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NEWTON – Meade 6-foot-2, 265-pound senior lineman Cullen Lumry is a four-year starter and team captain. Lumry is a part of the Buffs’ transformation in the last three years. Meade was a longtime 11-man power behind its single wing, though posted 4-6 and 3-7 records in ’18 and ’19.
Last season, Meade switched to eight-man football and stayed with its traditional offense. The Buffs lost key defensive back Brock Keith to a season-ending collarbone injury in August. Meade played in Eight-Man, Division I’s toughest district, had a shortened schedule because of COVID-19, and zero seniors in key skill positions. The Buffs finished 4-3.
This year, Lumry, who has generated significant NAIA interest, was part of an experienced team that featured quarterback Torren Haynes, running back Korben Clawson, linebacker Brayden Norris and a talented defensive back group, including Keith and junior Grayden Stapleton. Meade, buoyed by a season-long theme of “No respect,” changed to a shotgun offense and a 3-3 stack defense with first-year head coach Bryan Luetters.
On Saturday, Lumry and his veteran group completed the biggest year-over-year improvement of any eight-man team in the last 15 years. In a contest that yielded no second-half points, Meade beat Little River, 22-14, in the Eight-Man, Division I state championship at Newton’s Fischer Field.
Injury-plagued Little River drove to the Meade seven-yard line in the final minute before a penalty set up fourth down from the 12. Norris deflected junior Rylan Konen’s pass to seal the championship. After the celebration and trophy presentation, a euphoric Lumry walked off the field. His mind immediately went back to the last three seasons that yielded a cumulative 11-16 record.
Meade posted the program’s first perfect season since 1972 and set a school record for wins.
“Since I was a freshman, we haven’t really been all that great,” Lumry said. “Just to do this my senior year is freaking amazing. It’s just amazing.”
Meade finished 13-0, a nine-win improvement from 2020. The only comparable team was eight-man power Osborne dipping to 4-5 in ’15, switching head coaches and then going to 13-0 the next season. However, the Bulldogs were a collective 49-9 before the four-win season.
“No respect, all year, no respect,” Norris said. “It was fun.”
The last two falls, Meade was part of District 7, a group that collectively lost one non-district regular season game in 2020 and won more than 70 percent of such contests this year. Meade was a Kpreps Potential Breakout Team this summer.
Luetters’ son, Lawson, was a former Meade standout quarterback. Bryan had served the last four years as an assistant and has led the weight program for seven. Luetters became the first eight-man coach to win a title in his inaugural year since Victoria’s Doug Oberle in 2006.
“We weren’t even ranked in the top half of our district, and there’s some teams we knew we were going to have a chance to beat that were ranked ahead of us,” Luetters said. “And it just kind of stewed with the kids. Got to have some bulletin board material. The kids have got to have something to cheer for, and that’s what they cheered for all year long.”
Little River had its well-known line of Kaden Schafer, Carter Holloway and Kyle Bruce, though Meade was stout up front, scored on its first two offensive plays and never trailed. Meade had the fewest points by a winner in an eight-man title game since 1999, per Kansas historian Brett Marshall.
“They physically controlled the line of scrimmage, especially the first half,” Little River coach Kevin Ayers said. “And when you do that, that’s where it’s won or lost.”
Keith had the rare achievement of winning two team titles in the same season. Meade cross country has captured back-to-back championships. This year, Keith was 21st at state cross country. On Saturday, he caught two passes for 72 yards and a score. Defensively, he intercepted two passes and broke up a third that saved a touchdown.
“We worked on it every practice the week before,” Keith said of the pass coverage. “And coach really helped us with that.”
Defending champion Little River had its 20-game winning streak end and finished 12-1. Ayers moved to 4-2 all-time in state title games. Little River was 4-0 in one-score contests and had three consecutive comeback playoff wins. Konen suffered an ankle injury in the second half last week and was limited Saturday.
“Rylan being hobbled,” Ayers said. “It just changes our offense. We just can’t do the things we want to do, and it makes it really difficult to get us into the play calls that we want.”
Standout junior Braxton Lafferty missed a sizable chunk of the second half with a deep thigh bruise. He returned for offense on the final series. Overall, he rushed 14 times for 77 yards, 15 coming in the second half.
However, junior Grant Stephens suffered injury when the Redskins blocked a field goal with 1 minute, 40 seconds left, the second missed Meade field goal in the final three-plus minutes. Stephens wasn’t available for the finish. Little River had averaged 52 points a game this season.
“Grant at the tight end has been big for us,” Ayers said.
Ayers labeled his offense “makeshift” in the second half. On the final drive, sophomore Andrew Smith, who had just five catches all year, hauled in a 31-yard pass.
On fourth-and-7 from the Meade 23, Smith caught a 16-yard pass to the Buff 7-yard line. Lumry called the red zone stops “terrifying, honestly,” but that Meade has been effective in red zone defense throughout the fall.
“We just bowed up, dug in, and knew that we were going to hold them out,” Lumry said.
Little River couldn’t advance further and eventually bumped back to the 12.
“I was scrambling, and I didn’t do a very good job of getting us in what I needed to get us in,” Ayers said.
On fourth down, Meade sent the 5-foot-6, 150-pound Norris, one of many players who has benefited from the weight room.
“These are the greatest bunch of guys ever,” Lumry said. “All of them have worked so hard.”
Norris started lifting as a freshman. He can squat 315, bench 225 and clean 225. Norris paced Meade in tackles this fall for a defense that allowed 29.4 points a game in ’20 and just 12.2 this year.
“My coach called a go, and I went,” Norris said.
Norris raised his hand and knocked the ball down, his first pass breakup of the year.
“If we can free him up, so he doesn’t have a lot of responsibilities, and he can just go get the ball, then he is a really good player for us,” Luetters said. “He does a great job. Coach (Chad) Rudzik here, our defensive coordinator, he does a great job putting him in position, made a lot of good calls today.”
On the contest’s first play from scrimmage, Haynes went 46 yards for a touchdown. Haynes went up the middle, broke two tackles and scored. Overall, Haynes finished 5 of 10 for 119 yards and a TD. He rushed 16 times for 123 yards and went over 1,350 yards. Clawson delivered 31 carries for 116 yards and finished with more than 1,900 this season.
“We haven’t ran it for a long time the way we did it,” Luetters said. “We brought a guy in motion and made twins on the right side, which gave us an extra blocker on the strong side. We haven’t ran that since like the third week. We work on it a lot.”
After a Little River turnover on downs, Haynes hit Keith for a 52-yard pass down the left side for a 16-0 lead with 8 minutes, 59 seconds left in the first quarter. The Redskins quickly responded with a 60-yard TD pass to Lafferty and a 16-6 margin.
In the second quarter, Clawson had a one-yard run, and Stephens caught a six-yard scoring pass for the game’s final points with 22 seconds left in the first half.
“One of those games you just can’t get traction,” Ayers said. “Couldn’t get over the hump. I mean, we felt that way the last three ball games, too, and just got lucky to win them. … We came out a little bit flat, I think a little tired, and you can’t play this game without emotion. You have to play with emotion, and we had very little emotion today, and that’s what got us, because when you are not emotional, you are not physical, you don’t tackle well, you don’t block as well.”
Little River had four drives inside the Meade 20 that ended without points. Clawson, Keith and Norris all had key pass breakups, including on Little River’s last offensive play.
Meade moved to 5-0 all-time in state championship games, joining 11-man titles in ’72, ’80, ’10 and ’12.
“We can lock those guys up man to man, which a lot of eight-man teams can’t, so we are blessed with the talent and the athletic kids that we can do it,” Luetters said. “We can play man-to-man, and then that opens up a lot of stuff up front. Our bigs can get after it. We can blitz some linebackers.”
Meade 22, Little River 14
Scoring summary:
First quarter:
Meade – Haynes 46 run (Clawson run)
Meade – Keith 52 pass from Haynes (Clawson run)
Little River – Lafferty 60 pass from Konen (run failed)
Second quarter:
Meade – Clawson 1 run (pass failed)
Little River – Stephens 6 pass from Lafferty (Konen run)
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