An old rival comes to Rhea Stadium tonight, as the Russellville Panthers try to avoid a rare three-game losing streak.
The Fort Campbell Falcons will be at Ken Barrett Field for a game that was originally scheduled as part of a bowl game at Trigg County.
Russellville lost its season opener for the first time in six years last Friday, falling 21-13 at Glasgow. The other setback in this brief “losing streak” came at the end of last year’s marvelous 12-2 campaign in the state Class A semifinals to Beechwood.
RHS was hit hard by graduation last season, especially on offense. The quarterback, featured running backs, many top receivers and four of the five starting interior linemen graduated. The inexperience was compounded dramatically when a junior and a senior lineman who were expected to start became unavailable in the last few days leading up to the Glasgow game. They were replaced with two sophomores.
The Panther offense struggled all night. Junior quarterback Jacob Naylor connected on only 1 of 12 passing attempts, even though that lone completion was a 16-yard touchdown pass to Ed Barber.
“Our game plan included using rollout passes on first down to pick up quick yardage,” Coach John Myers told John Brett Reynolds on WRUS’ Coaches’ Show. “We had a man open on four of those that went incomplete, two on passes that were underthrown and two on dropped balls. If we complete those, it’s a different game.”
On the ground, Russellville totaled just 129 yards with Javeron Robey (54 yards on 7 carries), Jacolbie Mason (33/9), Naylor (24/5) and Damon Hales (17/5) in double figures.
The Scotties, on the other hand, amassed 187 yards rushing and 133 passing, for 320 yards total offense, while the visitors gained less than half that at 145 yards.
The Panthers had several big plays on defense, including the play of Barber, who made 13 tackles—7 of them main Special teams also scored. Robey recovered a botched snap on a Scottie punt and took it in for a touchdown. Hunter McDowell kicked an extra point.
Panther football historian and analyst Greg Owens wrote on his Facebook blog The R Club that the Panthers had many bright spots. He said:
“Everyone should be proud of our Panthers tonight. Going into tonight's game with Glasgow we found ourselves down 21-0 early in the second quarter giving up 2 touchdowns on 4th and long plays. We fought back to only be down 21-7 at the half. Our defense came alive the second half shutting out the Scotties. We recovered a fumble in the end zone to cut it to 21-13 going into the 4th and had the ball inside their 25 late in the 4th but could not move the ball. I have seen more talented Panther teams get behind early only to get down on themselves and make things worse but this group of young inexperienced Panthers continued to fight and actually had a chance to tie the game late against a pretty good football team.”
According to Owens, this will be the 45th meeting between Fort Campbell and Russellville, who own nine state championships between them, in a rivalry that began in 1963. The Falcons hold a 26-19 advantage. They didn’t play each other from 2001-2010. When the series resumed in ’11, the army offspring took the first two meetings, but Myers’ Panthers have won four in a row.
The last time the Panthers had lost a season opener before Glasgow was in 2012. That came 34-27 to Fort Campbell. The last time the program lost its first two games of a season was the year before when they fell 34-12 to Trigg County and 57-28 to the Falcons.
Tonight’s game begins at 7 p.m. on Ken Barrett Field. WRUS will carry it live on the air, on its app, and on internet, beginning with the kickoff show at 6:30 with Alex Watkins and Reynolds on the vocals.