A year after making it to the Eight-Man Division-II state football title game, the Otis-Bison High School Cougars are back in the postseason.
The Cougars finished the regular season with an 8-1 record and will host Moscow, also 8-1, tonight at 6 in an opening-round state playoff game.
“They are really fast,” Otis-Bison head coach Travis Starr said of Moscow. “They are just really fast. Their skill positions, they have a lot of speed everywhere. They’re an older group, they have a lot of good seniors.
“We’re just going to have to go out and play good football.”
Last year, Otis-Bison went undefeated en route to advancing to the state title game in Newton last season, where it lost to B & B Baileyville, 50-34.
Over the last two seasons, the Cougars’ lone regular-season setback is a 44-18 road loss to Thunder Ridge.
Otis-Bison is led by hard-nosed running back Patrick Piper, who has collected 856 rushing yards and 15 rushing touchdowns.
“He ran extremely hard last week, and so did Dylan Wissman,” Starr said. “Piper just had a couple of big plays the last couple of weeks, and he took advantage of them. They are both very good running backs.”
Wissman has added 707 rushing yards and 14 scores on the ground.
Quarterback Trevor Keller has completed 61 of 94 passes for 930 yards and 16 touchdowns. He has thrown five interceptions.
“He’s going a lot better as far as reading the field,” Starr said of Keller, who hasn’t thrown an interception since Week 4. “He has improved quite a bit for us in the backfield.”