WARDSVILLE, Mo. - The Blair Oaks Falcons were pretty harsh in their critique of Friday's season opener, a 34-0 win against the Kirksville Tigers.
Yes, for a game in which the Falcons were a 2-point conversion shy of triggering a running clock, the consensus across the board was the offense could have been better.
"We've just got to get more efficient offensively," Falcons coach Terry Walker said. "You can't afford to have negative plays and put yourself in situations where you're constantly chasing the chains."
Blair Oaks scored on its first offensive possession of the game with a 52-yard run by Jake Van Ronzelen, then followed that with a 62-yard punt return by Cody Alexander for a touchdown.
Less than five minutes into the game, Blair Oaks had a 14-0 lead. It was looking like the Falcons were going to have a stronger resemblance to the 2015 squad than expected.
Well, with one exception.
"We wanted to start fast," Walker said. "Last year, we were notorious for starting slow. I thought we certainly improved in that area."
The strong start did not sustain itself. The Falcons' offense sputtered the rest of the first half, throwing a pair of interceptions.
The defense, on the other hand, was firing on all cylinders from start to finish.
The Falcons forced seven Kirksville turnovers - five fumble recoveries and two interceptions - and held the Tigers to just 115 yards of offense.
"Our defense did what we expected," defensive end Justin Cobb said. "We executed, we got turnovers."
Cobb, who made his first varsity start, recovered fumbles on back-to-back Kirksville possessions in the first quarter.
"I had a butterfly farm going in the stomach," he said. "Once you get out there and start hitting people, it goes away."
After failing to score on six straight offensive series to end the first half, Blair Oaks changed its offensive formation in the third quarter. With sophomore Nolan Hair making his first start at quarterback, the Falcons switched to the wishbone offense and placed Van Ronzelen, Alexander and Brenden Brown in the backfield.
The adjustment worked. The Falcons scored on three consecutive possessions, starting with a 2-yard run by Hair with 2:54 to play in the third quarter to make the score 20-0.
"I think we got more push on the wishbone," Hair said. "It made us get to the line quicker and it just gave us more yards than the spread."
Hair, who finished 10-of-20 passing for 76 yards, completed his last four attempts. He found Van Ronzelen for an 8-yard strike in the final minute of the third quarter and then finished a nine-play drive in the fourth quarter with a 3-yard pass to Braydan Pritchett, who stretched his arm to get the ball across the goal line for the touchdown.
"Whenever we were all going, it was really good," said Van Ronzelen, who had 166 yards rushing and 42 yards receiving. "It took us awhile to get that going. The third and fourth quarter, we finally started to pick it up a little bit."
The Falcons' defense nearly lost the shutout in the fourth quarter, but a holding penalty negated a touchdown run by the Tigers. That would prove to be a costly mistake. On the next play, the Tigers fumbled and Paul Karsten recovered the loose ball.
Alexander and Ben Thomas had one interception apiece defensively for the Falcons and Brown and Kaleb Cox each had a fumble recovery.
"We played very well defensively. That's one thing that I told the kids," Walker said.
Blair Oaks (1-0), ranked No. 3 in Class 3 in the media preseason poll, will play Friday at Oak Grove with a 7 p.m. kickoff. Oak Grove was ranked No. 5 in Class 3, but the Panthers lost their opener 14-0 on Friday at Richmond.
Earlier coverage of Friday's game:
Blair Oaks forces seven turnovers in opening win
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