From staff reports

sports@joplinglobe.com

Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College, renewing a football series after 18 years, opens its season tonight by visiting Hutchinson Community College.

Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. at Gowans Field.

NEO and Hutchinson are meeting for the first time since the 1990 season. The Golden Norsemen boosted their advantage in the series to 8-3 with a 41-0 win at Robertson Field in Miami.

NEO’s Rob Green, beginning his fourth year as head coach, began preseason with five transfers among 26 sophomores. Green guided the Golden Norsemen to a second straight 4-5 overall record in 2007. They were 1-5 in the Southwest Junior College Football Conference.

Hutchinson, in its second year under Rion Rhoades, finished 2-5 overall last season. Three of the five returning starters on offense for the Blue Dragons are on the interior line. Three of their six defensive starters are in the secondary.

Offensive starters returning for NEO are running back Jeremiah Sampson (a 5-foot-8, 175-pounder from Coweta) and tackles Jeremy Bean (6-5, 300, Broken Bow) and Logan Clair (6-5, 301, Mustang).

Returning on defense are tackle John White (6-3, 280, Moore), linebacker Johnny Row (6-1, 225, Claremore Sequoyah), linebacker Randy Tonche (6-3, 220, Sallisaw) and back Abraham Woodard (5-11, 175, Tulsa Memorial).

Barrett Ahrberg (6-1, 195, Cushing) won the starting nod at quarterback in competition with three fellow freshmen.

“Barrett has a firm grasp of our offensive scheme and he does a good job of executing it,” Green said. “But he is a freshman and he has to get past that ‘deer caught in the headlights look’ because this is for real.

“Operating out of the ‘no huddle’ offense, it will be important for us to communicate well with Barrett,” Green said. “So, we’ll alternate running backs or receivers to get in plays and keep our offense fresh.

“Now we’ll get to see as a coaching staff just how much learning has taken place since we started last spring,” Green said.

“It will be important for us to come out and establish some consistency in our execution. We struggled with that at times during our preseason scrimmage at Coffeyville. But now we have to be more fluid in running our plays.

“This is an important game for us because we are a young team and we have to get in the habit of winning,” Green said. “But it’s hard to open on the road with 38 of our players freshmen. They’ve never experienced an overnight trip. It disrupts the routine these guys have been in the past 18 days.”