Blue Devils set to tangle with Jacksonville on the road

Blue Devils set to tangle with Jacksonville on the road

West Memphis looks to 8-0 in 2018 to go

By Billy Woods

WM School District With a 35-14 victory over Jonesboro in the rear-view mirror and just three weeks left in the regular season, the West Memphis Blue Devils are in the driver's seat for the 6A-East Conference championship.

And their own coach admits it.

All that's left for the Blue Devils (7-0 overall, 4-0 in the conference) are tonight's game at Jacksonville, Oct. 26 at home against Pine Bluff and Nov. 1 at Mountain Home.

They have a one-game lead and the tie-breakers over Searcy and Jonesboro and two-game leads over Pine Bluff and Marion. All four teams are the nearest competitors for West Memphis in the race for the title.

'We are (in the driver's seat),' Elmore said, matter of factly. 'We're happy to be 7-0. But we have more work to do. Our standards for wins are higher. We want to keep winning. We want to keep improving and we want to keep moving toward competing for the state championship.'

Two of West Memphis' remaining opponents (Jacksonville and Mountain Home) own losing records and only Pine Bluff presents a real threat. The Zebras, however, have lost their starting quarterback for the season to an ACL injury and have lost their last two games.

Meanwhile, the team from West Memphis keeps rolling toward the inevitable.

It's interesting to watch the Blue Devils go about their business. For every lessthan- impressive victory (Sylvan Hills and Marion), there are wins like the 56- 21 decision over Searcy and last week's muscle-flexing job against Jonesboro.

All of which begs the assertion: The Blue Devils play when they have to.

Once again, Elmore doesn't disagree with the notion.

'One thing that bothers me is we've had several opportunities in games this season to put teams away,' said Elmore. 'If you're a fan sitting in the stands you're thinking, 'OK, we've got a three-touchdown lead and it's safe.' As a coach, though, you're thinking 'they're a touchdown, an onside kick and some crazy things happening to getting back in this game.' We haven't done that in a couple of games this season.

But every time it's been needed, our offense has scored. We're happy about that. But we're still a little unhappy about how we weren't able to run the ball (against Jonesboro). The Oline took that kind of personal this week in practice.'

The Blue Devils, whose quarterback, Owens McConnell, threw for 323 yards and four touchdowns against Jonesboro, were held to just 19 yards on the ground in the first half in that game and only ended the evening with just over 100 yards rushing.

The next hurdle, Jacksonville, has had its problems off and on the field this season. The Titans' roster has taken on attrition due to injury and other reasons. Still, it took a last-second field goal for Sylvan Hills to beat them last week 10-8.

Offensively, the Titans have had a rough go at it. They've been shut out in regulation in four games this season. It took them 10 overtimes to beat Little Rock Hall 6-0 earlier this season.

'They've had their struggles,' Elmore commented.

'It probably hasn't been as fun a year as they wanted.

They've seen some of their players leave the program, but sometimes in a situation like that it's addition by subtraction. Since then it looks like they're having more fun out there. They are still a scary team because they're still in the playoff hunt.'

In other 6A-East games Friday night, Jonesboro hosts Searcy, Marion travels to Pine Bluff and Mountain Home hosts Sylvan Hills.

Blue Devil receiver Devin Olloway picks up yardage after the catch against Jonesboro.

Photo by Billy Woods