***all coach & player quotes courtesy of Chet Kuplen and Kansas-Sports.com or @sportsinkansas
The question is one that seemingly arises each year. Is this Derby team the most dominant team of all time?
The 2019 Panthers are certainly in the discussion.
Derby will attempt to win its fifth state championship in the past seven years when they take on Olathe North (10-2) on Saturday at Welch Stadium on the campus of Emporia State University. Kickoff is scheduled for 1:00 p.m.
Derby (12-0) has been Class 6A’s top-ranked team all season and dominated its opponents to the tune of a 53 to 11 average margin of victory. For the majority of the season, the Panther starting offensive and defensive units have rarely played much more than half of each game – a 21-0 win over Bishop Carroll being the exception.
Derby’s starting defense had surrendered only two touchdowns all season prior to last week’s 63-35 semifinal win over Topeka High.
As good as the defense has been, the Panther offense has been just as impressive. Derby once again overcame some adversity as quarterback Grant Adler missed significant time with an injury for the third consecutive season.
In his absence, Lem Wash filled in and kept the Panther offense scoring at a high rate. Wash has rushed for 1,034 yards and 23 touchdowns and passed for 736 yards and 13 more scores. Adler has since returned from injury and has passed for 895 yards and 10 scores on the season to go along with 568 rushing yards and nine touchdowns.
The speed and explosive nature of the Derby offense has caught the attention of Olathe North coach Chris McCartney and star back Arland Bruce, IV.
“Their offense; they play really fast. They try and snap the ball really quick,” Bruce said. “Fast quarterback, running back, receivers – they can do it all on offense.”
That running back is Tre Washington – a returning all-state selection that has followed that his 2018 season with 1,463 yards rushing and 22 touchdowns.
Cavion Walker and Jacob Karsak lead the team in receptions and yards. Walker has a team-high 27 catches for 525 yards and 10 touchdowns.
But with two 1,000-yard rushers and two quarterbacks that have combined to pass for more than 1,600 yards, the Panther offensive line has done its job.
“Our offensive line has really, really improved this year”, Derby coach Brandon Clark said. “This is one of the better offensive lines we’ve coached.”
“Kevin Washington is our center and he’s one of the best offensive lineman I’ve been able to coach,” he continued. “He starts it off. He does all the communication and tells the whole O-Line what front they’re in and what to expect on every snap.”
Linebacker Jack Hileman leads the Derby defense with 79 total tackles including 12 for loss, but Tyler Dorsey has been the disrupter up front. Dorsey has 75 tackles including 25 tackles for loss and seven sacks, but is questionable for Saturday’s game.
“(Dorsey) He’s tremendous,” Clark said. “He’s one of our leaders on defense. He went out of the game, I think in the second quarter last game, and we definitely missed him. He kind of pulled his groin and he’s going to try and give it a go in this state championship game, but he’s not practicing right now.”
With or without Dorsey, one of the primary challenges the Panthers will have on Saturday is slowing down Bruce, who is putting together one of the finer careers in Olathe North history.
Bruce, just a junior, has rushed for 2,359 yards and 40 touchdowns this season. He’s also passed for 404 yards and five scores and this past week was named a finalist for the Simone Award as Kansas City’s top overall player.
For his career, Bruce has already racked up 4,557 rushing yards, 64 touchdowns, and passed for 1,642 more yards and 21 scores.
Clark praised what he’s seen of Bruce on film.
“Bruce is amazing,” he said. “He’s a very patient runner. He does a good job of letting his O-Line and H-backs set up the blocks and then he hits the hole at a different level than most running backs. He’s very explosive, but I think the best thing about him is he just waits for stuff to open up and then he gets after it.”
The emergence of senior quarterback Caleb Nelson has allowed Bruce to move to from quarterback to running back at times this season. Nelson missed four games with an injury, but has passed for 963 yards and 11 touchdowns.
Three receivers have more than 300 receiving yards led by junior Dale Stout’s 562 yards and eight touchdowns.
The Eagle defense, which has allowed 21.8 points per game, is led by linebacker A.J. Patillo. Patillo has 146 tackles on the year including 11 for loss and three sacks. Sophomore Noah Palmer has 112 tackles and had a key pick-six in last week’s win over Blue Valley. Senior Mason Pride has added 95 tackles and delivered the most important play of Olathe North’s season to date when he blocked Blue Valley West’s PAT in overtime of the Eagles’ 35-34 quarterfinal win.
“Olathe North is really, really well coached,” Clark said. “They’ve shown multiple fronts throughout the year on defense so it makes us prepare for a lot. They’re defense is so fast and aggressive.”
“They’ve got safeties that fly down to the line of scrimmage and tackles well. They’re linebackers flow so fast, its pretty fun to watch on film just how good they are.”
Olathe North’s two losses have come against Lawrence (35-10) and against the No. 1 team in Class 5A Colorado, Columbine, at the time.
“This is by far the most complete team we’ve seen on film,” Clark concluded.
The Eagles are in the state title game for the first time since 2010 and their 11th time overall. Olathe North has won eight state championships and finished as runners-up twice. One of those state titles came in the form of a 41-12 win over Derby back in 2002.
Bruce is thrilled to be a part of the equation to lead Olathe North back to the title game after a nine-year drought.
“It’s special,” he said. “We would just like to keep the tradition going. It used to be every year, you just knew we were going to state. You didn’t make plans on Thanksgiving, you were going to stay, practice on Thanksgiving Day. And it’s special to bring that back.”
For Clark and the Panthers, state title game appearances are becoming the norm as they once were for Olathe North.
A quarterfinal loss to Hutchinson in 2014 is the only thing that has kept Derby from reaching the 6A state title game in each of the last seven seasons. And to think, Derby lost in the state semifinals in both 2012 and 2013.
Since taking over the program in 2006, Coach Clark is 129-36 with four state titles, two runner-up finishes, and has reached the state semifinals four other times. This 130th victory would also deliver his fifth state championship.
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