Rams set for crucial homestand after tough road start

Scott City made it through the halfway mark of the high school football season with a 4-1 record the hard way.

With three of their first five games on the road, including a rivalry win at Portageville, the Rams are set up to play the next three games in the comforts of their home stadium.

The Rams will start the homestand with a crucial contest against Caruthersville (4-1), followed by Scott-Miss rivals Charleston (3-2) and Chaffee (0-5).

"This is definitely a big home stretch for us and just gonna make a huge difference in where we end up in the conferences, and where we end up seeded going into going into the playoffs," said Scott City coach Brian Beaubien.

Despite being one of three 4-1 teams in Class 2 District 1, the Rams are fourth in the standings with 38.70 points, nine less than Valle Catholic. The Rams will need to remain within the top four if they are to host the first round of the playoffs.

The Rams are also tied with Caruthersville, Portageville, and Charleston atop the SEMO Conference South standings at 2-1.

"That just means there's a lot of good teams," Beaubien said. "I feel like with Portageville and us and Caruthersville and Charleston, any of those teams could beat anybody on a given night."

Beaubien consistently says his team has a long way to go before they're ready for playoff football. Their matchup against Caruthersville on Friday will prove just how close they are to their ultimate goal. The Rams haven't played against the Tigers since defeating them 35-14 in the 2019 Class 2 playoffs.

Beaubien said the Rams have handled adversity a lot better since suffering their lone loss at the hands of Hayti.

"Against Hayti, when some things went bad, we kind of got down on ourselves and kind of fell apart," Beaubien said. "At Portageville, when we faced a little bit of adversity, and some things went kind of not in our way, we kind of rose up and fought back. When they punched, we punched back and ended up getting a big win."

Friday's game will feature two of the area's leading runningbacks in Caruthersville's Sammy Bryant and Scott City's Rustyn Underwood. Bryant entered Week 5 as the leading rusher with 743 yards and 14 touchdowns, but the Tigers amassed only one score against Valle Catholic last Friday.

Meanwhile, Underwood ran for a season-high 340 yards and four scores to bring his season totals to 971 rushing yards and 11 touchdowns. Two major factors in such a statistical success have been the offensive line creating lanes for "Roamer" and also feeding the junior nearly 40 times in a single game.

"Rustyn had a lot of yards last week but he had a lot of carries too," Beaubien said. "We've got to get a couple of our other guys to carry the ball a little bit more, take a little bit off of Rust. Carrying it 30+ times is too much. He doesn't need to do that every week."

While Underwood is putting up MVP numbers, the offense still pails in comparison to their previous years. The Rams are averaging 27.8 points per game one year after Mark Panagos and Tyson Underwood were leading the offense to a scoring average of 41.8 points in 2023 and 49.2 points in 2022.

Their offensive output may change as Jackson Gloth improves and gets comfortable in his first season as the starting quarterback. He made strides at Malden last week when he threw a 60-yard pass to Rylan Froggatt before connecting with him again for a 10-yard touchdown in a 34-6 win over the Green Wave.

"His decision-making is improving," Beaubien said of Gloth. "His understanding of what we're conceptually trying to do with certain things. All of that has been steadily getting better. He's kind of transforming from being an athlete to being a quarterback."

On the other side of the ball, the defense is holding opponents to 15 points per game, which is lower than even their 2019 district championship team (17.8 PPG). Beaubien, who previously designed defenses of state champions and contenders in Tennessee, says the best is yet to come.

"We got some basic deficiencies on defense that we're trying to get fixed," Beaubien said. "The good thing is we got the talent to be able to do it. It's just young kids growing up, and some of that stuff just takes reps and takes experience for it all to click and come together."

If the Rams can pass the Tiger test, they will cement their position as a C2D2 contender.