FOOTBALL FRIDAY: History of series favors offense

The good news is that Fort Scott Community College's run through three nationally-ranked teams in three weeks is over. After playing teams with a combined record of 11-1, the schedule eases up considerably. Going into this week, the only one of the Greyhounds' remaining opponents with a winning record is Dodge City.

Highland (0-1 Jayhawk Conference, 1-2 overall) has not yet played anyone with a winning record -- Iowa Western is 2-2 --and had to survive a 21-point rally by Ellsworth last week to escape with its first win, 55-52. Ellsworth scored with 1:48 remaining in the game.

The Scotties will visit Frary Field Saturday night for a Jayhawk Conference battle under the lights.

Kahlil Render threw for a school record 6 touchdowns and scored 2 more on the ground. He completed 19 of 30 passes for 403 yards and ran for 86 more in his first start of the season. Render is a true freshman from Homestead, Fla. Chandler Shantz, a redshirt sophomore from Derby, had started the first two games for the Scotties.

Highland doesn't have a terrible offense, averaging in the middle of the conference in most areas. The Scotties score 29.7 points per game (fifth) and gain 386.3 yards per game in total offense (fifth) and 246.3 YPG in the air (fourth).

The Scotties have won the last two meetings against Fort Scott, including a 52-13 rout at Highland last season. In the history of this series, however, the Scotties have never beaten the Greyhounds three times in a row.

Despite the statistics indicating that Fort Scott has both the worst offense (171.8 YPG) and defense (432.3 YPG) in the Jayhawk Conference, the 'Hound defense has been somewhat effective against the pass, allowing 173.8 YPG, which is third-best in the conference. Highland's stats indicate that it's a running-back-by-committee type of offense. As long as the defense doesn't let the quarterback get by, as Butler's Justice Hansen did last week, they have a good shot at containing the Scotties.

Offensively, the Greyhounds have what head coach Curtis Horton believes are two of the best quarterbacks in the conference. The number so far, though, seem to be in favor of true freshman Mike Glass, whose 236 yards against Butler last week in 2 1/2 quarters were the most by a Fort Scott quarterback since Greg Cross had the exact same in a 2007 playoff game against Butler.

Also, sophomore tailback Devin Taylor scored three times and gained 95 yards last week, the most he's had since the season-opening win over Iowa Central. He'll have to work hard against the Scotties' defense, which is third-best in the conference against the run, allowing just 97 YPG.

The tradition of this series favors offense. This will be the 50th meeting between these schools. In this history of this series, a team has been shut out 12 times -- Fort Scott posted three consecutive shutouts of Highland from 2006-08.

But in 49 pervious meetings, the winning team has scored 35 or more points in 23 of them. And there's been 12 of those occasions where the winning team scored 50 or more. Many times, it's been a necessity to score that high as there have been final scores of 48-31, 35-29, 56-44 and 63-62 (1989, which ended up as a Highland forfeit later on).

Saturday's game kicks off at 7 p.m. This will be the last night game of the season. All October home games will begin at 1 p.m.