WARDSVILLE, Mo. - Nolan Hair has come close to putting his name next to a few Blair Oaks football records in the past two seasons. He finally etched his name in the record books Friday night.
Hair broke the school's single-game record with eight touchdown passes, leading the Falcons to a 60-14 Class 3 District 6 championship win against the Mexico Bulldogs at the Falcon Athletic Complex.
"What you're seeing out of Nolan is a kid who missed a lot of the season, and very rarely do you get an opportunity to sit and watch and then get an opportunity to come in and play to the level he's played at," Blair Oaks coach Terry Walker said. "It speaks to his character, and he's just a competitor."
Hair missed five games during the regular season, but he has been flawless since his return in the regular-season finale at Warsaw.
In four games since his return - none of which Hair has played from start to finish, due to lopsided outcomes - the junior quarterback has completed 75 percent of his passing attempts (84-of-112) for 1,259 yards with 21 touchdowns and no interceptions.
Needless to say, Hair is back, and he's better than ever as he leads Blair Oaks into the Class 3 state playoffs.
"Watching everything on the sidelines, it actually made me better, watching the defenses and how they covered everything," Hair said of his time away from the field.
"I missed my team. It drove me to go harder and do more for my team."
Friday's 31-of-39 passing performance for 406 yards was a combination of Hair's precision and his receivers' athleticism.
Blair Oaks' second touchdown of the game was a 24-yard pass to Ben Thomas, who made a spin move around a defender on the sideline near the 10-yard line and raced his way into the end zone. Braydan Pritchett also broke multiple tackles on his third touchdown grab of the night, which went for 15 yards.
Hair threaded the needle to place a 24-yard touchdown pass through multiple defenders to get to Marcus Elder just before halftime. There were also moments where his offensive line provided an extra second or two to survey the field, like when he found a wide-open Thomas in the end zone for an 8-yard pass in the second quarter.
Through 12 games, Blair Oaks has shown opponents will need a strong secondary to even have a chance to contain them. Four different players have at least 500 yards receiving: Pritchett (922), Thomas (742), Ethan Luebbering (556) and Edler (539).
"My receivers are the best," Hair said. "It's hard to stop them."
Thomas leads the team with 15 touchdown receptions, three shy of tying the program's single-season record.
"Coach (Kirk) Obermiller and coach (Josh) Linnenbrink do a great job with the receivers," Walker said. "Everyone else is done after we do our three-hour practice, but then the receivers are down there catching on the JUGS machine. They do that every night after practice.
"It doesn't matter how long we're on the field, they get in extra work, and it shows in their performance."
Hair was able to break the school record of seven passing touchdowns - previously set by Anthony Clutts in 2010 and matched by Jordan Hair in 2015 - with a 27-yard lob pass to Edler with :01.2 left in the third quarter.
It seemed as if Hair was on his way to a ninth passing touchdown midway through the fourth quarter, but after nearly taking a big hit from a Mexico defender, Walker pulled his starting quarterback from the game.
"You have to play smart in that situation," Walker said.
Blair Oaks' hurry-up offense gave Hair plenty of passing opportunities, something Walker designed from the start.
"We knew they had some kids up front who could really move, we knew they had some kids that were really physical," Walker said. "Part of the reason we went so fast was we were trying to slow them down and try to make them run multiple plays in a row."
The Falcons also benefited offensively from a couple of early Mexico mistakes.
Facing the possibility of punting on the game's opening possession, Blair Oaks used a hard count on fourth-and-3 from its own 31-yard line to draw the Bulldogs offsides and move the chains, leading to a touchdown.
On their next possession, the Falcons went with a fake punt from their own 35. Hair completed a pass to Thomas that went for 41 yards and led to another touchdown.
"We knew all week, based upon the kids they had on the defensive line, that they were very, very good and they were very, very aggressive," Walker said. "We knew we had to try and do something to slow them down. The snap count was part of that.
"The fake punt, you just have to roll the bones every now and then. Nolan did, and it worked."
Blair Oaks (12-0), ranked No. 2 in Class 3 in the final regular-season Missouri Media Rankings, will get a rematch against the top-ranked McCluer South-Berkeley Bulldogs in the state quarterfinals. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. in Ferguson.
McCluer South-Berkeley (10-0) wrapped up the District 5 title Saturday with a 24-6 win against St. Charles West.
Last season, McCluer South-Berkeley ended Blair Oaks' season with a 34-10 quarterfinal win at Wardsville.
"First, we're just happy to advance," Walker said. "Secondly, we knew all along that at some point in time, if we continue to do well, we might stand a chance of playing Berkeley again.
"We have several kids on this team that played in that game last year, and for the entire year, they've been looking for an opportunity to play them again. Maybe we'll have it, maybe we won't. At this point in time, you just want to try and advance and move on."