WARDSVILLE, Mo. - If you like the offensive side of football, the Falcon Athletic Complex was the place to be Friday night.
Here's a few reasons why:
• Blair Oaks and Eldon combined for 109 points, with the Falcons eventually walking away with a 62-47 victory.
• The teams combined for monster totals of 137 offensive plays and 1,045 yards of offense.
• One player had the odd statistic line of more points scored than yards gained.
• There were three 100-yard rushers, with the Mustangs having two and the Falcons one.
• Blair Oaks scored touchdowns on nine of 10 possessions at one point, seven of them coming in a 50-point second half.
"It was a great game, the kids for both sides played really hard," Blair Oaks coach Terry Walker said. "Eldon never gave an inch and I couldn't be prouder of how our kids responded."
For the Mustangs, it was a second straight week where they gave up more than 60 points, as they had lost 66-46 to Hogan Prep the previous week.
"We failed to tackle on the perimeter tonight - it's an issue we had last week as well," Eldon coach Shannon Jolley said. "We had a 100-point game last week and it's something that we have to fix."
The offensive stars were plentiful, starting with Blair Oaks.
In the first two weeks of the season, quarterback Jordan Hair had completed just 8-of-15 passes for 207 yards and had 77 rushing yards. He easily surpassed all those totals Friday.
Hair combined for 434 yards of offense, leading the Falcons with 182 yards rushing on 18 carries and was 18-of-31 through the air for 252 yards.
After being under center the first two weeks in an attack that threw the ball 86 percent of the time, Hair operated from a spread offense Friday night.
"We knew Eldon was coming at us and we were going to spread them out based on previous film," Hair said. "I think we fooled them a bit and we just had to execute."
Meanwhile, teammate Cody Alexander had an odd day. He accounted for 36 points and needed just 24 yards from scrimmage to do so.
The running back had six carries for just 4 yards, but had touchdown runs of 1, 4 and 1 yards. And while he caught just three passes for 20 yards, included in that were touchdown receptions of 5 and 13 yards. Just for good measure, he added three 2-point conversion runs.
Alexander didn't mind being the team's short-yardage scoring specialist.
"That's fine with me," he said with a smile.
Eldon, meanwhile, had two rushers get close to the 200-yard plateau. Trenton Kidwell had a game-high 190 yards on 25 carries and Levi Shinn racked up 180 yards on 23 carries.
"We've got some great individuals, but collectively, as a group, we've got to put things together," Jolley said. "You could go and look at the statistics and you can see a lot of great things and a lot of positives, but at the end of the day, if everybody didn't work together to get a victory, then really it's for nothing."
The Mustangs were in front at the end of the first three quarters, holding leads of 7-0, 21-12 and 35-32. But the Falcons got three unanswered touchdowns to start the final quarter and were able to get the win.
"When we got down early, we just had to fight back," Alexander said. "We knew it was going to be a fight the whole game and we just kept with them, punch for punch."
Walker said the biggest gut check for his team came when it was down 21-6 right before halftime. But the Falcons got a touchdown with just 29 seconds left before the break and followed that with another touchdown on the first possession of the second half. Suddenly, it was a new game.
"We were down 21-6, and a lot of lesser teams would have folded up and went home," Walker said. "The kids kept right on fighting."
Aiding the comeback was the fact Blair Oaks played mistake-free football all night. The Falcons had just one fumble in 40 rushing attempts, and recovered it, and didn't throw an interception despite putting the ball in the air 31 times.
Meanwhile, Eldon lost two fumbles and muffed a punt. Two of the turnovers came in the second half, and both turned into Blair Oaks touchdowns.
"We talked about it with the guys, how one turnover in this game could change the game, much less three," Jolley said. "The muffed punt was a big momentum swing, we had them go three-and-out and we had control and had the lead and we just didn't make the play.
"It's disheartening, but like I told the kids, you don't move on in Week 2. I hope we get an opportunity to play Blair Oaks again later on (in the playoffs). If we continue to work hard and stay healthy, I think we could have one of the better teams in our district. Right now, we're losing football games we should win."
Blair Oaks (3-0 overall, 1-0 Tri-County Conference) will travel Friday to Hallsville (3-0, 1-0). Hallsville is coming off an extremely odd 20-17, triple-overtime win against Southern Boone on Friday.
Due to a scheduling mixup, there were no referees for the start of the game. The Indians and Eagles eventually made arrangements for the crew working the Blair Oaks-Eldon game to drive to Ashland after the game finished in Wardsville. The contest didn't start until after 10:45 p.m. and finally wrapped up around 1:30 a.m. Saturday.
Eldon (1-2, 0-1) will host California on Friday.