Football

PORTAGEVILLE, Mo. — After serving as an assistant coach for the past six years at East Prairie, Ian Penrod is taking over the reins for Portageville next season. Penrod will be the third coach in the last three seasons for the Bulldogs, and it will also be his first head coaching opportunity...

Good Sports is a column featured weekly in the Southeast Missourian and on semoball.com. It is primarily designed to showcase people who have impacted the sporting life of Southeast Missouri, so that readers may get to know them more fully. Responses have been edited for clarity and brevity...

In the end, Connor Tollison just didn’t want to leave Missouri. Jackson High School’s 6-foot-5, 295-pound offensive lineman was made scholarship offers by 20 universities. “It came down to Oklahoma or Mizzou,” said Tollison, 17. Tollison, who protects JHS quarterback Cael Welker’s blind side, picked Missouri, impressed with its new coaching staff – from the head man on down...

Jackson offensive lineman Connor Tollison is now a recruiting target of arguably the most prestigious college football program in the United States – the University of Alabama.

Cole Laws is looking forward to focusing on playing linebacker in college next fall. The Poplar Bluff senior, who recently signed his National Letter of Intent to play at Southwest Baptist University, also played right guard for the Mules. "I'm done with that," Laws joked...

Cape Central’s Cameron Cox is headed to Division II Southwest Baptist University. “It may be surprising to people that (Cox) will not play offense (in college),” said first-year Central coach Kent Gibbs. Maybe shocking is a better word. The 17-year old finished his Tigers football career as the Central record holder in touchdown passes...

The head coaches of rival high school football programs Jackson and Cape Central do not see eye-to-eye on the new kickoff protocol in the upstart XFL. “Personally, I like it,” Cape Central coach Kent Gibbs said. “I’d be willing to sit down and talk about anything that improves player safety.”...

There is no shortage of national collegiate football powers vying for the services of Jackson High School junior offensive lineman Connor Tollison.

It was a not a difficult choice for the sportswriters of this newspaper to choose Jackson’s Cael Welker as the 2019 Southeast Missourian Football Player of the Year. When informed that his two-time first team all-state quarterback had won the honor, Welker’s coach had a succinct reaction...

The selection of the 2019 All-Southeast Missourian Football Team was not an easy process. The six football-playing schools (Perryville, St. Vincent, Jackson, Cape Central, Scott City, and Chaffee) in the coverage area of the Southeast Missourian was filled with talented athletes and successful teams.

Charleston's James Durden signs his National Letter of Intent to continue his football and academic career at Itasca Community College, in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, on Friday, Feb. 7.

There is rarely a shortage of excellent athletic performances throughout Southeast Missouri by high school athletes each year and the fall season in 2019 was no exception.

Scott City senior running back Jimmy May signed to play football at NCAA Division II Southwest Baptist State Wednesday.

There were several aspects in a college football program that Cape Central senior Dony’e Taylor was looking for as he made his decision on where to play over the next five years.

Good Sports is a weekly feature appearing in the Southeast Missourian and online at Semoball.com. It profiles the life of a person connected to sports and allows readers the opportunity to know the people who are impacting athletics throughout Southeast Missouri in a deeper way. Responses have been edited for brevity and clarity...

The man responsible for overseeing football for the Missouri State High School Activities Association has no doubt – the game is OK for young people to play. “I truly believe that high school football is safer than ever before,” said Greg Stahl, MSHSAA assistant executive director...

Jackson's Seth Waters, member of the 2019 Class 4 state champion Indians golf team, signed Thursday to play the sport at Mineral Area College in Park Hills, Mo. The senior will have one more season to wear the red and black before moving to the next level...

Jackson’s Cole Amelunke is a standout in two sports and he’ll let a scholarship decide which one he plays in college. Amelunke, the Indians’ only four-year football letterman and a cornerstone of Jackson’s Class 5 runnerup squad, was among the 15 seniors honored at Tuesday’s annual gridiron banquet at the Knights of Columbus hall...

Good Sports is a weekly feature appearing in the Southeast Missourian and online at Semoball.com. It profiles the life of a person connected to sports and allows readers the opportunity to know the people who are impacting athletics throughout Southeast Missouri in a deeper way. Responses have been edited for brevity and clarity...

SIKESTON — For the first time since 2012, a Sikeston football player recorded over 100 tackles in a season. Senior Seth Copeland did just that, and more, as he finished his final year on the gridiron with a bang. He recorded 129 tackles, suiting up for every game with the Bulldogs to earn him the 2019 Standard Democrat Defensive Player of the Year...

NEW MADRID, Mo. — Entering this past football season at 235 pounds, New Madrid County Central junior running back Quazavion Jackson proved to be a tough matchup for any opposing defense. After a stellar sophomore season, where he ran for 1,065 yards on 167 carries, and eight touchdowns, Jackson upped that total by leaps-and-bounds his junior year...

Poplar Bluff senior Dylan Wells was named to the Missouri Football Coaches Association’s Class 5 All-State team as a third-team defensive lineman Friday. The nose guard recorded 73 tackles, including 16 for a loss and 1 1/2 sacks while forcing a fumble and recovering another for the 4-6 Mules...

MFCA ALL-STATE The Missouri Football Coaches Association announced its all-state teams. Players from the SEMO Conference included (with school, year, height and weight): CLASS 5 First team QB — Cael Welker, Jackson, jr., 5-11, 180 OL — Connor Tollison, Jackson, jr., 6-5, 285...

Jackson High School football coach Brent Eckley won't hesitate to tell you that he loves watching college football. He's been a little busy lately, though, what with trying to win a Missouri State High School Activities Association Class 5 state title...

The Jackson football team stretched its season to the furthest point possible by competing in Saturday’s MSHSAA Class 5 state championship game, and it took just as long to resolve an on-going investigation into what occurred with the Indian program in a September game against Battle.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The MSHSAA Class 5 football state championship game between Jackson and Carthage was every bit as dramatic as the 27-21 overtime score would indicate.

A visit to the office of Joel Wyatt, the head coach of the Kennett Indians, reveals an assortment of memorabilia on the walls. Pictures of smiling players holding trophies surround him as he works. Wyatt, who recently led Kennett to a state semifinal appearance and a 13-1 record in 2019, is no stranger to winning. Through his 10-year career as a head football coach, he has accumulated a 100-22 record...

COLUMBIA, Mo. — It’s easy to focus on the 344 yards of total offense Carthage gained against the Jackson defense in Saturday’s MSHSAA Class 5 football state championship game at Faurot Field at the University of Missouri. However, that number needs to be put into context.

COLUMBIA, Mo. - It all ended very quickly for Jackson at Faurot Field. Carthage quarterback Patrick Carlton scampered in from two yards out in overtime to give the Tigers its first-ever state football championship Saturday, 27-21. Suddenly the undefeated Indians knew what it felt like to lose...

COLUMBIA, MO. – After spending the first 52-plus years of my life in Indiana, I have become a little rigid in my defense of the ways of being a Hoosier. However, one of the things that high school athletics taught every Indiana native age 40 and up is very applicable to the members of the Jackson football program in 2019.

The Missouri State High School Athletic Association (MSHSAA) will televise the Jackson-Carthage game today at 7 pm. The game will be available to watch, according to the organization, for a $15 fee on MSHSAA TV, which can be found by using any Internet search engine...

Jackson is abuzz with talk of the hometown Indians.

For 10 seasons now, Chris Collier has been offering an on-the-field invocation for the Jackson Indians football team.

This is as far as you can go when it comes to high school football.

On Nov. 25, 1994, a historic season came to a frustrating end for the Jackson football team.

A year older and wiser, the Jackson Indians seemed to use a strategy employed on them a year earlier when they returned to the Class 4A final.

No current Jackson Indian was alive the last time the Tribe played in a state final championship game. The Indians played in the Class 4A final in 1995 in Springfield and narrowly fell to champion Camdenton, 20-19. The year prior, Jackson was defeated in the 1994 final by Excelsior Springs, 12-6, at Faurot Field in Columbia...

Brandon Norman, 49, assistant varsity football coach, Jackson Indians. Brandon, Jackson High School class of ’88, was all-district and all-state on the gridiron, playing linebacker and center. Additionally, he won the state wrestling title at 189 pounds. His son, Bryce, is a starting junior linebacker for the Indians. Bryce’s interception late in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s semifinal against Staley sealed the win for the Tribe.

POPLAR BLUFF – When Brent Eckley’s playing days ended in 1993 at William Penn University in Iowa he knew that he held a long passion for the sport of football and for competition in general. Fast-forward through his life and he has discovered those are only secondary benefits to having chosen a career in education.

A pair of area basketball players earned the top spots in this week's Semoball.com Athlete of the Week poll voting.

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- Veteran Scott City football coach Jim May and Rams senior running back Jimmy May each admit to the past four years not always being easy to endure. However, on nights like Wednesday, revisionist history makes the time the father and son spent together seem as easy as a gaining a yard against a three-man front...

Jason Moore is clear about his role as head athletic trainer for the Jackson R-2 school district. "It's not my job to win the game," Moore said, "but to make sure (the players) are healthy and safe." Moore, 35, will be at Faurot Field on Saturday, and if an Indians player gets his bell rung, twists an ankle or sustains an injury as minor as a nosebleed, he'll be right there...

POPLAR BLUFF — Jimmy May scored more points than any player in SEMO Conference history and the Scott City senior was presented with the Carr Trophy as the conference's most outstanding player Wednesday night at the 74th Poplar Bluff Gridiron Banquet...

There is a scene in the movie “Men in Black 3” in which Agent K is trumpeting the benefits of a certain dessert to co-worker Agent J, played by actor Will Smith.

As a football season lags on – particularly a highly-successful one that wanders deep into the postseason – the athletes generally begin to feel the wear on their bodies. However, for the Jackson football program, proper management has helped the Indians fare well into their 17th week of football.

The Indians’ first five plays from scrimmage were all on the ground. Cael Welker didn’t attempt a pass until Jackson’s second series, a five-yard strike to Seth Waters. In fact, of the Indians’ 40 first-half snaps, only nine were passes, an average of less than 25%. — from a team that prefers to see a 50-50 run/pass ratio. Welker was three-for-nine in the opening 24 minutes for a paltry 21 yards...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Jackson football coach Brent Eckley, in a quiet tone on a windy day in north Kansas City, put it succinctly.

KENNETT, Mo. - The most successful postseason run in school history ended a victory shy of a trip to the Class 3 state championship for the Kennett Indians football program Saturday.

The Kennett Indians football squad entered the 2019 season hoping for repeat success with new leaders upfront. Kennett graduated three all-conference offensive linemen - Trevon Lemons, Zach Lewis, and Mark Wagster - off of a 2018 squad that advanced the state quarterfinals for the first time in more than three decades...

Jackson (12-0) will travel to No. 6-ranked Staley (10-2) today at 1 p.m. for the MSHSAA Class 5 state football semifinal. The No. 2-ranked Indians face their first postseason test away from "The Pit" in Jackson. Here is "What 2 Watch 4" in today's battle.