If Great Bend High School focuses on stopping Ulysses fullback Ian Rudzik, it could spell big trouble for the Panthers tonight at 7 inside Memorial Stadium.
“They have a very talented running back and they have really good team speed, led by Ian Rudzik, No. 33, just a sophomore, a kid who started last year as a freshman,” Great Bend head coach Bo Black said.
Rudzik, a 6-foot-1, 220-pound sophomore, is a load, returning after totaling 165 carries for 1,187 yards and scored 15 touchdowns last season as a freshman — a 7.19 yards-per-carry average.
But there’s more to the Class 4A Tigers’ offense than Rudzik, who had 15 carries for 124 yards last Friday night during their 56-41 loss to Liberal at home.
“My other back, Zach Romero, carried it 20 times and had 174 yards,” Ulysses head coach Jason Kenny said. “We want to become more balanced as the season goes on, for sure.
“Ian is a tremendous athlete and most people are aware of him, but we have a few other kids that can make some plays.”
To be sure, it will be a much stiffer task for the Panthers, who dismantled 3A Hoisington 35-7 last week at home.
“They’re going to run out of the Wing-T, which they always do, and they have great schemes,” Black said. “When you’re facing Ulysses and Coach Kenny, you know you’re going to get some tough-nosed western Kansas kids that take a lot of pride playing for their town.
“They’re going to play extremely hard. It’s just a very good offensive system that they have. They put up points against everybody that they play and they are going to be hard for us to stop.”
On offense, the Panthers counter with running back Johnny Allende, who torched Hoisington for 204 yards in 25 carries and scored three touchdowns.
“Defensively, they’re built to stop the run,” Black said of the Tigers. “You look at the score from last week and say, geez, they’re defense isn’t very good. They gave up 56 points.
“Well, I think Liberal threw the football 54 times and that’s not our forte’. We’re not going to drop back and throw the football 54 times. They’re going to play physical, have kids get to the football, load the box on you and dare you to throw it, so it’s a big test for us.”
Translation? It means everyone needs to step up for the Panthers.
“We’re going to have to be physical, play assignment football, tackle and be disciplined in things that we’re doing or it will be a long night for us defensively,” Black said.
“They have a great program and have played for some state championships. We have our hands full ... we’re going to have to play great football to win the football game.”
As far as Black is concerned, he says his team needs to increase its intensity for every coming Friday night.
“In Game 1, we found ourselves with a lot of room for improvement and we played a very, very young and inexperienced 3A team,” Black said of Hoisington. “This week, we’re playing an experienced upper-echelon 4A team and then we’re going to move in to an upper-echelon 6A team (at Garden City next Friday night).
“We’ve got to have more than No. 21 (Johnny Allende) back there. We’ve got to find some other threats, find some ways to move the football and have some success. We’ve just got to do that through hard work in practice in getting better.”
Rudzik is considered one of the top sophomore fullback prospects in the nation.
Listen to Kenny.
“What happened was that he went to Kansas State’s camp over the summer,” Kenny said. “Ian actually ran a 4.54 (40-yard dash).
“Of course, how big he is, everyone’s interested.”
Against Liberal, Ulysses ran into a pass-happy Redskins team, briefly leading early in the fourth quarter.
“Liberal was a team that was difficult to prepare for in Game 1, running the no-huddle spread,” Kenny said. “(Britton Abbott) threw it 54 times, which we probably won’t see another team do it to us all year.
“I thought our kids played well. We had taken the lead right at the beginning of the fourth quarter, 41-34, and I thought we kind of gained some momentum.
“They came down and scored and went for the two-point conversion and made it to put them up 42-41. Darned, they had an onside kick and got it back. It was kind of the beginning of the end for us.”