Five Takeaways: Week 2 – Valley vs Dowling

Valley vs Dowling is probably the state’s biggest rivalry. Year in and year out, both of these schools are not only evenly matched, but usually at the top of any sport they participate in, especially football. While I wasn’t able to make it to the game this year, I managed to watch the Livestream for it and can take down five takeaways I got from what I saw Friday night.   Maroons get off to a red hot start in the first half. Dowling turned some heads in the first half. Starting off defensively, the Maroons forced the Tigers to either go three-and-out or turn over the ball on 4 of their first 5 drives. Dowling would score on their first drive, with Jake Steingreaber tossing it to Mack Anderson from the 12. On the next defensive drive, Blake Anderson made a one-handed pick off of a tipped pass intended for [player_tooltip player_id="23818" first="Matthew" last="Mahoney"]. The very next play Steingreaber hits Mack Anderson again and he takes it 73 yards to the other side of the field, which sets up a Zach Schwager touchdown from the goal line. The next Dowling drive would set up a 30-yard field goal by Jake Calvert, then the Maroons manage to get it back by picking off [player_tooltip player_id="22519" first="Jake" last="Rubley"] for a second time, this time by Carson Kriegsauser. After getting picked off in a jump ball-type situation by Mason DouBrava, Louis Brooks takes the ensuing punt all the way to the house from 54 yards out. Keep in mind, all of Dowling’s points came within the first quarter and a half.   The Tigers are still going through growing pains on offense. Meanwhile, Valley just struggled offensively all day long. I think the main problem all day for the Tigers offense is keeping Dowling’s front six out of the backfield. Keep in mind that Valley returns 0 starting o-linemen from last season, so their new starters are two seniors, two juniors, and a junior transfer who started at Johnston last season. Dowling beat them experience-wise as most of their starting d-line played heavy minutes last season, and it showed. [player_tooltip player_id="22519" first="Jake" last="Rubley"] looked pretty good as a passer despite the fact he tossed two interceptions, as he went 22/37 on the day, that’s a 59% completion percentage. His future Kansas State teammate [player_tooltip player_id="23814" first="Jayden" last="Williams"], however, didn’t look so good. Out of 24 carries, he only rushed for 54 yards and made just a meager 2.3 yards per carry.   Dowling’s defense tamed the Tigers all throughout the game. Now let’s look at Dowling’s side of the coin. They controlled the Tigers offense on Friday, and it all came down to their stellar D-Line. Chase Patton, Jaylen Pettus, and Russell Pearson (or the “Three-P’s” as I like to dub them) terrorized the trenches. They forced Rubley under pressure all day, they stopped Williams dead in his tracks, and they just caused Valley to make bad mental mistakes, like a botched RPO handoff late in the game recovered by the Maroons. But it wasn’t just the d-line making some key stops all day, guys like Max Derry, Will Hermann, Carson Kriegshauser, and Blake Anderson looked strong all-day too.   Is this a bad omen for the Tigers season going forward? A team like Valley, who had so much hype heading into the season as the heavy favorites to win the state title, only to lose their second game on the year. With that, should students, parents, and alumni be worried about their Tigers? Short answer: no way! This team has 5-future D-1 players, and that alone can take them a long way. Plus they’ve got an excellent coaching staff and a knack for developing good starters at the varsity level that make it to the college level. This is likely just a speed bump in their state title hopes, so this is my advice to any Valley supporters: don’t get worried.   Dowling surprising win shuts some doubters up for now. The Maroons made a rare upset victory on Friday, and what I mean by that is they are almost never in a position where they’re the underdogs. It just goes to show how well Coach Tom Wilson and his staff are at rebuilding. Coming into the season, most of their starters on offense were gone, and defensively they fared a little better with less-than-half of their 2019 starters returning. The starters that came back are even better than last year, while the players coming up from the JV and sophomore teams are getting developed further to match how today’s 2nd-year starters were yesterday. Many people felt this game was going to be a blowout by Valley, it turned out it was the other way around.