Heartbreak Again, as Johns Burroughs Falls In Football State Championship Game For Third Straight Year

Ezekiel Elliott caps his sensational career with 419 all-purpose yards and three more touchdowns, but it wasn’t enough Maryville rushed for 436 yards as a team.

ST. LOUIS -- Try as he might, even the best player in the state couldn’t do it by himself. That’s the feeling fans and observers left the Edward Jones Dome with Friday afternoon, after John Burroughs running back/receiver/kick returner/defensive back Ezekiel Elliott turned in the single greatest individual yardage performance in Missouri football state championship game history, but still had to walk off the field in tears, following his team’s 35-22 loss to Maryville in the 2012 MSHSAA Class 3 Show-Me Bowl game.  “It just hurts so much,” Elliott said, after amassing an incredible 419 all-purpose yards and scoring three touchdowns for the Bombers. “I really don’t know how else to put it. We put in so much work, and to get here and fall …

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James Baer

6:55 am on Saturday, November 24, 2012

Keep your heads up guys. Name all the other teams who reached the Show-Me Bowl title game 3 years running. Thanks for more great memories.   more ›

Burroughs' Ezekiel Elliott Unanimous Choice For Fall Male MVP of the Year Honor

Senior touchdown machine will lead Bombers in third straight state championship game appearance on Friday, before heading to Ohio State next year.

Update: Zeke Elliott will depart Sunday for the U.S. Army All Star football game in San Antonio Tx. On the eve of the biggest, and final, game of his remarkable high school career, John Burroughs senior football star Ezekiel Elliott has just a few hours left to lament the two goals he set for himself going into this season. "Zeke," as he's called by friends, family, and teammates, desperately wants to break the the St. Louis area single-season touchdown record, which currently stands at 54. "I just want that record," said Elliott, who has 47 touchdowns this season, after scoring three times in the JBS' 28-6 win over Monett (MO) in the state semifinals last Saturday. "I still think I can get it." But what Elliott and all his Bomber …

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Back To The Dome! Burroughs Overpowers Monett, Will Advance To State Championship Game For Third Straight Year

Three late touchdowns lifts Bombers to 28-6 win in hard-fought state semifinal matchup against Monett.

Since the moment the final horn sounded in last year’s heartbreaking Show-Me Bowl loss to Logan-Rogersville, the John Burroughs football team has been focused on getting back to the Edward Jones Dome, to redeem themselves by finally winning the state championship they’ve dreamed of since they were little boys. And thanks to a brilliant, shut-’em-down performance by the defense, and another all-world effort by running back Ezekiel Elliott, the Bombers are going back to the state championship game for the third straight year, following a hard-fought 28-6 victory over host Monett High on Saturday. Monett boasts one of the best defenses in the state. So good in fact, they’ve been dubbed “The Purple Haze” by fans and opponents. And for most of …

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One Step Away From Going Back To State, Burroughs Football Heads Down To Monett For Semifinal Saturday

Undefeated Bombers will square off against 10-3 Monett and its vaunted 'Purple Haze' defense.

The first half of last Saturday's MSHSAA Class 3 quarterfinal football game was about as frustrated as anyone has seen John Burroughs head coach Gus Frerotte during his short time as leader of the Bombers. Burroughs wasn't exactly playing badly, but there were having trouble stopping the Park Hills Central offense from holding the ball and controlling the clock. "It was frustrating, just really frustrating," Frerotte said last Saturday. "And it wasn't so much their offense. We knew they wanted to run the ball, run the ball, run the ball. Then, run the ball, run the ball, run the ball some more. I was upset that we had a chance to complete some passes and we didn't do it." The second half was a different story, as the Bombers took their …

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Burroughs Football Looking To Settle Unfinished Business In State Playoffs

Bombers are seeking third straight trip to the Show-Me Bowl, after suffering back-to-back, heartbreaking losses in the state title game the last two years.

The battle cry for the 2012 John Burroughs football season is two simple words that somehow tell the gut-wrenching story of Bombers football the last three years. Unfinished business. That's what John Burroughs has with themselves. That's what it has with the rest of the state. That's even what it has with the Edward Jones Dome building itself -- the site of the Bombers heartache in the state title game the last two years. John Burroughs has unfinished business, and its mission all season long is to finally finish it.  "The whole team knows it," star running back Ezekiel Elliott said, after scoring six touchdowns in Burroughs' 50-6 district championship win over Soldan last Monday, which gives him an area-best 41 scores this season. "We've…

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Yes or No: $700M on St. Louis Rams' Dome Upgrades?

The St. Louis Rams have outlined a renovation plan for the Edward Jones Dome that is estimated to cost $700 million.

The Rams want us to buy them a new house. Just fixing up its current home—the Edward Jones Dome—won't do. Instead, the St. Louis football franchise expects an extreme makeover, to the tune of $700 million, as it is estimated by a company hired by the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission (CVC) to analyze the team's counter proposal to a the CVC's own plan to upgrade the Edward Jones Dome with a $124 million facelift. If someone doesn't cough up the $700 mil to redo the Dome, it is feared the team will take its football and go home to Los Angeles, where it came from before it was the St. Louis franchise. All of this wrangling was set in motion in 1995 when the team negotiated a 30-year lease with the CVC. It was stipulated that the …

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george theodorakos

11:22 am on Thursday, May 24, 2012

let them move to LA...Georgia made a small fortune immediately...about $70 million on PSL's before the first game was even played.....let Kroenke take them back to LA and get the PSL revunue from the good people in LA..plus they can build the dome stadium and the top tier for him.....enough is enough when it comes to professional sports.....i hope they price themselves right out of the market...   more ›

The Baer Facts

Rams, Let Me Help You Load The Moving Vans

I think the St. Louis Rams have blackmailed the City of St. Louis enough already.

A letter to the editor in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch definitely caught my eye. This letter stuck it into the eye of ownership of the St. Louis Rams. The author stated if the Rams are going to demand that St. Louis provides a top tier stadium, then the Rams ought to sign an agreement to provide St. Louis with a top tier football team by 2015. Like fellow fans, I have grown weary of the Rams putting a substandard football team on the field. It seems like ages ago that they brought to town a Super Bowl championship. Back to LA-LA land? This team is no better off (and perhaps substandard) than the Bill Bidwell teams of the 1980s. They draft no better prospects than when George Boone was making a mess of things with the St. Louis Cardinals. …

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Bombers Look for Redemption Against Logan-Rogersville in Class 3 Title Game

Burroughs carries next hope for a St. Louis title in 2011.

The Baer Facts

Epic Coaching Efforts by Gus Frerotte, Burroughs and Josh Smith, MICDS

Making football a winning proposition, goal No. 1 for these two sparkling mentors.

  Coaching any sport is definitely no bed of roses. Coaching football can be downright taxing. There are long hours, and not a lot of extra pay. There are many constituencies to please. Coaches need to be in the good graces of their players; fellow coaches, school administrators, alumni and fans. Everyone wants to take their pot-shots from time to time. You can hear the critics in the stands almost all the time. Earlier this year, I used the pulpit of Baer Facts to tell you that if I currently had a son playing high school football, I’d want it to be with Gus Frerotte, John Burroughs; Josh Smith of MICDS or Mike Tarpey at Ladue. Nothing has changed my mind on that. Two of the aforementioned have guided their teen stars into the 2011 …

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