Ogallala is playing against McCook in varsity football for the first time since 2009
Screenshots courtesy of MaxPreps.com.
By: Evan Troxel
The Ogallala Indians (3-2) at the McCook Bison (5-0) is one of the top games of the week in varsity high school American Football this week in Nebraska.
In fact, it is even the KNOP-TV game of the week. KNOP-TV is a television station based out of North Platte, Nebraska, for those of you who don't know.
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The Ogallala Indians last played the McCook Bison in a varsity high school football game on a Saturday in the first round of the playoffs in 2009.
At least that’s what MaxPreps.com says. (If someone from McCook or Ogallala wants to correct MaxPreps.com and I that there has been a varsity high school football game since this game between the two schools, they should.)
The field was muddy and if we are being 100% honest, the two teams probably should not have played on that Saturday afternoon or even the next day for that matter. Or maybe even the next day after that, which would have been a Monday.
The football field in Ogallala was muddy because the day before there was a giant snowstorm which actually canceled school in Ogallala and the playoff game was supposed to happen on that Friday night.
Obviously, everyone knows what happened and why it was cancelled.
It was just too cold. And there was a lot of snow.
So there were a handful of people from the Ogallala/Keith County area who have close ties to Ogallala High School and Ogallala Public Schools who were basically forced to move the snow off of the football field to supposedly make the conditions “better” and “playable” for a 2 p.m. kickoff on Saturday.
Removing the snow left the Ogallala High School football field muddy.
Were the playing conditions better by removing the snow, versus just leaving the snow there on that football field to melt? No! A more objective answer would be…probably not.
I guess if people really want the truth about that, they should ask a high school football player for McCook or Ogallala during that game.
That Saturday afternoon actually was on Halloween Day, it was sunny and I believe there were mostly blue skies and it was actually a somewhat warm fall day.
However, this has to be one of the biggest mistakes (if not the worst mistake) of all time that the Nebraska Schools Activities Association (NSAA) has ever made.
The NSAA forced Ogallala to play a game with less than somewhat ideal playing field conditions against a team that they had defeated the previous week in McCook.
On their home field!
But this wasn’t just an ordinary opponent. This was the McCook Bison, a team who basically dominated varsity high school football in central and western Nebraska.
At this point, McCook was an established dynasty, only losing against the very best teams in the state.
For factual context, Ogallala went 32-26 at the varsity football level from the start of the 2004 season through the 2009 season (before the two games against McCook in 2009). McCook went 64-9 during that same time period.
From the start of the 2006 season through the 2009 season (before the two games against McCook in 2009), Ogallala went 24-14 (.632). McCook went 40-5 (.889) during that same time period.
So you get the point. I think you can figure out how many games above .500 Ogallala and McCook were during those time periods.
So any type of blatantly obvious advantage given to McCook (or non-advantage to McCook’s opponent, in this case Ogallala) really is not and was not fair to whoever McCook’s next opponent was that week of the season.
And a muddy field would certainly be an advantage for McCook, even if they were the visiting team, with a two-hour bus ride from McCook.
The only advantage that Ogallala had against McCook in 2009 was McCook just did not have as good of a season in previous years as they did in 2009.
McCook went 6-2 before hosting Ogallala on Friday, October 23rd, 2009.
In the previous five seasons, McCook went 11-1 or 12-1 before losing to whoever they lost to in the playoffs.
So McCook hosted Ogallala for the regular season finale in 2009.
Ogallala senior quarterback Trent Neill threw a touchdown pass to junior wide receiver Gatlin Moul in the second quarter of that game. (I am pretty sure Gatlin’s last name is pronounced…I don’t even want to write it out it is so difficult, it is like the first name of Mao Zedong and owl combined together into one word. It is basically saying Mao and then adding the “wl” as in the word owl on the end of Mao. It is not pronounced “maul”. I just felt compelled or obligated to clear that up.)
Anyway, McCook responded with a touchdown in the fourth quarter.
So the game was tied at seven and went to overtime.
In high school overtime rules, I guess McCook got the football first and failed to score.
So Ogallala got the football.
Ogallala running back Derek Blessing scored a game-winning touchdown on what I am pretty sure it was a one-yard touchdown run on second or third down. (Maxpreps.com says it was an 11-yard touchdown run. I am pretty sure that is a typo by whoever entered that information in. I did not attend that game in person, I did not see that game with my own eyes, so I cannot say for sure how long of a touchdown run that was. I did listen to at least some of the game on the radio though. And I did listen to the radio when Derek Blessing scored the game winning touchdown.)
So Ogallala won 13-7! It was basically like Ogallala winning the Super Bowl…in the regular season!
That’s how big of a game it was! And that wasn’t even the biggest game between Ogallala and McCook.
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The previous season, in 2008, McCook and Ogallala were both undefeated through the first eight games of the year! In varsity high school American Football.
So obviously it was a big deal. If you think the average game of the week in Nebraska for high school football is a big deal, you haven’t seen anything yet!
This was such a big deal that the people who decide things at Ogallala High School brought in an extra set of bleachers…just for this game!
I think they put an extra set of bleachers on Ogallala’s home side (and that could hold probably another 200 to 300 people, if it was filled to capacity). And I am pretty sure they put some more bleachers on the away team’s side as well (to hold another 200 to 300 people, maybe more)! I honestly cannot remember, it has been too long since then and hardly anyone (or no one to my knowledge) has written about it.
The seating capacity on both the Ogallala and the away team’s side now are probably the total seating capacity of what it looked like then. Except the seating didn’t look as good-looking and professional (and it wasn’t as friendly to people who are handicapped or require wheelchairs) as it does today.
So McCook had to travel to Ogallala on Friday, October 24th, 2008.
So what happened that day? No one in the weightlifting class I was in had to lift that day. No one was required to do any lifting at all! (I was a student of Ogallala High School at the time).
No one. And I mean no one. Not the varsity football players in that class, and not the people who were not varsity football players.
My weights class teacher was Mr. Chuck Humphrey. Weights class was in the morning. I think it was the second or third class of the day. So it was second period or third period. Sometime between something like 9:00 a.m. Mountain Time and like 10:30 a.m. Mountain Time. Mr. Humphrey is a bald white guy who was one of the coaches on the Ogallala varsity high school football team at that time. (The last time I read about Mr. Humphrey he was in Eastern Nebraska somewhere).
I don’t know how that decision was made for the people in Mr. Humphrey’s class to not lift weights, but because Ogallala was playing McCook, the Ogallala varsity football players definitely could not do any serious weight lifting on the day of the most important football game of the regular season (and probably still to this day the most important regular season game ever played by an Ogallala varsity football team).
And it was an Ogallala home game too!
Because the Ogallala varsity football players were going to do a lot of weight lifting during the varsity football game anyway. That was especially true if you were an offensive or defensive linemen. And even the other football players on Ogallala had to deal with the extremely great pain of getting tackled by McCook’s extremely strong football players and then weight lifting themselves just to get back up after every single play!
Conner Max was one of those students in Mr. Humphrey’s weight lifting class. He was a big and chubby guy then and he was on the Ogallala High School varsity football team.
Conner is still a big and chubby guy who is now one of the assistant coaches for Ogallala’s varsity football team. Over the last few years it seems like (if not longer) he has often sported a fully grown beard that sometimes objectively is on the borderline of sometimes looking like Osama Bin Laden. In which case, the beard starts to go way down below a person’s chin.
The truth is that some people still lifted some weights in Mr. Humphrey’s weight class that day. But they weren’t varsity football players. And nobody lifted very much (or for very long) at all! Everyone who actually lifted only did two or three different types of weight lifting exercises, just to kill some time, and that was pretty much it!
So what happened in the football game? Ogallala did not even score. Ogallala lost to McCook 21-0.
That loss has to be embarrassing for the OHS class of 2009, which Conner Max was a part of, (other than for the fact that they “only allowed” McCook to score 21 points, which was a good thing!) It was a lot better than losing by 40 or 50+ points (or worse)!
That was the last time Conner Max faced off against McCook in a varsity football game. He will get another chance on Friday (today) as one of Ogallala assistant coaches.
I could say more about the OHS class of 2009, but I am just going to stop right there.
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So let’s go back to the 2009 season. Ogallala defeated McCook in 2009 in the regular season finale. And who was Ogallala going to play in the first round of the playoffs?
I was thinking at that time, well maybe Ogallala was going to play a team from Eastern Nebraska or a team they haven’t played yet this season. Nope. Wrong.
Ogallala was playing the Bison from McCook.
You got to be kidding me. Ogallala has to play them again? Again! They just played them last week! Yes.
The Nebraska School Activities Association (the NSAA) will probably tell you that their rankings are objective and not rigged, fixed or manipulated.
I’m not sure I believe that (even if I want to believe that)!
And this was before knowing that the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team had to play in the Holiday Bowl in back-to-back seasons in 2009 & 2010 and then the same thing happened in 2011 and 2012, except this time it was the Capital One Bowl.
The NSAA probably had a financial interest in seeing McCook win against Ogallala. Because they knew McCook fans will travel well and come to more games if McCook goes deeper in the playoffs.
And ultimately, they got what they wanted. Even though McCook lost in the second round of the playoffs the very next week.
If the NSAA wanted to do the right thing, they should not have forced Ogallala to play against McCook in the first round of the playoffs! Or perhaps even the second round of the playoffs!
Teams should not have to face the same teams they played in the regular season in the early rounds of the playoffs!
And I think if Ogallala could have lost in that regular season finale at McCook in 2009, to absolutely guarantee going deeper in the high school football playoffs, to not have to play a tough opponent such as McCook in the first round (or even the second round) of the playoffs and to instead face a weaker opponent in the early rounds of the playoffs, I think they would have.
I’m not saying that’s what they should have done though!
McCook won at Ogallala 13-2 on that Halloween Saturday afternoon in 2009 on that muddy football field.
So who scored the two points for Ogallala?
Keegan Hoppens. It was on a safety of all possible scoring plays. Ogallala punted and pinned McCook inside the five-yard line. And Keegan got a tackle in the end zone (barely in the end zone) on a play from scrimmage.
Keegan probably will talk about that play all the time for the rest of his life. It really is that big of a deal. And it should be that way.
Keegan Hoppens will probably be remembered more for that safety in a loss against McCook than Derek Blessing’s touchdown to beat McCook!
That was the last high school football game for Keegan and Derek.
Keegan is now an assistant coach for Ogallala’s varsity football team as well.
Keegan Hoppens will get his first chance at competing against McCook for Ogallala in varsity football for the first time in almost 13 years on Friday. But this time as an Ogallala coach.
And it has been almost 14 years since Conner Max last competed against McCook in varsity football for Ogallala. But this time he will do it, like Keegan, as an Ogallala coach as well.
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Since the start of the 2004-05 season, McCook is 8-1 against Ogallala. McCook did not allow Ogallala to score a single point in six of those games. Ogallala did not score 14 or more points in any of those games.
McCook, on the other hand, always scored at least 13 points against Ogallala when they won those eight games and scored 21 or more points in six of those eight wins.
From the start of the 2006 season through the 2009 season, Ogallala finished 25-19 while McCook finished 41-7.
From 2019 through the current 2022 varsity football season (including playoffs), Ogallala has went 19-13 (.594) while McCook is 20-14 (.588). So Ogallala is barely better.
The winner of Friday night’s game will have the better win percentage going forward between the two teams during the combined regular season and postseason (playoffs) since the start of the 2019 varsity football season.
If Ogallala wins Friday night, both teams will be 20-12 in regular season games heading into next week's games.
So comparing the 2006 through 2009 McCook team versus the McCook 2019 through the 2022 team, the 2006 through 2009 team was better than the current 2019 through 2022 McCook team.
And the same can also be said for Ogallala. Ogallala’s 2006 through 2009 team is better than the current Ogallala 2019 through 2022 team.
I guess I might explain the previous two sentences more in the near future.
This current 2022 Ogallala varsity football team has averaged 26.000 points and has given up 17.800 points so far this season for an average point differential of 8.200 points.
McCook, on the other hand, has averaged 37.200 points per game so far this season and has given up 12.200 points for an average point differential of 25.000 points.
So McCook is obviously better this season in terms of points...so far.
Since the start of the 2004-2005 season, this 2022 Ogallala varsity football team is currently ranked 8th (out of 19 teams) in average point differential compared to previous Ogallala varsity football teams.
That is currently ranked as the second-best since Ogallala head coach Brent Bauer has been at the helm since the start of the 2017-18 season.
The Ogallala 2009-10 team is ranked 3rd in that category and they had an average point differential of +11.475.
Ogallala is 19-13 since the start of the 2019-2020 varsity football season.
Over the last 32 games for each Ogallala High School class since the senior class of 2007, the 2022-2023 senior class of the varsity football team is currently ranked 10th out of the last sixteen previous Ogallala varsity football teams.
The current Ogallala 2022-2023 senior class has an average point differential over the last 32 varsity games of +7.188.
The Ogallala 2010 senior class had an average point differential of +19.750.
Since the start of the 2004-2005 season, this 2022 McCook varsity football team is currently ranked 7th (out of 19 teams) in average point differential compared to previous McCook varsity football teams. Obviously there is still four weeks in the regular season (including Friday’s game), so things could change for the better (or for worse).
The 2010 McCook senior class had an average point differential of +6.182. That is ranked 17th out of the last 19 McCook senior classes.
McCook is 20-14 since the start of the 2019-2020 varsity football season.
Over the last 34 games for each McCook High School class since the senior class of 2006, the 2022-2023 senior class of the varsity football team is currently ranked 16th out of the last seventeen previous McCook varsity football teams in average point differential.
McCook has averaged 23.647 points and given up an average of 15.824 points in their last 34 games at the varsity level for an average point differential of 7.824.
Only the 2021-2022 McCook senior class is worse with an average point differential of 7.794.
The third lowest total for McCook was an average point differential of 12.441 from the McCook senior class of 2013-2014.
The McCook senior class of the 2009-10 school year had an average point differential of +25.500 points. That is the fourth-best since the McCook senior class of 2006.
That is a huge difference compared to the current McCook senior class!
All of the sentences in this section of this story are more important than any other part of this story! I am still trying to figure out what it really means. But it means something. And I think it does say or mean that McCook is not as good right now as they may think they are.
I may add more details below (in this section of the story) so I can explain this all to you better.
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Friday’s varsity football game preview actually can be summed up like this.
Ogallala’s Harry Caskey and Caden Rezac are the X-Factors for Friday’s game. That’s it. They are the only two real X-Factors. So why are they the only two X-Factors?
Because anyone who is honest will tell you that McCook automatically already has the advantage in Friday’s game.
McCook won the last time these two teams played (which was a 13-2 playoff victory in Ogallala on Halloween Day in 2009). If Ogallala really had any type of advantage over McCook, they would have made the playoffs in at least two of the last three years (which Ogallala has not done) and Ogallala would be 5-0 to start this season so far (or at least 4-1). Ogallala is 3-2.
Ogallala had a bad game in Week 2 at Broken Bow and they figured something out in the second half vs. Cozad in Week 3. Ogallala lost both of those games.
This Ogallala team is as close as you can get without being 5-0 or 4-1 this season.
Caden Rezac was the starting quarterback for the first 2 ½ games of the regular season and Harry Caskey has taken over as the starting quarterback for the last 2 ½ games. Harry Caskey is also basically the number one running back as well.
It will be interesting to see if Caden Rezac is the quarterback for a handful of snaps (or a lot more than a handful of snaps) in Friday’s game, to counterbalance Ogallala’s rushing attack, since Harry Caskey told me last Friday night that Rezac is a better passer than him.
I’m not sure I believe that Rezac is a better passer than Caskey. I’m pretty sure Harry Caskey can throw the football farther (or a lot farther) than Caden Rezac. I will maybe believe that Caden Rezac probably knows the playbook better than Harry Caskey does though. That’s probably (or maybe) what Harry Caskey meant.
I don’t think about it during a game, but Caden Rezac just does not look like a natural left-handed thrower to me.
Maybe I have or maybe all of you have been brainwashed into seeing only right-handers throw a football and it looking natural and not awkward.
Or maybe I just need to see left handers throw a ball (any type of ball) more!
The truth is that Caden Rezac probably lost his job as the starting quarterback because he held the football too long before throwing it, which became predictable for Ogallala’s opponents on what to expect, and therefore he threw interceptions when he got pressured or he threw a pass immediately after the snap and the football was intercepted or he got sacked.
I feel like Ogallala for the most part did not have a rushing attack, when Caden Rezac was the starting quarterback. It feels like the rushing attack virtually (or basically) did not exist.
We’re going to find out on Friday night, how well this Ogallala team is. And we’re going to find out how well this Ogallala team is the next three Friday nights after today.
I really don’t know anything about McCook’s team so I am not going to pretend like that I do.
The only thing I know about McCook’s team is that they are 5-0 to start the season and that they have scored a lot of points in each game so far.
I am going to automatically assume (based on previous history) that they are at least OK (meaning average or definitely not below average) or good (if not great) physically talented and gifted football players and that they are at least somewhat smarter (if not a lot smarter) than the average high school football player in Nebraska regardless of their physical talents and gifts.
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Regardless of how Friday’s game goes, Ogallala can take solace in the fact that they defeated McCook 27-19 in the first round of the playoffs in 1998 for their first ever victory in the playoffs (or at least since serious and somewhat accurate records have been kept by the NSAA, if not all-time).
McCook defeated Ogallala in the first round of the playoffs 28-6 in 2001 and McCook also won at Ogallala in 2003 in the third round of the playoffs (the Class B state semifinal round of the playoffs) 28-7.
Ogallala has never made it to the state championship game, while McCook has won two state titles in 2002 and 2003. McCook has been the runner-up at state three times (2004, 2005 and 2007) since their last state title.
McCook is just hoping to get back to the playoffs for the 23rd consecutive season this year and win in the playoff round they didn’t win last year in. That would be a successful season. And improving their regular season win total by at least one win, which they already have done at this point of the season.
Ogallala can get to the playoffs or even go deep in the playoffs if it really wants to. I even think Ogallala can win the state championship if they really want to. But they have got a lot of work to do between now and when the state championship is close to Thanksgiving. And people need to remember, Ogallala is in Class C-1 now, they are not in Class B anymore.
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