Procedural penalties are the bane of any coach, and Legacy's Chris Clements saw his team commit seven of them in their 36-7 loss to West Fargo Sheyenne on Friday.
Against the unbeaten and second-ranked Mustangs, there is little room for error.
"Sheyenne is one of, if not the best team in the state," Clements said. "If you don't execute against a team of that caliber, you're going to have a hard time. Jumping offsides is something that can be taught not to do, it's within our control. I'm not going to take away the aggressiveness of our kids. At crucial times tonight, we jumped offsides tonight. It's football, it happens at every level and we'll make it an emphasis."
And it wasn't just that the Sabers committed seven procedural penalties. Five of them were defensive encroachment penalties, and of those five, three came on either third or fourth down and gave the Mustangs a fresh set of downs.
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"We knew they were super aggressive up front and we wanted to negate that a little bit," Sheyenne head coach Jeremy Newton said. "We work on [drawing people offsides] quite a bit."
Legacy's offense struggled to get going against the stingy Mustangs.
With two false start penalties in their first six plays, the Sabers were playing well behind the sticks for the entire first quarter, and did not manage to put together the kind of drive that has served them well in their two victories this year.
The Sabers ground game, which has been the more effective part of their offense so far, came into Friday night averaging a shade under 150 yards per game. Against the highly-regarded and senior-filled Mustangs defense, they managed just 65 yards on 24 carries, a paltry 2.7 yards per carry.
"We have a lot of work to do up front," Clements said. "We have to be able to run the ball effectively and we have to be able to stop the run effectively. We'll go back to work and try and figure that out."
While Sheyenne's defense was making things tough on Legacy's offense, the Mustangs offense was grinding the Sabers' defense down, gaining yards in five- to 10-yard chunks throughout the game. Legacy had problems stopping Sheyenne's outside running game, especially when senior quarterback Grant Warkenthien ran the pitch-option.
"We knew they were really good up front, and they do a lot of stunting on defense," Newton said. "We were fortunate to hold them off and make some plays. We still have to execute and block everyone up front because they were stacking the line of scrimmage on us."
A further metric to the effectiveness of an offense is the number of plays they run per half, as that generally dictates which team dominates time of possession and therefore the scoreboard. Sheyenne's offense ran 33 plays in the first half while taking a 22-0 lead; Legacy ran just 23, and of those 23, 11 went for zero or negative yards.
"We didn't execute, so we have to go back and work on executing plays," Clements said. "We didn't do that well on offense or defense tonight."
Sheyenne's offense got the game into running time midway through the third quarter on a 10-yard touchdown run by junior Kaden Rahr, who led the Mustangs with 87 yards on the ground and added a six-yard touchdown catch that opened the scoring.
A few drives later, Legacy's offense put their only points on the board when junior quarterback Logan Miller, who led the Sabers with 50 passing yards, hit senior wide receiver Brett LaCombe in stride along the sideline with a 48-yard touchdown pass.
"We had a sophomore corner that got a little aggressive on a flat route and they went over the top of him," Newton said.
With any hope of making a comeback riding on their defense's ability to make a stop after they failed to recover an onside kick, the Sabers defense allowed an eight-play touchdown drive spanning the end of the third quarter and start of the fourth that all but ended things.
"I don't think we were amazing on offense or defense," Newton said. "But we did a good job together on both sides and that was important for us."
Their record unblemished, the Mustangs head back home for a matchup with the Minot Magicians next Friday, while the Sabers head east to take on West Fargo.