Perfect sounds pretty good. One might say it even sounds perfect.

That being said, the coaches for the co-op St. Regis-Mullan, ID football team are no doubt preaching “focus on the next game, one at a time”.

Sound advice for sure. It is still very early in the 2023 season, but a familiar theme is shaping up: St. Regis-Mullan versus everyone else in the Idaho conference in which they play.

Once again, the joint Tigers are showing they are a force with which to be reckoned, early season be damned. Their 62-30 pasting of Idaho conference foe Kootenai is evidence coaches Jesse Allan and Stetson Spooner have another solid squad on their hands.

This Friday, the co-op boys headed to Wallace and cruised to their fourth win of the season against no losses.

The Tigers jumped out to an 8-0 lead after one quarter of play, then outscored Wallace 14-6 in the second quarter to take a 22-6 halftime lead.

That lead grew to 36-6 in the third quarter as the Tigers cruised to a 45-14 victory.

Once again senior John Pruitt had a monster game, rushing for 125 yards, his fourth straight game with 100 yards or more on the ground. Pruitt also had two rushing touchdowns and one receiving score. On defense he had a game high 18 tackles and recovered a Miners fumble.

Senior Kofi Appiah also continued his solid play on the season, picking up a pair of rushing TDs while piling up 75 yards on the Wallace turf. He also had a receiving TD.

Freshman quarterback Conner Lulis was 5-8 passing for 171 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

“Wallace has a physical o-line,” said co- head coach Jesse Allan. They were all we could handle up front for the first two quarters. After a few halftime adjustments up fron and two big fumble recoveries in the third quarter, we were able to score a few quick ones. Our guys battled through adversity, although there is a chance we lost Alex Trogden for the season. But Kofi came in and made some big plays to compliment Pruitt.”

Against Kootenia a week earlier, the co-opers improved their season record to 3-0 with the win on one of their two home fields, this one the primary home turf in Mullan.

St. Regis-Mullan took control of the game early, building an imposing 28-8 lead after one quarter of play.

By halftime they built that lead to 42-20, a commanding lead against a team with solid defense and loaded on offense. Speed kills and the “skill” players on the Tigers’ roster is full of them.

Perhaps the lead speed demon of them all is Nigeria native Appiah, an immigrant who had never seen an American football game before arriving with family members for a new life in the mountains of Idaho.

Appiah returned a Kootenai punt 32 yards for a touchdown, ran for 60 yards, and hauled in a touchdown pass. He has become, in large part due to his ability to run faster than most, a dangerous weapon for the Tigers.

By the end of the third quarter, the Tigers lead stood at 50-26. The Tigers outscored Kootenai 12-6 in the final quarter to seal the 30 point victory.

The multi-pronged St. Regis-Mullan offense was once again at the forefront of the route. In the first three games of this season, senior running back/linebacker/everything Pruitt has been nearly unstoppable. Against Kootenia he ran for 135 yard on just five carries, scored two touchdowns rushing and caught a pass for a third score.

Mullan student Trogden continued to add his power to the offense on this eight-player team, piling up 95 yards on six carries, with a touchdown rushing and one receiving.

The most pleasant surprise has been the development of freshman quarterback Lulis, who stepped into the huge shoes left by graduated all-everything athlete Caleb Ball, who was signed to play college ball at Western Montana in Dillon.

Lulis was 8-11 passing for 165 yards and four touchdowns.

“The varsity guys took care of business early,” Allen said. “Our starting defense allowed less than 20 yards of total offense. Our JV was a little outmatched up front, which led to some easy scores for Kootenai.”