While the Red Devils have the No. 1 passing game in the Miami Valley League, Xenia has the top rushing attack.
“They are tossing that thing around,” Xenia coach Maurice Harden said. “They’ve got a sophomore quarterback (Larkin Thomas) who is super dynamic. Throws the ball down the field. No. 6 (Jackson Davis) makes plays, and they’re efficient on offense, and they don’t make mistakes.”
The Buccaneers will counter with Deaunte White, a 5-foot-10, 180-pound junior who has run for 1,589 yards and 27 touchdowns in nine games, but neither team is one-dimensional.
That is especially true of Xenia lately.
Credit: DaytonDailyNews
Gavin McManus, a senior who holds Xenia’s career marks for passing yards (5,622) and touchdown passes (47), is coming off consecutive 200-yard passing games for the Buccaneers.
Beginning in a Week 7 game at Troy, he ran off 40 consecutive completions over three games to break the state record, so he certainly has the attention of Tippecanoe head coach Matt Burgbacher.
“He’s been the starting quarterback there for four years because he is a good football player,” Burgbacher said. “It’s not because they didn’t have anybody else. McManus is playing quarterback for them because he’s a good football player. He’s a great quarterback for the system that Mo wants to run, and they’re just so fundamentally sound. They don’t make many mistakes.”
While Harden described himself as “a power spread guy,” he lets McManus dictate the direction of the offense with run-pass option plays (RPOs) that allow him to decide after the snap if he wants to hand off to White or pull the ball and sling it out to one of his receivers on the perimeter — Trimonde Henry and Sean Fishwick.
“They’re going to establish the run and then the complements they have off that run game with their RPOs, Mo does a great job with with the RPOs,” Burgbacher said.
On the other side, junior Xavier Melton is eighth in the MVL in rushing (624 yards) for Tippecanoe, but Thomas tops the league with 1,993 passing yards and 29 touchdowns while Davis is No. 1 in receiving yards with 779.
“Our personnel is going to dictate what we do,” Burgbacher said. “The last three years we’ve thrown the ball a lot, but this year we’re probably throwing in a little bit more. It’s just we’re more even with running the ball and throwing the ball. So being able to keep the defense off balance I think is good — and we got the personnel to do it. We got a versatile offensive line where they’re just not run blockers. They can do both. We’ve got receivers that can run. We got receivers that can catch. We got a couple running backs that can run, and we got a sophomore quarterback that, ‘Hey, he’s played pretty well through nine games.’”
The Red Devils will face a Xenia secondary that has given up a league-low 681 passing yards on the season but allowed multiple explosive pass plays (20 yards or more) in a 25-17 win at Butler and a 21-18 win at Troy, the Buccaneers’ closest games of the season.
“Eye discipline, tackling and you need to be able to read your keys,” Harden said will be key on defense. “And you have to make tackles. You can’t let these guys get loose on you.”
Tippecanoe has already locked up the No. 1 seed in the Division III, Region 12 playoffs, while Xenia can clinch the No. 2 seed in Division II, Region 8 with a win.
Both teams have already clinched their Miami Valley League division title — Miami for Tipp, Valley for Xenia — but they are eying the outright crown after Troy, Tipp and Butler were tri-champs last season.
“We want to be able to win the whole thing,” Harden said. “We want to be able to establish ourselves as one of the top programs in the area and go out and put on a great showing in front of our fans.”
Burgbacher, whose team beat Xenia 41-14 in Week 10 last season and advanced to the regional final before losing to Celina, expects a great atmosphere and a fun night all around.
“We know there’s a second season that’s starting on Saturday, but you know what? We’ll worry about that on Saturday,” Burgbacher said. “We want to go win a league title because these previous four senior classes, the one thing they didn’t win was an outright league title. We shared it, but we didn’t win it by ourselves. That’s what’s so neat about this game on Friday night: there’s no sharing. There’s nothing. It’s winner take all, and it’s like I got on the board right now. It’s a one-game season. Only one game matters. That’s it. We don’t have to scoreboard watch on Friday night. We’ve already got the No. 1 seed locked up. Playoffs will be here next week. All we have to focus on this week is Xenia and us, what we have to do to go out there and be successful Friday night.”
Also 9-0 heading into Week 10 is Greeneview. The Rams will close the regular season playing at Greene County rival Cedarville in “The Battle of 72.”
About the Author
