SAQ: McAlester-El Reno
Your Saturday Afternoon Quarterback look at El Reno’s 21-14 win over McAlester.
First, a few thoughts that didn’t make it into the game story in Saturday’s paper:
Remember the name Tony Kiefer. The McAlester quarterback is just a sophomore, and he’ll only get better. That’s saying a lot, because he was pretty good Friday night, particularly in the toughness category. He had to carry the ball 38 times. In the first half, only one play wasn’t a run or pass by Kiefer.
He threw the screen and mid-range routes well, but struggled with some of his deep throws. Of course, that only means he’s like 90 percent of the high school QBs in the state. Kiefer’s biggest problem when he went deep was that he got too much air under his throws, turning a lot of them into jump-balls. That’s fixable. Kiefer and McAlester will be good the next two years.
McAlester breakdown: The Buffs just couldn’t get it done inside the El Reno 30. In addition to the three stops El Reno made inside the 10, McAlester had a turnover on downs at the 28 and a missed field goal after reaching the 12, as well as another turnover on downs at the ER 39.
Those struggles were damaging for another reason beyond the obvious. Most of them came at the end of long, grinding, time-consuming drives, so it gave the Buffs less time and less energy for their rally. The El Reno offense couldn’t do much of anything in the third quarter. It had only one first down, so McAlester spent a lot of time on offense in the third.
McAlester had 121 more yards and 16 more first downs than El Reno, but the Indians made game-changing plays, and the Buffs didn’t.
El Reno breakdown: The numbers in the paragraph above might suggest that the El Reno offense wasn’t all that sharp, but that’s not the case at all. McAlester had the ball so much, that El Reno ran only 40 offensive plays, compared to 77 for McAlester.
The El Reno defense got hit by the big play early. McAlester’s first three offensive snaps went for 12, 23 and 28 yards. But of the next 74 plays, only nine went for double-digit gains. And all three interceptions were big, but especially the two picks that came inside the 5-yard line.
And the Indians have a pretty good kicker, too. Joseph Vorva, a sophomore backup quarterback, had plenty of leg on a 40-yard field goal try that was just a little wide in the fourth quarter.
Up next: Next year, this will be a district game, but for now, it’s a 5A semifinal. El Reno vs. Carl Albert will be played Friday night at 7:30 at Putnam City Stadium after CA knocked off Tulsa Kelley in overtime Friday night. The winner gets the Bixby-Guthrie winner for the 5A title.
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