"I had confidence in our line the whole time," Simmons said. "We just had to get the line to have confidence in (themselves)."

It was Simmons that gave the line confidence.

Behind his 235 rushing yards and a bend-but-don't-break defense, the Purple Raiders won their ninth consecutive season opener, 54-24, over Danville at Fred Carlton Field Friday night.

"You know everybody thought that our line was a big weakness," Simmons said, "but they stepped up and that made me better."

Better may be an understatement.

Simmons' two touchdowns were scored on runs of 40 and 75 yards. The 5-foot-9 senior averaged 15.7 yards a carry and had five runs of 10-or-more yards.

"The line stepped up," Simmons said.

That wasn't apparent after the first quarter.

The Vikings (0-1 overall and in the Big 12) opened with a wide-open attack that left BHS baffled. Using a mix a inside handoffs and precision passing, Danville grabbed a 12-7 lead and gained 144 yards of total offense after 12 minutes.

"The difficulty of facing a Danville team (is) we're not certain of exactly what they're gonna run," BHS coach Rigo Schmelzer said. "I don't think our linebackers did a good job as far as getting to the running back. They just sat or they didn't fill. They looked like they were moving the ball pretty well against us at the start."

But not the finish.

BHS (1-0, 1-0) scored 47 of the next 53 points to put the game away. In the final three quarters, the Raiders forced three turnovers and allowed Danville to average just three plays-per-drive.

"We have a good base going," Schmelzer said.

The Raiders' two quarterbacks, senior Brent Holtz and junior Stephen Esch, combined to go 8-of-10 for 110 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions. Both touchdowns were to tight end Ryan Kernes.

"It was a great job by the quarterbacks," said Kernes, who caught four passes for 82 yards. "I've been playing with (Holtz) a lot longer. I say I feel a little more comfortable with him, but I've been catching the ball from Esch the whole summer. It's not a big difference."

Despite the victory, Schmelzer knows his team still has some deficiencies that need attention.

"It's a start. I think we have a lot of things we need to work on to be a good team to take advantage of strengths," said Schmelzer, whose team faces Normal Community next Friday at 7 p.m. at Hancock Stadium. "I think that's going to take us seven or eight games to get this. We have a good base going.

"We got the first one and we take them one at a time. This is a good start."