KINGDOM CITY, Mo. - The state-ranked North Callaway Thunderbirds can't settle for a stale effort, even during a commanding victory, at this stage of the season.
That was the pointed message the Thunderbirds received from head coach Kevin O'Neal, who noted his squad was "going through the motions a little bit" in marching to a 47-0 Eastern Missouri Conference victory at Van-Far last week.
With the start of district play just two weeks away, North Callaway heads to Bowling Green tonight for a matchup against another struggling conference team in the Bobcats. Kickoff is at 7 p.m.
The Thunderbirds - who inched forward another spot to No. 7 in this week's Class 2 Missouri Media Rankings - collected their sixth consecutive win last week. North Callaway is now 6-1 overall and stayed perfect in the EMO at 5-0.
Bowling Green, meanwhile, suffered a 47-12 conference loss at state-ranked South Callaway last Friday. The Bobcats dropped their second straight game, falling to 3-4 on the season and 3-2 in the EMO.
Regardless of their opponents' profiles, O'Neal stressed the Thunderbirds have to stay sharp."When you play a team that's not quite up to caliber or whatever, you can get away with halfway doing your job or not quite doing it the way you're supposed to, and still make a play," O'Neal said. "That's something I'm not looking for at this point of the year.
"I want to make sure we're executing and doing our job - every single play. Each rung of the ladder that we're going to climb, the competition is going to get stiffer and stiffer, and we can't just wait to turn it on whenever we face that good team. We've got to make sure we've got it on from the get-go."
North Callaway will face a Bowling Green defense that has been severely dented during the past two weeks. The Bobcats surrendered 465 yards of total offense against South Callaway and have allowed 102 points combined in their back-to-back losses.
The Thunderbirds produced 355 yards of total offense - including 236 yards rushing - against Van-Far. Senior running back Adam Reno missed his third straight 200-yard rushing performance, ending up with 171 yards and three touchdowns.
Sophomore quarterback Tully Thomsen also passed for 119 yards and two scores for North Callaway.
O'Neal expects his offensive unit to see a steady stream of blitzes from the Bowling Green defense.
"That's kind of been our Achilles' heel a little bit, offensive-line wise, is the blitz from the 3-3 stack," O'Neal said. "We haven't picked it up real well it can be a little confusing, so we have to have our eyes up and make sure we communicate on the offensive line."
The Bobcats trailed 27-0 at halftime last week, but generated 14-play, 77-yard and 13-play, 74-yard scoring drives in the second half against South Callaway. Junior running back Kaleo Dade had a 2-yard touchdown run in the third quarter and sophomore quarterback Austin Callahan scrambled 21 yards for a score in the fourth quarter.
Dade finished with 65 yards on 19 carries and Callahan completed 16-of-26 passes for 101 yards and an interception.
"(Dade) is a big, strong kid, pretty thick," O'Neal said. "I didn't see him as being real fast, but a physical runner, tough to bring down. We talked about that, making sure we're rallying to the football, that we get all 11 guys there.
" It just seems like the offense runs better whenever he's (Callahan) there. He can run the ball, he throws a decent ball as well."
North Callaway's defense tallied its third shutout of the season last week, limiting Van-Far to 97 total yards. O'Neal stressed the Thunderbirds can plan on seeing the ball more in the air tonight from Bowling Green's spread attack.
"We're going to have to get back to coverage things," O'Neal said. "(Last week) we didn't have to cover a whole lot of routes, but Bowling Green does some different things, route-wise, that we're going to have to make sure we're ready for all the different route combinations, and we're back into playing good defense on the back end, as well as up front."
Related media:
North Callaway Thunderbirds Football Podcast [Bowling Green preview, Oct. 6, 2017]