Prep Football: Eagles look to stay perfect
Brandon Hampton got what he wanted out of Friday night's Sesser-Valier-Waltonville-Woodlawn footballl game and it had little to do with the 52-6 victory.
The win was nice for the Eldorado head football coach as the Eagles are now 2-0 overall and 2-0 in Black Diamond Conference play, but for the eighth year head coach, Hampton wanted to see his team get better - from Week 1 - to Week 2.
Now Hampton is curious to see how his Eagles respond to a Carmi-White County that he says "physically whipped" his Eagles in a 28-6 loss last season.
On top of that, no rivalry game is bigger in the Black Diamond Conference - Hampton says - than these two teams.
"Carmi will be extremely well coached and excited to play us," he said. "They played a very strong Nashville team and much like I said for Sesser when they played Du Quoin, should only make them better. Carmi will come in here after taking a tough loss, I'm sure a better football team. They have a dynamic quarterback in Jake Simon, who reminds me of Ben Roethlisberger, he keeps plays alive, he doesn't try to get out of the pocket, but when he keeps plays alive the receivers do a great job of getting down the field. They have a really good, physical running back and historically we have played some great games and I think it'll come down to four or five plays against them."
Hampton will hope to muster some of that magic that propelled them to a 52-6 win against Sesser-Valier-Waltonville-Woodlawn last week. On the season, the Eagles have given up only six points and have given up 347 yards on offense.
"Defensively, I felt like we limited the (Ross) Owens kid. Ross Harris and Jacob Traxler continued to play really well defensively. The biggest thing is our secondary got better from Week 1 to Week 2. I thought they defended the pass game really well in a tough up-tempo type of offense. I am really excited where we are, now the challenge is that we keep getting better against a very strong and very proud Carmi-White County football team that physically whipped us last year."
Eldorado's offense has been running like an well oiled machine in the early going.
Junior running back Payton Price has seven touchdowns to his name to go along with an EHS offense that has put up 837 total yards on offense, with 742 of that coming from the ground.
The offensive line, sometimes the unsung hero, got plenty of praise for Hampton.
"That's what I was most impressed with," he said. "They just got off the ball so well. They did a great job of blocking on that second and third level and that's why we were able to have some big runs. Explosive types plays of plus-20. I really thought Teton Prather blocked well and our fullbacks ran extremely hard. (Adam) Ninness played a complete game with his fakes and some of the things that he did there."
Michael Dann covers prep and college sports for the Harrisburg Daily Register. Follow him on Twitter:
@spydieshooter.