BENTON COUNTY — Pea Ridge sports a 0-2 football record thus far into the season and just in case some fan or fans are beginning to think the worst, how teams get to 0-2 can be as different as night and day.

For a senior-dominated team with significantly experienced underclassmen, an 0-2 record might be a prelude to lesser and “worser” things. On the other hand, a team dominated by sophomore and inexperienced upperclassmen that go 0-2 to begin the season doesn’t mean much in and of itself.

In both of the ’Hawks’ losses, the opposition took it to the ’Hawks early on, scoring a touchdown in their first possession rather easily. However, in each game as the minutes wore on, the ’Hawks gradually picked up their level of play and they actually outplayed their opponents in the second half. The mistakes that Pea Ridge has made in the past couple of weeks were BIG ones, the kind of things you might expect from young and inexperiencedplayers. But as Arkansas coach Nolan Richardson famously said once in the midst of a team slump, “ All sickness is not death.”

After the first quarter, Pea Ridge actually dominated the Tigers except for two very costly mistakes which led to the winning touchdowns. Pea Ridge actually out gained the Tigers in total yardage 276-172 over the last three quarters with two plays accounting for 126 of the visitors’ yards.

From my vantage point in the press box, and having covered hundreds of high school games as a sportswriter, I can see diamonds in the rough on the field this year at Pea Ridge.

With younger players, you have to ask “Are they learning?”

Last Friday, once the coaches and players figured out how the Tigers weregetting their rushing yards, they adapted, adjusted and stopped them cold. While I can’t say I ever really enjoy watching my favorite teams lose, it can be heartening to see some light at the end of the tunnel. The Blackhawks might be in a dark tunnel but the light is coming.

Football gets crazy in week two

While it is always good to expect the unexpected, the second week of area high school football certainly saw some strange things happen that I could have never expected.

First of all, last week the West Fork Tigers were being touted as potential powers in 3A football after they dropped a class this year. They scheduled a game with lightly regarded Ft. Smith Union Christian, a member of 2A playing in the state’s weakest football conference, the 2A-4. Well, they lost that game and then had to play Farmington this past Friday night, a top 10 ranked 4A perennial football power. The Tigers came out with a different team asthey whipped the Cardinals 22-15.

Over at Gentry, this is coach Brian Little’s fourth year as head coach and while they have made some progress, it was thought that the Pioneers were far still from returning to their days of glory. They took on the state’s top ranked 3A team, Charleston. Charleston very rarely loses any games, especially the non-conference variety. Who would have predicted that Gentry would take them down 27-13? Gravette’s 38-6 pasting of McDonald County proved that some of the predictions would hold, as did Ozark’s 39-0 thumping of Clarksville.

The three other conference teams lost as Prairie Grove was throttled by two-time defending state champion Cassville 42-14, Berryville was stopped by Huntsville 21-7, and Shiloh was run over, shellacked, stomped on and blown out by Euless Trinity 80-26 in a game televised by ESPN.

To think that Euless Trinity, thought by some as perhaps the best team in theUnited States, wouldn’t trample Shiloh was something I have thought was rather incredulous. True enough that Shiloh was ranked number 23 in the nation, but I have always thought a lot of the national high school rankings have to do with how good a job your public relations people do in promoting your team. While I believe that Shiloh has done a great job recruiting some of the best players in this part of the area and state, I was quite certain that Euless Trinity had done better and it was evident on the tube.

Truth be known, while being a very good team (a great team playing with 4A-sized schools), if Shiloh played in the 7A West, they would be hard pressed to finish in the top four. I don’t think they could take either Bentonville or Har-Ber.

I don’t know why Euless Trinity needed to hang 80 points on Shiloh. Maybe they did some research and saw where Shiloh hung 80 on Clarksville last year in the playoffs. They may have even read the interviews with Shiloh players wherethey were describing the kind of victory dance they were going to do in Texas Stadium after they beat Trinity. Even the Shiloh coach thought it was a game they could win.

Shiloh plays Greenwood this Friday, a game they lost last year. Shiloh is expected to win, but they were last year as well. The Shiloh game will be on ESPN again this week. With the seniors that Shiloh is losing and with the Arkansas Activities Association putting a crimp on private schools’ recruiting ability, they will probably be the last time that they will grace the screens of the ESPN studios.

Regarding the debacle in Dallas, I guess the old adage “ what goes around, comes around” never rang more true.

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Editor’s note: John McGee is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The TIMES. He can be contacted through The Times at prtnews@ nwaonline.com.

Sports, Pages 8 on 09/15/2010