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After winning five of their first six games, the Dixon Dukes have put themselves in the thick of the Big Northern Conference race.
The next two weeks will be big in determining where they finish the season.
Dixon (5-1) hosts Genoa-Kingston and Byron at A.C. Bowers Field the next two Friday nights, and knows that a couple of wins will put them at the top of the league standings.
But looking ahead just isn’t in the Dukes’ nature. They know that to get where they want to go, it’s all about attention to detail week in and week out.
“Every week, Coach says we start 0-0, and we want to win the next game and be 1-0 on Friday night,” Dixon running back/defensive back Zavion Johnson said. “So we just want to be 1-0 again this week.”
“Just focus on going 1-0 that week. Not worry about next week, just work hard today, then come in the next day and doing the same thing,” center Gavin McAlister added.
The best news for the Dukes as they enter the toughest two-game stretch of the season is that both games are at home. Dixon is 3-0 at home with a 138-33 scoring edge; on the road, the Dukes are 2-1 with a 102-27 scoring edge.
“That’s a positive, for sure. I think we’ve proven we have been playing better at home than we have on the road, so that’s a plus,” Dixon coach Jared Shaner said. “But we’re in the thick of it the next two weeks.”
For the season, Dixon is outscoring its opponents 240-60; only Byron has scored more points (242) in the BNC, and only Genoa-Kingston (30) and Byron (49) have given up fewer points.
“We’ve been hammering it all year, and there’s a common denominator: when we don’t have penalties on offense, we’ve been scoring,” Shaner said. “We haven’t been stopped a lot, it’s that we’ve put ourselves in poor positions and not been able to get out from behind the chains when we’ve had to punt.”
Tyler Shaner has run for 449 yards and five touchdowns, and he’s also 59-for-95 passing for 710 yards, 12 TDs and only two interceptions. Rylan Ramsdell (68 rushes, 477 yards, 5 TDs, 7.0 yards per carry) and Johnson (23 rushes, 338 yards, 3 TDs, 14.7 yards per carry) lead the ground game, and Mason Randick (22 catches, 281 yards, 8 TDs) and Jacob Gusse (16 catches, 223 yards, 3 TDs) lead a deep corps of receivers.
But McAlister and the rest of the Dukes know the battle is always won in the trenches.
“It’s all about just executing, staying on blocks,” he said. “If we can get everything to work like we know we can, we should be able to win.”
That Dixon offense will face a stout, consistent Cogs defense on Friday night. G-K (5-1) has given up more than one score only once, and has not allowed an opponent to score more than 14 points. The only loss was a 7-3 slugfest against Byron in Week 4.
“At this point, I would say they’re the second-best team in the conference, based on that close game with Byron,” Shaner said. “So we’ve got to be ready to go. We’ve been challenging the kids all week: if we don’t play well, it’ll be embarrassing, because they’re a very, very good football team.”
But the Dukes are ready to take on the challenge in front of them, and are looking forward to a full house Friday night along the Rock River.
“I feel like just the energy we’re going to have there is going to be amazing,” McAlister said. “It’s going to be fun to play in front of everybody, probably a packed crowd, and it’s going to be a different level of energy that we’re going to have because of it.”
The Cogs run the ball most of the time, with a rotation of up to seven backs led by Ethan Wilnau. Defensively, Colin Nesler has been the leader from his linebacker spot.
“They don’t do anything real fancy, but they do it really well,” Shaner said. “It’s similar to Byron, a Wing-T style, you’re going to get fullback dive, you’re going to get some double-lead stuff – and when you start to maybe get a stop or two on that, you’re going to get a quick ross to the perimeter or a counter back out of the wingback, and play-action once in a while. But for the most part, they come out and run it at you.
“We have to find a way to possess the ball, and not give up long, sustained drives. As an offensive coach, you want the ball, you want to score, and you just kind of feel helpless out there when the other team has 7-minute drives.”
In the end, it will all come down to which team performs as closely to the level it has all season on Friday night. And in defending their home turf, the Dukes know they don’t have to go far to get where they want to go by the end of the regular season.
“We’re really excited, and we’re ready. We’ve been preparing hard this week,” Johnson said. “We’ve got to start off with a boom. We can’t come out lazy and slow; we’ve got to set the tone right away.
“We’ve got to key on their run, lower our pad level and hit hard. They’re going to try and pound us, and wear us down and give up. But we’re not going to get weak this week.”