Mustang offense looks for continued improvement

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Sports

October 2, 2014 - 12:00 AM

Iola High’s football team travels to Central Heights Friday still looking for its first win of the season.
The Vikings are 0-4 and haven’t put together much on offense, losing to Anderson County, 27-8, Santa Fe Trail, 54-6, Prairie View, 55-6, and Olpe, 48-8.
The Mustangs will look to improve on their much more sustained offense from last week, in which Iola scored five touchdowns in its 48-31 loss to Osawatomie.
Before that, Iola had scored just one offensive touchdown in its first three games.
Iola head coach Doug Kerr said Iola’s offense should work even better this week.
“We tweaked some things on offense last week and we put in a different series and really had a lot of success with it,” Kerr said. “Usually, that second week is where you show the most improvement because now it’s not new.”
Defensively, the Mustangs have been prone to giving big plays. That can happen with a young squad, Kerr noted.
The key is preventing their opponent from converting on third down.
“Third downs, we’ve kind of made our focus this week,” Kerr said. “The coaching staff really broke down what they do on third down and try to get them off the field.”
With Iola’s new up-tempo, hurry-up offense, Kerr wants to get the defense off the field as much as possible. The offense will need to keep the momentum going from drive-to-drive, going against a Viking defense that has some big kids up front on the line.
Kerr said Central Height’s offense focuses on the ground attack.
“Their running back is a hard-nosed runner and they use a big lineman in the backfield to lead block,” Kerr said. “With the play action passing game, until we can prove that we can stop it, they’re going to keep trying it. We just have to adjust to that.”
With the Mustangs improving from week to week, the Kerr said the team should be at its best heading into district play.
“If we can shore up the defense and get the offense going even better than it was last week, we feel very confident going into the districts,” Kerr said.
Iola’s district race looks to be wide open. Burlington is 2-2, Anderson County is 1-3 and Girard is 1-3.
Friday’s kickoff at Central Heights is set for 7 p.m.

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