By CONOR NICHOLL

cnicholl@dailynews.net

During Travis Starr's first four seasons as head coach, the Otis-Bison prep football team accumulated a 12-24 record, including a 3-15 mark during the last two. This fall, the Cougars, led by a bevy of experienced juniors and seniors, started 2-0.

Last Friday, though, Starr remembered the past as Otis-Bison visited Macksville and trailed 26-8 at the half. State-ranked Macksville had beaten the Cougars six straight times, including a 50-12 margin in 2008.

"You never feel like you are out of the game, but as the last few years have gone on, you never know how your kids are going to respond," Starr said. "A few years ago, if we had been down at halftime, we would have been lucky to finish the rest of the ballgame. It could have been ugly."

Otis-Bison trailed 32-14 at the end of three quarters Friday before it started a comeback that has stamped the Cougars as the biggest early-season turnaround in Kansas. The Cougars scored 18 unanswered fourth-quarter points and sent the contest to overtime.

"(At halftime), they are kind of hanging their heads," Otis-Bison senior guard Matt Suppes said. "You kind of start worrying about people and then you can see the difference between the first half and the second half. People really changed and they just never quit."

Macksville and Otis-Bison exchanged touchdowns in the first overtime. In the second overtime, Cougar senior quarterback Kevin Wissman found junior end Dominic Trapp on a 5-yard scoring pass. Then, Otis-Bison stopped Macksville, giving the Cougars a 44-38 victory. Otis-Bison, healthy for the first time in years, is sitting at 3-0. It's the team's best start since 2003 when the Cougars went 10-1 under John Vincent, formerly Fort Hays State University's head coach in the 1980s and now Otis-Bison's superintendent.

"I know that if we would have been in that place last year or the year before, people would have left, because we were going to roll over," junior running back Mike Hlavaty said. "This year, it's a big turnaround, and we are not going to let anybody push us around. We are going to come back and get them."

The Cougars' victory moved them into the seventh place in the Eight-Man, Division II state-wide media poll. Of the 57 teams ranked in seven state classifications, Otis-Bison and Lincoln are the only two teams that won fewer than three games in 2008.

Lincoln, in Eight-Man, Division I, finished with a 2-7 mark last fall, same as Otis-Bison.

This year, the Cougars expect a deep postseason run. They host Cunningham (1-2) in The Hays Daily News' Area Game of the Week on Friday at 7 p.m. in Otis.

"We have been on the receiving end of a lot of those 45-point halftime games or continuous clocks a little bit too much," Hlavaty said. "We want to return the favor."

"We end every single practice, every single game with a 'state' breakdown," Wissman said.

The Cougars pace all levels of Kansas football in scoring offense with 186 total points. according to preppowerindex.com. Class 3A Sedgwick ranks second with 168 points. Otis-Bison beat St. John 74-14 before it defeated Claflin 68-38, the Cougars' first victory against Claflin in five games spanning over 14 years.

"We played Claflin, we played Macksville, you knew that you were half-beaten already going in, because we didn't think we could beat them," Starr said. "But now this team has got it where it doesn't matter the name on the jersey at all. We got to play the players instead."

When informed of the state-leading offense, Wissman, Suppes and Hlavaty, who weren't aware of the ranking, all smiled and started fist-pumping on Starr's couch in the coaches' office before Monday's practice.

"It's a good feeling," Suppes said. "Our offensive line's motto this year is we have the best line in the state and we are going to prove it by the points."

Many of the current players started as freshmen, including Suppes, Wissman and Hlavaty. Suppes said this is the first fall the opponents "don't weigh 50 pounds more than us."

"When I started my freshman and sophomore years, you get the ball, you know you are going to get pounded," Hlavaty said. "You know, your O-line, they are going to try, but they are just not good enough."

Starr has constantly dealt with injuries throughout his tenure, too. Junior lineman Robert Kolas, a Hoisington transfer, played fullback as a freshman. On the first play, his knee popped out, forcing him to play two years with heavy braces.

He had knee surgery last off-season and had a pin removed before the first game. Josh Crom, the 235-pound junior right guard, suffered back problems and played in what Starr estimated "just three total games" last fall.

Wissman, a natural athlete who said he "hated football" growing up, has excelled in both sports. He earned all-state basketball honors after he averaged 21 points last winter, but had experienced shoulder problems since he was a freshman. He had shoulder surgery before last season and missed the three games. In Week 4, he played wideout as Otis-Bison dropped to 0-4. In the final five games, Wissman played quarterback, the Cougars finished 2-3 and averaged more than 32 points a game. Wissman, though, didn't play defense until the last few series in Week 9 against Logan, a win that in Starr's eyes, started the turnaround. In Wissman's first three defensive plays, he made three tackles.

"He is just kind of their general out there on the field, so to speak," Starr said. "They really rally around him."

Wissman, healthy this season, has 16 total touchdowns (10 rushing) with 458 yards rushing and 209 passing on 13-of-20 attempts in Otis-Bison's multiple looks, including I-formation and spread. Defensively, he has a team-high 29 total tackles with two sacks and one interception.

Over the years, Wissman has impressed Starr with multiple plays, including a spin move against Rozel-Pawnee Heights in 2006 when he hit a defender, bounced off and spun around. Versus Macksville, he had another impressive spin move en route to 218 rushing yards and seven total touchdowns (five rushing).

"There have been some plays every game that he is like, 'Wow,' " Starr said. "You kind of get used to it. Some amazing plays."

"You might have to tackle that quarterback five times on one play," Cunningham coach Lance McGuire said. "Somebody's got to get him on the ground."

The Cougars had improved confidence when the basketball team, led by Wissman, went under .500 in the regular season before it made a deep playoff run and finished one win from going to state.

In addition, Otis-Bison has seen improved work ethic in the weight room and stronger leadership from the upperclassmen.

Starr had pushed weight room work in the summer, a message that started to see dividends last season. The summer workouts helped bring together a team that includes players from Otis, Bison, Hoisington and Albert, among other towns. Multiple players never missed a summer session.

"People started thinking 'what if, what if' and so they started working harder and harder," Hlavaty said.

The friendship has carried over to the season. On Friday, Wissman missed part of the game with a concussion. He headed to the emergency room after the game and didn't ride the team bus home.

"Guys who were on the team bus were texting me," Wissman said.

"I am sure they were having a fun time after the great win, but they were texting me to see how I was doing. I was seeing how the other guys were doing ... kind of like brothers."

In his first three seasons, Wissman said the team "hadn't had the best leadership in the past few years." This fall, the focus improved when the players ran the offseason practices on Sundays.

"We are trying to get back that Otis-Bison pride," Wissman said. "Guys were injured and they were out there just putting their whole body on the line."

A confident team rolled over St. John, a three-win team from 2008, and defeated Claflin, a former state power which finished 8-3 last season. The Cougars' 142 points after two games led the state. Otis-Bison has often scored simply running it up the middle with an improved offensive line. Hlavaty has 252 yards rushing and 5 TDs on 44 carries, while sophomore running back Patrick Piper has picked up 139 yards and freshman Dylan Wissman, Kevin's younger brother, has 129 yards on 11 carries behind a line that includes Suppes, Kolas, Krom, Trapp and junior end Jackie Cornwell.

"Our running back like Mike, he can drive 10, 20 yards just because we have got a perfect hole from our line and he drives his butt past four defenders," Kevin Wissman said.

"This year, you trust them," Hlavaty said. "You know there is going to be a hole there."

Macksville, though, provided the strongest test yet for Otis-Bison. In the first half, Suppes noticed the team wasn't feeling as relaxed as in the first two wins. Otis-Bison didn't block well and had several mistakes. After intermission, Otis-Bison stopped Macksville and started its comeback.

"Our whole line, we are in good enough shape, we can just keep going and going and never get tired, Suppes said. "I think we just ran them to the ground."

Kevin Wissman labeled the overtime "an awesome atmosphere" with a loud cheering section. Suppes couldn't hear the quarterback in the huddle, even though Wissman was yelling as loud as possible. After the Cougars stopped Macksville -- "just heart and putting the O-B pride up," Wissman said -- the team celebrated on the sideline, a big win to cap an impressive 3-0 start.

"Before the whistle was even blown and the game was over, I was already on the other side of the field jumping up and down in the air as high as I could," Kevin Wissman said. "It was an awesome feeling."