Coach of the Week

Nick Flowers

Carrollton

What he did: Flowers led Carrollton to a 24-6 win over the North Greene Spartans last Saturday that helped the Hawks qualify for postseason play and finish second in the Western Illinois Valley Conference South Division. Carrollton has run a spread offense this season, but did most of its damage on the ground last Saturday with 188 rushing yards to go with 118 passing yards. Carrollton, now 5-2, can guarantee its spot in the playoffs with a win over Routt tonight.

Flowers on how he did it: “I think every year you kind of throw the records out when Carrollton and North Greene face off. We thought it was going to be a hard-nosed, hard-hitting game, and it was. They came out wanting to stop the pass, and we kind of had to go to the ground, and we had some success in the air and on the ground, and it was a good football game.”

Flowers on running the ball Saturday: “(Football) is a numbers game, and we had more people inside the box than they had, and anytime you have that, you have to run the football. What we did was just count the number of people in the box, and we had more, so we ran the football.”

Flowers on qualifying for the playoffs with the win: “The old saying is ‘Five is not a guarantee,’ and we’ve got two tough matchups left with Routt and Virginia. We’re going to take them one at a time, and we’ll deal with the playoffs after Week 9.”

Flowers on tonight’s opponent, the Routt Rockets: “I think a lot of people thought they were going to be way down, but to me, Routt has stepped up and exceeded the expectations that other coaches around had for them. Routt has a darn good football team, and we’re going to go up there and I think it’s going to be a good matchup.”