Bob Lutz: Hodgeman County, Spearville prepare for 8-Man showdown

Matt Fowler grew up in a small town, Lockwood, Mo., in the Ozarks. He played high school football, then came to Sterling College, in the KCAC, to play in college.

Matt Housman grew up in Hanston, a small town in western Kansas. He played football at McPherson College, also in the KCAC.

Their paths intersected and they now coach 8-man football just 30 miles apart — Fowler at Spearville and Housman at Hodgeman County, which includes students from Jetmore and Hanston, his hometown.

“I know Matt really well,” Housman said. “We’re pretty good friends.”

Good friends with good teams that hook up Friday night in Spearville. Undefeated Hodgeman County against undefeated Spearville, both 7-0.

It’s one of the biggest games in the state this week.

“The first 8-man football game I saw was when I was playing at Sterling and I went to a game in Chase,” Fowler said. “And the second one I saw was when I was student teaching and coaching at Stafford and I actually called plays.”

Spearville has never won a state football championship. Hodgeman County has won eight. Well, that is if you consider the six won by Hanston and the two captured by Jetmore. Those schools consolidated in 2010.

“It’s been a good marriage, especially in terms of football,” Housman said. “Our two schools played different styles, but all of it was based on the running game. Power football was each school’s bread and butter.”

Jetmore and Spearville were strong rivals and the Hodgeman County-Spearville rivalry has been strong, too. Spearville, though, has usually been in the backseat of the football rivalry.

Not so much Friday night, though. The Lancers, ranked No. 2 in 8-Man I, are a strong favorite at home.

“We finally beat Hodgeman last year and it was my first win as a head coach against them,” said Fowler, Spearville’s coach since 2009. “You have two towns there with a ton of football tradition and when they were put together they have just continued to build on that tradition. For us out here in the western part of the state, they’ve kind of been the measuring stick, the team that everybody has to prove themselves against. It’s good for both sides. Both sides will be excited and well-prepared.”

Fowler and Housman, in his sixth season at Hodgeman County, love their small-town roots and are in no hurry to find jobs at bigger schools in bigger towns.

“It’s good for a family,” said Housman, who has a 3-year-old and twins who are about to turn 1. “It’s just the family life, really. I’ve had people ask me this a lot and one of the things is that growing up in a town with a couple of hundred people like Hanston, you know they actually care about you. If you ever need anything, they’re there for you. It’s tough to find that in city life, I think.”

Housman said he spent a lot of his youth in Jetmore, too, where his grandmother lived.

“So that was kind of a second home to me,” he said.

Fowler met his wife while he was playing football at Sterling. They have a 2-year-old son.

“I enjoyed the values of growing up in a small town,” he said. “And I like working in a small school system. I went to a small high school and a small college and I’ve always enjoyed the atmosphere.”

That doesn’t mean, however, Fowler is all about being small.

“Even though it might be a small school, you can make it a big-time thing and that’s important,” he said. “You can’t control the size of your school but you can control the attitudes people have toward it.”

Spearville has outscored its opponents 360-30 this season. Hodgeman County’s margin is 376-60.

One problem with being so dominant is that, since 8-man games are over at halftime if there is a 45-point margin, neither Spearville nor Hodgeman County has really played seven games. More like five. And since both coaches are sportsmen, they’ve pulled starters even earlier than that.

“I guess it doesn’t always pay to be dominant,” Housman said. “Another big difference in 8-man is that you can be just a little bit better, a fraction better than the other team, and win by 30 points. This game is played in space and if there’s one weak spot in a defense, just a little hole, it can be exploited.”

Housman knows it’ll be tough to win at Spearville on Friday. Two of his starters are injured and in 8-man football, that’s a huge thing.

Fowler is cautious, as you’d expect. So is Spearville quarterback Nathan Stein.

“We’ve only beaten them a couple of times in the past 15 or 20 years,” Stein said. “I’d definitely say they’re our biggest rival. But I don’t know if we’re theirs or not.”

This story was originally published October 22, 2015 at 11:59 AM with the headline "Bob Lutz: Hodgeman County, Spearville prepare for 8-Man showdown."