Charlo Vikings football continues to roll over Class C

Charlo High School football coach Mike Krahn knows how to make the proper adjustments to adapt to injuries in his roster.

With the Vikings’ star player Landers Smith suffering from a thumb injury, Krahn utilized him in various roles that didn’t involved him playing quarterback with the Vikings

With Smith struggling with the thumb, Krahn made the necessary adjustments in Charlo’s 52-14 district victory over Mission Friday night at Mission High School.

Krahn utilized the opportunity to not only maneuver Landers around to divert the Bulldogs’ defense, but also gave his offense some more flexibility as they continue to gain continuity with each other.

“His thumb was having a hard time gripping the football,” Krahn admitted. “His thumb got tweaked in (Monday’s game) against Arlee so we utilized him in different capacities as a way to protect his thumb.”

After the Vikings dominated yet another opponent, they have outscored their opponents in the first four games 212-74.

“I think we have a lot of weapons that we can use,” Krahn said. “Either Landers will have a big game, Tyson Petticrew will have a big game or Garrett Vaughan will have a big game. We’ve been able to spread the ball around and we just have been a few different choices so defenses can’t key in on one person. A lot of the teams after last season have focused on Landers and we have found a different way of spreading the football around.”

One of the question marks Charlo had coming into the season was their offensive and defensive front. That changed significantly from last year’s rotation. The questions they had have been answered for the inexperienced line.

Against Mission, the Vikings amassed a total of 509 yards on 56 plays and averaged 9.1 yards per play. The line also contributed to blocking for 413 rushing yards on 47 attempts and 8.8 yards per rush.

“Our offensive line is starting to come around and we are getting more experience, getting more comfortable and starting to click well as a unit,” Krahn said. “We’ve been able to get a little rotation, move some people around and create some depth for us. That is part of it. Our offense is really big with timing and communication. The kids need time to communicate and work as a unit. We have a lot of smart kids and they are really picking up our scheme and learning how we do things. The consistency in our program and our kids scheme hasn’t changed very much and they usually just jump right in.”

The undefeated Vikings will now get a chance to rest as they enter a bye week because of the Hot Springs forfeit.

“It is nice timing (to get a bye),” Krahn said. “The last two games our kids were pretty banged up. They have had the luxury of a week to heal up and back off a bit on the contact. We can use the bye week to work on the fundamentals. We are lacking on some of our fundamentals and we can use this week to get back to the basics. With the wild fires we’ve had to rush things since we haven’t been outside and the timing (of this bye week) worked out pretty good for us.”

The Vikings, who will prepare to head into the Sept. 30 game with a currently unbeaten Plains team, is anticipating a challenge from the upstart Horsemen.

“They looked good and I’ve watched some film on them,” Krahn said. “They are playing well, getting some wins under their belt and winning breeds confidence. Sometimes (when you win), you just get fired up and have a different mindset. Sometimes, that is good and they look really improved as they get into the meat of their schedule. Right now they are looking pretty tough.”

All season Krahn has stated, despite his team’s statistical dominance, they have been “challenged.” Against the Bulldogs, the Vikings were challenged in the first quarter. The Bulldogs scored twice and at the end of the first quarter the Vikings only led 22-14.

“We usually don’t see that level of physicality until the playoffs,” Krahn said. “Mission came out and really got after us. They caught us a little off guard and took our guys by surprise. They came out and really woke us up a little bit.”