The Houston football team has lost 31 straight games to Salem. But don’t expect either head coach to emphasize the streak.
“I think the players are aware of it, so there’s no reason to mention it,” first-year HHS coach Billy O’Neil said. I want to emphasize that we need to compete every down and don’t look too far ahead.”
Salem coach Bill Schuchardt down played the fact he has never lost to Houston.
“That is all in the past,” he told the Salem News. “The only thing that counts is how we play (Saturday) night. We don’t get any extra points for (the streak), we still have to go out and play well.”
Whether it is discussed in either team’s locker room, the fact remains Salem has beaten Houston every year the teams have met since 1980.
A much-needed victory would end a pair of losing skids for the Tigers. They haven’t won a game since the finale of the 2009 season –– a span of 20 consecutive losses.
O’Neil, who was named HHS head coach in March after eight years as an assistant, said he is most concerned with making the program competitive again.
“I don’t look at success necessarily as a win,” O’Neil said. “I look at it as going in the right direction.”
Passes from either team may be nearly non-existent when the teams meet at 7 p.m. Saturday in Salem. The game was moved back one day following Monday’s death of HHS social studies teacher Gale Wright.
O’Neil has brought the run-first double wing offense back to the Tigers. Salem has perennially been a run-oriented team during Schuchardt’s tenure. Salem attempted just one pass in last year’s 40-6 victory against the Tigers.
“We have to play responsibility defense,” O’Neil said. “They wait for you to make a mistake. They’ll run the same play in different formations until you make a mistake and they’ll score.”
Salem, which went 5-5 last season and 4-3 in the South Central Association, returns four offensive and three defensive starters. Houston has exactly the same number of returning starters on both sides of the ball.
Salem returns three starters –– Jade Wisdom (5-foot-11, 285), Cody Moore (5-11, 211) and Cordell Tatom (6-2, 235) –– on the offensive line. Receiver Lane Stluka is the fourth returning starter.
Although he didn’t start at quarterback, Brady Floyd was a fill-in starter last season and takes over full-time this year.
“If we’re going to play them, the best time is probably the first game,” O’Neil said. “But coach Schuchardt is going to have them ready, and I expect a very hard, physical game.”
O’Neil got his first glimpse of his team on film following Friday’s jamboree. Because the football field was not ready the previous Friday, he said the staff was unable to tape the team scrimmage following the annual pig roast.
Among the areas O’Neil said need fine-tuning with the team’s new offensive approach are staying lower with blocks and improved footwork in the backfield. He said backup Tanner Smith scored the team’s lone touchdown because of his strong footwork.
“We would have scored four more times with better footwork,” O’Neil said. “The holes were there. We were too tight and were getting caught from behind. If the footwork would have been there, we wouldn’t have been caught.”
As the jamboree progressed, O’Neil said he began to see his players compete. He said that will be the mission for every play of every game moving forward.
Although the future of the program appears promising with 25 freshmen on the team, O’Neil said his focus is getting the senior class its first varsity victory.
“I want this season to be something special for the seniors,” he said. “We don’t have a starter that has a win. That’s one of my goals –– to get them that and make it the best season it can be.”
Houston’s three-decade long losing streak to Salem nearly ended in 2007. And it wasn’t one of the Tigers’ state semifinal teams that took the skid to the brink of elimination. Instead, it was a team that lost its 16th consecutive game.
Salem scored on a 9-yard pass with 11 seconds remaining to sneak out a 15-12 victory that year. The winning streak has since grown to 31 straight games over HHS.
The Tigers came painstaking close to winning. They got a 72-yard fumble return for a touchdown by Ty Scheets and third-quarter touchdown pass from David Weybright to David Foster.
HHS led by six with 1 minute, 36 seconds left when the Tigers punted the ball away. Salem covered 54 yards in seven plays without a timeout to win the game.
Houston was out-gained by 195 total yards and averaged just 2.6 yards per play. But the Tigers stayed alive by recovering four of Salem’s seven fumbles while turning the ball over once.
The final Salem fumble –– on the Houston 26 with 3:16 to go –– could have given the Tigers a historic win. They gained eight yards on three plays to milk the clock, and the offense lined up to go for it on fourth-and-2 at the HHS 30-yard line. But an equipment penalty on center Aaron Scheets, who failed to put his mouthpiece in between plays, forced Houston to punt.
Houston at Salem, 7 p.m. Saturday
Aurora at Ava, 7 p.m.
Willow Springs at Reeds Spring, 7 p.m.
Logan-Rogersville at Mountain Grove, 7 p.m.
Caruthersville at Liberty, 7 p.m.
Cabool at Ash Grove, 7 p.m.
Hayti at Thayer, 7 p.m.