Bears struggle to keep up against Lions' high-powered offense
Sep. 1—BLANCHARD — With about eight minutes remaining in the first half, Blanchard took the ball on its own 29-yard line and was once again marching down the field.
The drive lasted 13 plays and ended on a 12-yard touchdown pass from Carson Cooksey to McHale Howell. Twice on that drive Noble appeared to have the Lions stopped in their tracks.
On a third-and-14, Cooksey found no receivers open and took off to run, but was immediately met by a Noble defender. Cooksey's helmet was ripped off on the tackle, and a flag was thrown.
Then, after a meeting between the officials, the flag was waved off.
The officials continued to discuss the call and eventually the flag was thrown again, costing the Bears 15-yards for a face mask.
Two plays later, the Lions faced a second-and-23 and needed just two throws to pick up the first down. The touchdown pass Cooksey threw two plays later was his third in the first half and put the Lions up 33-12.
After quarterback Joey Bear went down with an injury right before halftime, there was little Noble could do to slow Blanchard down in a 61-18 loss.
"We're just trying to get better each week," Noble head coach Greg George said. "We know where we're at. We lost a lot of really good ball players over the last three or four years and we've got a really young football team."
Blanchard aired out the ball with its senior quarterback and came out of the gates scoring three touchdowns on its first three drives. Trailing 20-0, Noble found a big play from its special teams to change the momentum.
Junior Bryson Carey caught a kickoff that appeared on its way out of bounds, but found a lane up the middle and used his speed to hit the sideline for a 77-yard touchdown.
The Lions faced a fourth-and-two on their next possession and Connor Franks made the stop on a run up the middle to give the ball back to the Bears' offense.
On the first play of the Bears' next drive, Bear pump faked to a receiver on a screen pass and heaved a 40-yard bomb to Connor Lane for a touchdown. Noble missed its two-point conversion try, and trailed 20-12 early in the second quarter.
Blanchard would go on to score 40 unanswered points.
"We've got to challenge ourselves to go out and be tougher," George said. "I know we're not very big, but we've got to be tougher than that. You have to be."
Backup quarterback Jackson Steely threw a 24-yard touchdown pass to Trevor Rudd with 6:26 left in the game. Blanchard scored touchdowns on all but two possessions and never punted.
After a slow start to the game, running back Jordan Peterman ran nine times for 47 yards in the third quarters.
"You've just got to go back to work the next day and get after it, get tough," George said. "They came out and manhandled us we've got to look in the mirror tomorrow morning and go 'Hey, do I want to go out there and be manhandled like that every Friday night or do I want to make a statement?"
The loss snaps the Bears' streak of three wins over the last three seasons against Blanchard. Noble falls to 0-2 on the season and continues a difficult stretch of non-district games to start the season next week against Tuttle.
Tarik Masri is the sports editor for The Transcript covering OU athletics and area sports. You can reach him by emailing tarik@normantranscript.com
