Dragons winning with unique offense

Mountainburg currently sits atop the 2A-4 Conference with two weeks left and a big reason why is the Dragons’ unusual offense.

The run-oriented attack incorporates aspects from the spread, the wing-T and the single wing Mountainburg coach Tom Harrell said.

“We call it the empty spin,” Harrell said. “And it originated from a butt-kicking we took at Hughes in the playoffs in 2003. They were a single-wing team. We were thinking and talking about it some and two years ago we incorporated it into our two-tight end set.

“Hughes had a 4.5 guy going one way and a 4.5 quarterback hammering it the other and we had no clue where the ball ways. The misdirection freezes the defense and we’ve got enough speed and we do a pretty good job blocking. It causes problems.”

Harrell’s team is in the second year using the offense and average more than 330 yards per game on the ground led by senior Austin Taylor, who has run for 740 yards on only 60 carries (12.3 avg) and 13 touchdowns. But he’s got company. Malachi West, who moved from tight end this year, has 500 followed by sophomore quarterback Ethan Gregory with 477 yards and 11 TDs and Jessie Quick adds 379.

They average more than 45 points per game and scored 39 in their loss to Greenland, a likely playoff team in Class 3A.

The Dragons (6-1, 4-0 2A-4) finish the regular season with a pair of huge games against Magazine on Friday and at Hector next week. Those two teams are only a game behind Mountainburg in the league standings.

Mountainburg finished 9-2 a year ago and advanced to the second round of the playoffs and is hoping to make another postseason run. — Paul Boyd • @NWAPaulB