean Woods and Lunny think that the 7 a west is the best in the region....they'd probably be right if they didn't include Texas.  Woods actually thinks they could hang with the best in Texas. Which is kind of funny because Coach Floyd is on record of saying that he thinks no team in Arkansas has the personnel to match up with a top team in Texas like Trinity.  I feel like he's more credible because he actually played a good Texas team  and he also played a 7a west team.   

It'd be nice to see something like that happen but I don't a 7a west team with the guts to take a challenge like that.  Also I don't see a Texas or Louisiana top team looking for a Arkansas school  to play either.    Bentonville has the highest chance of finding a good out of state team to play since they will have a good team coming back.   

Maybe that Rockhurst game will finally happen.   

Links and quotes...

He'll get no argument from Bentonville Coach Barry Lunney, who said the West isn't only the best in Arkansas, it's the best in the region.


"Springdale Har-Ber Coach Chris Wood, whose team won the state title last season but lost to Bentonville in the semifinals last week, said the 7A-West could be dropped in Texas and hold its own against the best of that state, which many consider to have the best high school football in the nation."


http://www.arpreps.com/news/2010/dec/03/high-school-football-championships-how-we-20101203/


"The team was stunned at how quickly it went from being a national power to one others said couldn't even compete locally.

I do not want to talk negative against anyone," Floyd said. "But when we hear that we couldn't play in other classes based on how we played in Texas, it just isn't true. Those classes do not have the players we saw in Texas. No one in this state has those players."


Later on in the article....

When it finally stopped at the final gun, Shiloh not only allowed its infamous 80-point outburst, but also 706 yards of total offense rung up against it. Those numbers are hard to forget.

Floyd, however, isn't embarrassed.

"There was no way to prepare for them," he said. "We don't have extra 6-foot-5 290-pound guys standing around to use as a practice squad. We could not replicate what they had. No one in this state could. They would be a matchup problem for every team in Arkansas."


http://theoldcoach.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1147471

[spurrr]

If HarBer had some more Defense this year the Bville game would have been a sight to watch. Instead Harber had to rely on outscoring teams all year long.
When HB and Bville were at the Union jamboree, each controlled their end of the field. Scrimmage or not they controlled it.HB's Jv's controlled Owasso's #1's (I don't know how Owasso finished the year) and Bville's JV's outshined whomever was put in front of them.
I don't put a lot of stock into comparisons, but after what I saw that night either team could win the OK state championship.

[OPoraquê]

If HarBer had some more Defense this year the Bville game would have been a sight to watch. Instead Harber had to rely on outscoring teams all year long.
When HB and Bville were at the Union jamboree, each controlled their end of the field. Scrimmage or not they controlled it.HB's Jv's controlled Owasso's #1's (I don't know how Owasso finished the year) and Bville's JV's outshined whomever was put in front of them.
I don't put a lot of stock into comparisons, but after what I saw that night either team could win the OK state championship.

(FWIW, I agree comparisons can only go so far. That being said...)

BTW, Owasso went 8-5 three rounds into the playoffs to the Oklahoma big school semis.  In the first round, they beat a Norman team with the state's top 6A and just about every other class running back, a 2,000 yarder.  That Norman team pretty much owned Oklahoma City this past season but didn't do well against Tulsa - same song different year the last few years in the Sooner State.  Owasso also lost to Union, which beat Bartlesville by 1 point via a last minute field goal at Union.  Bartlesville was beaten in that same preseason scrimmage by Bentonville 21-13, and so to respond to my friend Businesstron with a few final quotes:)

"If we played that Bentonville team next week, they'd do the same thing to us." - Bartlesville coach Ron Smith, who had a top-10-overall-in-Oklahoma team pretty much the entire regular season, to the Bartlesville newspaper after the Bentonville game.

"We had a tough time just getting off the field." - O'Fallon (St. Louis) MO Fort Zumwalt West coach Paul Day to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after his team's 48-18 loss to B'ville at home.  Fort Zumwalt West finished 10-3 and a Missouri 6A semi-finalist with the St.Louis metro area's top big-school quarterback statistically.

"They remind me of Highland Park." (Perennial Texas 4A championship contender with a 75-7 record the past six years and 1 state championship). - Texarkana Texas coach Barry Norton to the Bentonville paper the day before his game with the "other" tigers.

(Businesstron, actually, I think your buddy Coach Norton had a clue what the score was going to be and knew it would be better to lose to a team compared to Highland Park than, say, Bugtussle.)

Businesstron, you'll get the last word for good on me forever here.  It's been great corresponding with you and you're a gentleman.  (I remember your reply after the aforementioned Union/Bartlesville game.  True class, and I mean that.)  IMO, even though I agree there was no NWA team in the Allen/Coppell/Trinity class here in NWA there was some special football talent here this season (which we knew would be here).  There's more talent to come, but whether it wil reach this year's level remains to be seen.  Of course, that's probably what people said about Springdale 5 years ago.  Some teams up here would have beaten a lot of low- and mid-level Texas 4A and 5A teams, and probably would have surprised some better ones.

We'll see what happens if these schools can start scheduling a Rockhurst.  Or maybe a Southlake Carroll.

Again, God bless.

[InYoGrill]

Do you for see any future games with Jenks, Rockhurst, Blue Springs, etc...? Seemed like back years ago the 7A west teams played those bullies every year. Northside and Springdale scheduled those premier non conference games.

[Billyo62]

Do you for see any future games with Jenks, Rockhurst, Blue Springs, etc...? Seemed like back years ago the 7A west teams played those bullies every year. Northside and Springdale scheduled those premier non conference games.

We have been trying, if we could schedule Rockhurst, Blue Springs or Blue Springs South in weeks 4 through 7.. it would make scheduling them a lot easier..

If Teams Like Har-Ber or Southside would be willing to play Bentonville week#1...we could make these games more likely..

[OPoraquê]

Call it "potentially spliced DNA"...Euless Trinity just lost the Texas 5A football championship to...Pearland, whose district superintendent is now one of two finalists to be the next superintendent of Bentonville.

What a wild, wacky ride 2010 h.s. football has been. 

[businesstron]

Call it "potentially spliced DNA"...Euless Trinity just lost the Texas 5A football championship to...Pearland, whose district superintendent is now one of two finalists to be the next superintendent of Bentonville.

What a wild, wacky ride 2010 h.s. football has been. 

I just got back from that game .   I figured it would happen they seem to win their titles in odd years.  Plus everytime I sit on the away side in Cowboys stadium that team loses...the only time a team won when I say on that side was when Trinity beat Allen. 

It sucks for them though they probably had the toughest road to a state final in the nation.  They had to deal with Allen who atleast was a top 100 school at the time they played them.  Arlington Martin, who was the hottest team in the state at the time they played them.  Coppell was ranked in the top 25 in some polls,  Stony Point was rank in the top 10 in some polls....they still may be there after the loss.  Then after all of that have to deal with a Pearland...who really should be a top 15 team.  The only reason they aren't is because they don't get as much recognition as a Trinity, Southlake or Katy. 

That weird about Pearland's Superintendent......small world.