Flooding the Zone

Okay, a little tacky with the title this week. Yes, it's a football term, but with the Cedar River about to crest at around 23 feet in Cedar Rapids - and with flooding all over northeastern Iowa over the weekend - perhaps not in the best of taste.

Speaking of which, what the heck? We just went through a 500-year flood a scant 8 years ago. Now we're expecting the second-highest flood in history? In September, no less? What's going on here? You might want to look at this for a notion of what might be going on ... just sayin'.

On to football things. Xavier rolled to 5-0 on the season and 3-0 in District 3 with a convincing 38-6 win over Decorah. The Saints got a little bit of payback for being outplayed and outscored by the Vikings last November in the playoffs, but this was mainly a case of Xavier just doing their thing and rolling down the field. On the Saints's first three possessions, they had drives of 12 plays, 13 plays, and 8 plays, amassing over 200 yards and scoring three touchdowns. It's hard to do any better than that.

Jake Muhlbauer was a highlight for Decorah. Okay, he was the highlight for Decorah. He ran for 104 yards, got the Vikings' only score of the night, had multiple kickoff returns for good yardage, and was all over the field on defense (11 tackles, I believe). The Vikings had no turnovers on the night, so that was a plus, but they did have both an extra point and a field goal attempt blocked.

Maliki Wilson was huge once again for Xavier, rushing for over 200 yards and picking up his 10th and 11th rushing TDs of the year, the last a 76-yard burst through a wide-open hole on the right side of the Saints' offensive line. Bryce Schulte threw for 171 yards (including two deep throws to Nolan Butkowski) and a touchdown, as the Saints rolled up more than 400 yards of offense. Shane Scott even got in on the fun, nailing a 44-yard field goal in the fourth quarter. I got all excited, calling it "perhaps the second-longest field goal in Xavier history," (the record is a 48-yarder by Taylor Lynch all the way back in 2004) but a little after-the-fact research found three field goals longer than 44 yards just since 2011 (all by Ryan Persick).

And speaking of records, Wilson is closing in on Brendan Miller's school career rushing record of 2498. He already broke Miller's single-game record back in Week One, and now with four regular-season games remaining, Wilson is less than 300 yards from the career mark.

And then there's playoffs! No, Xavier has not locked down a spot, not yet, but they are the current prohibitive favorites to take the District 3 title. Before the season Decorah was a strong co-favorite, but they already have 2 district losses. Waverly-Shell Rock looked to be stepping up next, but they dropped a 2-point decision to Benton on Friday. South Tama, another contender, has already lost to Charles City. Benton defeated Decorah and Waverly-Shell Rock in back-to-back weeks, already has a loss to Xavier (for tiebreaking purposes). So right now, Xavier is at 3-0. South Tama, Waverly-Shell Rock, Charles City, and Benton are all at 2-1. Waverly-Shell Rock and South Tama have yet to play Xavier and Decorah, as well as each other.

Then there's Independence, this week's Xavier opponent. The Mustangs improved steadily each of the past four years, finally reaching the playoffs in 2014 and posting an 8-1 record last year. In both cases, however, they dropped their first round playoff game. And this year ... well, they're struggling. They've scored just one touchdown all year, late in a blowout loss to South Tama. That's 19 scoreless quarters, out of 20 quarters played (Xavier has scored in 16 of their 20 quarters). They've rushed for only 396 yards (less than 80 yards per game) and passed for 365 yards (with 13 interceptions). It's been a rough year.