Barrett Wheeler's breakout season drives Perryville's football success

The trajectory of junior running back Barrett Wheeler and the Perryville offense overall has been one of the same.

Last year, he rushed for only 500 yards and seven touchdowns during a year the Pirates averaged 23.1 points per game and went 4-6. Those numbers were in no way worthy of being included in All-Conference or All-District lists.

And he took that personally.

"Whenever I found out I was an All-Conference or All-District last year, I was upset, and I decided from there it was on me to put myself in the best position possible," Wheeler said. "so that wouldn't even be a question in the future."

Wheeler entered the regular season finale at Cuba needing 22 more rushing yards and three touchdowns to reach the 1,000-yard, and 20-touchdown mark on the season. In correlation, the Pirates are 7-1 while averaging 38.5 points per game.

Some of the Perryville football records have been lost in time and thus marked 2016 as the beginning of the modern era as a program. Since 2016, Wheeler has established himself as the leader in rushing yards and touchdowns.

“I think there's probably three parts of that,” Perryville head coach Brent Roth said. “I think No. 1 would be the offensive line has been playing a lot better. It doesn't matter how good a running back you are, not to take anything away from Barrett. If you don't have people up front blocking for you, it's going to be a tough time.

“No. 2 has been Barrett's attitude,” Roth added. “He's been a great teammate. He's been great to coach, a smart kid and we've been working well together. And then I think the third thing is also he's kind of changed the way he runs. He's not bouncing things outside. He's being patient, sticking his nose up in there, getting the yards that the O-line gets him, and then he keeps his feet churning for extra yards as well. So a combination of those things, and he's had a great year, and we're gonna keep him going.”

Trust has been the key to the success of both Wheeler and the Pirates overall.

"If we're in the goal line, both teams know we're getting the ball and we're more physical, and we just punched it in there," Wheeler said. "My mindset is just to go out and put my shoulder down and run over whoever comes towards me."

Roth has stated before his primary concern with his players is to keep them healthy come playoff time. In the case of running back, one can't rack up stats without a lot of opportunities to carry the ball and thus a lot of opportunities to get tackled by a mob of defenders.

"That's not an easy thing for anybody to get into to like 35 car wrecks in a three-hour span, which is basically what he's doing running up the middle like that," Roth said. "So we've been trying to take a few carries off of them getting [Brett Bohnert] in there a little bit, which I know Barrett doesn't like it. He wants the ball but again, our end goal is to have him healthy and ready for the playoffs."

This is a team that has made little changes from last year's lineup both on offense and defense, and it has shown in the Pirates scoring at least 40 points in four of the last five games and allowing on average 18 points per game.

Kayd Luckey, with the second-fewest passing attempts among Southeast Missouri-based quarterbacks, has thrown for 955 yards, 611 of which went to receiver Chase Richardet. Luckey's 13 touchdowns are tied with Cape Central's Deklin Pittman, another efficient passer, for the second-most scores among area quarterbacks.

Still, in times when the offense needs a push, they ride Wheeler through the heart of the opposing defense.

"We are able to ride him at times when nothing else is working," Roth said. "We kind of hand it off to him and he just gets those yards that we need. So we want to make sure he's healthy, and ready to go when we when we hit Week 10."

Even with a win over Cuba, the Pirates are effectively locked in as the No. 2 seed in the Class 4 District 1 standings. That comes with a pair of home games leading up to the championship game.

It's a new era in Perryville, and as long as they give the ball to the bear, the Pirates have a chance.