By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
After a winless 2020 campaign, the Neosho football team finished last fall with a 1-9 record in head coach Brandon Taute’s first season at the helm and earned a 21-14 win against Willard that snapped an 18-game losing streak.
But that record doesn’t speak to just how much the Wildcats improved on the field. They went from scoring 6.2 points per game in 2020 to 17.1 last season and averaged 19 completions and 178 passing yards per game to go along with 144 rushing yards and 4.7 yards per carry.
“The record isn’t what we wanted but we definitely got better every week and that was our goal,” said Taute, a former Joplin assistant. “We became fundamentally better, physically stronger and faster on the field. We were happy with our progress last year even though it wasn’t the results in the win/loss column we wanted.”
Looking to build on last year’s progress in year two, Taute and the Wildcats return a lot of experience on offense but will feature several new faces on the defensive side of the ball.
Junior quarterback Quenton Hughes returns after starting there the second half of last season. He completed 119 passes for 1,236 yards and five touchdowns. Senior Jared Siler returns at running back after earning second team All-Conference honors in the COC as well as All-District honors. He was far and away Neosho’s leading rushing threat, amassing 1,226 yards and 14 touchdowns on 225 carries while adding 50 catches for 374 yards. Senior receiver Isaiah Green (third team COC and All-District) is back after leading the team with 63 receptions for 687 yards and four touchdowns.
Other returners include senior receivers Brock Franklin and Collyn Kivett. Franklin was an All-District honoree and was second on the team with 477 yards, 45 receptions and four scores. Kivett had 17 catches for 173. Senior Carter Baslee (third team COC as a left tackle) and junior William Velasco both return to the offensive line.
Green has drawn college interest as a receiver and defensive back, and Siler and Baslee have also had schools calling.
DOWNLOAD THE O-ZONE APP NOW!
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD FOR APPLE
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD FOR ANDROID
The defense, meanwhile, only returns three starters in junior linebacker Zak Goff, senior tackle Nicolas Olivares and senior corner Aiden Howell, who will move to strong safety or outside linebacker this year. Goff recorded 68 tackles and had eight for a loss; Olivares had 40 tackles and three for a loss; and Howell had 68 stops and eight for a loss.
“We’ve got a group of sophomores that are going to play a lot of snaps for us,” Taute said.
Newcomers to the defense will include Green and junior Xavier Tomlinson, who’s also battling for a starting spot on the offensive line.
“I think the atmosphere is good, the kids are working hard and we’ve had a great offseason and summer,” Taute said. “We’re trying to build that confidence and it starts in the weight room. As a staff we’ve settled in here now and had our first true offseason under our belts. Last year we had a month, month and a half to get to know the kids and we were kind of out of synch at times getting ready for things. This year we’re settled in and have a way better grasp of the personalities and how everything flows.”
Neosho heads to Mt. Vernon along with McDonald County and Forsyth for the jamboree. The Wildcats open the season at home against Willard.
Early on, Taute just wants to see more confidence and more physicality from his players.
“We want to be a more physical team on both sides of the ball than we were last year and we want our kids to be more confident,” he said. “Hopefully the progress we showed towards the end of the year and we’ve made in the offseason will help those kids play with more confidence.”
