It doesn't get any easier this week for the Siloam Springs football team.
The Panthers head south of Fort Smith on Friday to take on the No. 1-ranked team in Class 6A, the Greenwood Bulldogs. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Smith-Robinson Stadium.
Greenwood (5-0, 2-0) has rolled through its schedule so far this season, including a big win last week against then No. 2-ranked El Dorado 52-21 in a 6A-West Conference game.
Siloam Springs head coach Bryan Ross said there's no doubt the Panthers will have their work cut out for them Friday night.
"They're a football dynasty," Ross said. "I mean they're a program everybody would like to be. You know, we're just going to do our best. That's all you can do. It's an opportunity to go play against the best. I'm sure our kids will prepare well and they'll go play hard."
Siloam Springs defeated Greenwood 38-31 in Ross' second season as head coach in 2010, but since then the Bulldogs have won the last four meetings all by lopsided margins in 2011, 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Greenwood has won 10 conference titles and six state championships under coach Rick Jones, who is 150-23, but the Bulldogs have come up short in the last two state title games, losing to Pine Bluff in 2015 and Russellville in 2016.
Jones said Monday that back in August, the coaches came up with a new approach for the Bulldogs for this season.
Rather than set weekly goals, or season goals, Greenwood narrowed it down even more than that.
"We want to be the best we can be every day," Jones said. "Our goals are in the present. No long term goals. No short term goals. We want to have a great practice today and tomorrow come back and do the same thing."
Jones said Siloam Springs has always been a tough team for the Bulldogs to play against.
"They're really aggressive," Jones said. "They've changed their approach defensively, and they've always given us trouble. I have a lot of respect for coach Ross. Their kids play hard and they get after it."
Jones said he's been impressed with Siloam Springs junior quarterback Landon Ellis and senior wide receiver Luke Gumm, especially. Ellis has completed 59 of 112 passes for 1,089 yards and nine touchdowns. Gumm has caught 23 of those passes for 514 yards and seven touchdowns.
"They're dangerous players -- really good players," Jones said. "I like the way the quarterback runs the offense. The receiver is a guy that can give you fits. You have to tackle him. They do a good job with their play-action pass -- very difficult to defend. That receiver is especially explosive."
The Bulldogs, meanwhile, are averaging more than 45 points a game.
Led by Arkansas football- and baseball-commit senior quarterback Connor Noland, the Bulldogs are piling up 235.8 passing yards and 219.4 rushing yards a game.
Noland has completed 87 of 128 passes for 1,125 yards and 15 touchdowns.
Senior running back Kenny Wood is a threat to run with 96 carries for 755 yards (7.9 yards per carry) and 12 touchdowns. He's also caught 17 passes for 233 yards and two scores.
Junior Peyton Holt leads the Bulldogs' receiving corps with 42 receptions for 566 yards and nine touchdowns.
But perhaps the most impressive players on the Bulldogs' roster, according to Ross, might be senior defensive linemen Jon Womack (6-1, 300) and Hunter Webb (5-11, 268).
"The kid that may be the best football player of them all is their nose guard (Womack)," Ross said. "He's unblockable. From what I've seen he's just been wearing people out.They've got another D-lineman that's also as good as him. This is the best defensive front I've seen them have."
Womack had 42 total tackles, 13 tackles for loss and seven sacks, while Webb has 38 total tackles and nine tackles for loss.
Linebacker Nick Vota leads the team with 53 total tackles and 11 tackles for loss. In five games, Greenwood has 72 tackles for loss as a team, including 26.5 sacks.
"They're at a different level," Ross said. "You just look at them physically and even when they were winning a lot (back in the 2000s), they didn't have the type of athletes they have now."
As for the Panthers, they're coming off a 49-14 loss at home to Benton last week.
Ross said the Panthers have a lot of important games coming up and they can't afford to take a step backwards in their improvement as a team.
"I want to see our kids keep preparing well and go play hard and have fun," Ross said. "That's the bottom line. Like I told our kids Friday night after the game, I would love to get back into the playoffs this year, and I think that's a realistic goal that we should have. Like you said, we've got some big games coming up. It's just about trying to keep getting better. We don't want to regress. We don't want to stay where we're at. We want to keep getting better, and I think our kids have. It's just a matter of when you're playing against some really talented teams it doesn't always show. I thought we did some good things the other night. I really did. We just couldn't do enough of them."
Sports on 10/04/2017