DIXON – Every time Dixon touched the ball on offense Friday night, the drive ended in the end zone.

In their home opener, the Dukes bounced back in a big way from last week’s loss, scoring on all 10 possessions in a 70-0 Big Northern Conference victory over Rock Falls at A.C. Bowers Field.

We had something to prove,” running back Landon Knigge said. “We had to do something really good offensively and defensively. We were so psyched, so ready to go play football, and we just needed to get out there, get back in our own headspace and be a winning team again.”

Knigge was unstoppable, finishing with 157 yards and five touchdowns on nine carries – an average of 17.4 yards per carry. Six of his carries went for double-digit yards, and he also caught a 16-yard swing pass on Dixon’s opening drive.

“We knew that their lines on both sides of the ball were very aggressive and have great size, then their quarterback is shifty and No. 4 [Knigge] has some speed and next-level leg churn,” Rock Falls coach Dave Chavira said. “It was a playoff-type atmosphere, and that’s an area that we’re still trying to take steps toward.”

Quarterback Jagger Kemp added 171 total yards, finishing 7-for-10 passing for 112 yards and three TDs to go with four rushes for 59 yards. He connected with Jake Zepezauer on a 28-yard scoring strike, then hit Tuk Tarner and Owen McNitt for short TD passes on triple-option reads.

The Dukes (2-1, 2-1 BNC) amassed 470 yards of total offense on 52 plays – an average of nine yards per play – and had eight different rushers and seven different receivers contribute.

“Obviously, it was run first, let LJ [Knigge] do his thing, and then pass when it’s there,” Kemp said. “It felt great to get out there and go. We had a little bit of an itch, so we wanted to come out here, start fast, do our job and get the win.”

Dixon’s drives consisted of five plays, three plays, five plays, three plays, and one play (following a Rock Falls fumble). Knigge had TD runs of 8, 30, 7, 45, and 14 to cap those first five possessions, and the Dukes led 36-0 just 9:43 into the game.

“The O-line was great tonight, and I think the outside zone of the ball where we run those stretch plays, those guys were blocking hard too,” Knigge said. “The O-line, I give them 100% of this, honestly. They were rolling the whole game.”

The final three drives of the first half lasted two plays, five plays and four plays, and ended with Kemp TD passes of 28 yards (to Zepezauer), 1 yard (to Tarner) and 2 yards (to McNitt) for a 57-0 lead at halftime.

With the running clock, Dixon added touchdown runs on its two second-half possessions – one by Neyo Holloway from 26 yards – doing his best Knigge impression by breaking several tackles along the way – and the other from 12 yards by third-string QB Jimi Gosinski.

The Dukes’ defense also dominated. They held Rock Falls (0-3, 0-3 BNC) to 24 total yards on 28 plays – including just 19 yards on 21 rushes – and forced three turnovers. Phillip Griffith Jr. had 14 yards on six carries, and Zachary Walker added seven yards on seven carries.

“We like to be fast and physical on defense, and our No. 1 rule is don’t let anyone run on us. That’s what we did tonight,” said Braxton Bruce, who forced one of the fumbles. “We like to fire out and start hot on defense. The D-line is tough and they like to create a lot of problems, and our DBs and linebackers just do the rest. We played on their side of the line of scrimmage all night.”

In its first three games, the Rockets have faced the top-ranked team in Class 3A (Byron) and the No. 11 team in Class 4A (Dixon), and Chavira hopes that seeing such tough competition so early in the season will help as his team moves forward.

“We’re a team that’s very thin, and we can’t afford to be down guys – and right away, we were down three of our starters, and that just kind of avalanches when you don’t have some of your leaders out there. I think some of the kids felt that,” Chavira said. “It’s just back to the drawing board. We worked so much on tackling the last two weeks, and we’ve just got to keep with it. All we will do is go watch film tomorrow and try to learn from it.”