Republic goes to Joplin Friday to play a team that coach Ryan Cornelsen said has put together some of the best drives he has seen this season.
“There’s probably two or three possessions against Nixa that I would say (are) the best possessions I’ve seen in our conference,” Republic’s head coach said on this week’s REPMO Football Show. “Same thing against Carthage. Carthage struggled to get their offense off the field at times, and that’s hard to do.”
Republic (4-1) plays at Joplin (2-3) Friday at 7 p.m.
Joplin lost to Nixa 30-27 in the second week of the season. Nixa is the only team to beat Republic, 49-6. The Eagles opened with a 14-10 win at Kickapoo and beat Waynesville 35-14, and they lost 34-32 at Lebanon and 42-14 at Carthage last Friday. Republic beat Lebanon 35-0 and Kickapoo 54-10.
“There’s some teams you feel like Joplin was going to handle pretty well, and they didn’t handle them as well as they probably should have,” Cornelsen said. “A some point they can put a whole game together, and they’re really good. They just haven’t done that yet.”
Cornelsen said Joplin’s offense starts with its line and its quarterback, Trenton McCadney.
Game page →“Their offensive line is huge,” he said. “In our conference there’s a lot of big offensive lines, and this one is as big as any.”
Republic beat Joplin 45-16 at home last season, when the Eagles played two quarterbacks. Cornelsen said McCadney is the one who gave Republic trouble in that game.
“We couldn’t stop him a year ago when he ran the ball,” Cornelsen said. “He can bounce it out wide. He can go up the gut. He’s really shifty. Our defense is going to have to do a really good job of making sure we can get him to the ground.”
Cornelsen ranks him among the COC’s best-running quarterbacks, alongside Neosho’s Blayne Patterson and Nixa’s Adam McKnight. Running back Elijah Hurrell will also pose a rushing threat for the Eagles.
Cornelsen said Joplin’s defense lines up in more fronts than any team Republic sees.
“I think we went with nine cards, but we could probably put 20-some cards of what we’ve seen, different fronts,” he said. “This will be the first time this offensive line has seen this many fronts. Last week, [Neosho] stacked and blitzed, which we hadn’t seen much of. This one, we’re going to see multiple fronts every snap.”
Republic’s offensive line line blocked for 519 rushing yards in last week’s 47-35 win over Neosho. Nolan Lashley ran for 368 yards and six touchdowns on 38 carries, and he has 18 touchdowns through five games. The Tigers will try to build on that performance again this week.
“It’ll be a big night for us in a conference game,” Cornelsen said. “[We] need to take another step. We plan on doing that and hope for a good night.”
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