New offense propels Prairie to blowout win, playoff berth

CEDAR RAPIDS – When you've got a father who was a terrific high-school football coach not too long ago, you're a fool if you don't use him for advice.

Mike Morrissey is nobody's fool. After his Cedar Rapids Prairie Hawks lost last week to Muscatine and permanently lost their starting quarterback to an injury to boot, he went to his dad, Ed, with questions.

Ed Morrissey coached at Pleasant Valley for years and won a ton of games.

'About five minutes after that Muscatine game, my dad and I started talking a little bit,' Mike Morrissey said, after Prairie's 48-0 win over Ottumwa in the regular-season finale at John Wall Field. 'There's a reason he's the best coach I've ever known in my life. He drew up some ideas, we spent some time on the phone over the course of the weekend, talking about our strengths and weaknesses and things, figured out some things maybe we could take advantage of.

'We had to go back to the late-80's, early-90's Pleasant Valley offense to get it done, but the kids bought into it. They did a great job, and we are proud of them.'

Instead of Morrissey's staple spread, Prairie employed a Wing-T attack that's almost extinct these days, directed by junior Tyler Nunemaker and powered by a huge offensive line and running backs Keagan Pinter and JoJo Simpson, in particular.

Pinter finished with 129 yards rushing and three touchdowns, Simpson (who had seven carries all season coming in) had 84 and two. Prairie had 323 yards on the ground, simply stunning numbers and results, considering Morrissey introduced the Wing-T to his team online last Saturday.

The win and a loss by Iowa City High puts Prairie (4-5) into the Class 4A playoffs. Ottumwa (5-4) also backed in.

'Coach texted us Saturday about it, put it up on Hudl, and we all looked at it,' Pinter said. 'On Hudl, you can tell who looked at it, and almost everybody on our team had. When I first saw it, I was like 'What is this?' It worked, though.'

'We did pretty well since it was our first time running it,' Simpson said. 'Our guys just bought in. We told our offensive line they had to man up. That's exactly what they did.'

Prairie's boys in the trenches are large and include Iowa State recruit Bryce Meeker, so there was some ability there. But, still ...

Expecting the spread, Ottumwa called three timeouts in the first 4:43 of the game to try and adjust to the sneak attack. The Bulldogs never did defend it.

'I don't think any of us saw this coming,' Pinter said. 'But it really worked.'

Simpson's 9-yard run and Sam Drysdale's 26-yard field goal made it a 10-0 game after a quarter. Another Simpson touchdown and Drysdale field goal put Prairie up at the break, 20-0.

Six different guys saw significant carries, and all were successful. Defensively, Prairie held Ottumwa to 110 total yards, just 20 rushing.

'The thing about my dad was that he was a problem solver,' Morrissey said. 'That's what he always told me, to be a problem solver. It doesn't have to be where you buy into this or this or this on any particular year. You've got to find the strengths of your kids. That's what we feel we adjusted to.

'We've got a group of seniors here who have been around a long time, have played for us for a long time. There is a group of guys that you couldn't be more happy for because of what they put in, not only our program, but our school and just the community in general. To see them finish our last home game like this, it makes it all worthwhile.'

l Comments: (319) 398-8259; jeff.johnson@thegazette.com