School of the Osage's second year head coach Devin Johnson loves defense.
After allowing some big plays in the season opener, the defense of the Indians stepped up in the second game. The Indians shut out Moberly on Friday and spent a lot of the night in the backfield with six sacks to go along with five tackles for a loss.
"We much more aggressive than the week before," Johnson said. "And we have some really good athletes on defense so when they're playing aggressively and not thinking then our defense is pretty good. Our defense has the potential to be really something special."
The Indian's defense dominated despite a size disadvantage, which is something Johnson thinks they'll have to do all season. They'll be facing that same disadvantage this week against Warsaw.
"They got a big offensive line," Johnson said. "We say that every week it feels like, we're just not very big."
Offensively, the Indians haven't been able to really get going and, according to Johnson, it's not something that opposing defenses are doing to them.
"We're stopping us," he said. "The negative plays are really killing us."
Osage has worked even more this week on cutting down on penalties, being disciplined and making sure they have productive first downs in order to give them a chance to keep moving the ball on second and third downs. They'll have a tough challenge there as a running team facing off against a team who focuses on stopping the run.
Defensively, their biggest challenge will be slowing down senior running back Austin Steenburgen.
"Well they have a really good running back," said Johnson. "It seems like every week we play against a really good running back, but Austin is a really good running back...he's a very tough runner and a very tough kid."
Warsaw has struggled so far this year. They were thumped by Cole Camp 43-0 last week and lost to Clinton 19-7 in the home opener.
After a stellar defensive performance last week, the Indians will look to have that trend continue.
School of the Osage at Warsaw - Updates on Twitter: @SOTOsports. Listen live online: cool1027.com
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