THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Sept. 17, 2014

The Coeur d'Alene High football team has made a habit of playing the best teams it can find, anytime, anywhere in recent years.

For the first time in a while, with the Greater Spokane League opening its schedule to allow for a few nonleague games against the Inland Empire League, that gave the Vikings a long-awaited chance to play Ferris High of Spokane.

BETWEEN THE 75-yard pass from Austin Lee to Colby Daniels to set up Lee's 1-yard touchdown run and an 11-yard pass from Lee to Griphen Le to take a 31-0 lead in the fourth quarter, Coeur d'Alene played like it was a championship game.

"We've played good football teams all year, and once again, our kids responded," Coeur d'Alene coach Shawn Amos said. "I'm pretty happy with that and hopefully we'll improve next week."

Coeur d'Alene overcame four turnovers in the 31-8 win, but more than made up for it in the passing game with 352 yards - 254 coming in the first half.

"The most impressive thing that our receivers did was block," Amos said. "They were picking guys up and making plays. We've got six or seven receivers that can all play."

More impressively, they did it with junior wide receiver Jonny Plum and senior wideout Ryan Walde playing sparingly in the game due to injuries. That left Daniels (128 yards receiving) and Cole Williams (59 yards) to see more time.

"When we get healthy, we're going to have a lot of options," Amos said.

SCHEDULED FOR an 8 p.m. kickoff, the game didn't get going until 9:01 after the previous game between Moses Lake and Lewis and Clark went into overtime.

Also delaying the kickoff, the game was shown on regional television.

"We didn't do anything beyond normal adjustments to a shorter pregame," said Amos of the late start. "Our approach is to not make a big deal about anything that is out of the 'normal' routine. We really do not even talk about it beyond telling the players what the pregame schedule is."

While Moses Lake and Lewis and Clark played the overtime session at the other end of the field, Coeur d'Alene - which travels to Moses Lake on Friday - hung around the field, while Ferris returned to the locker room.

"We just decided it was not worth climbing back up the hill and sitting in a crowded locker room," said Amos, who also kept his team on the sideline after they flipped the coin with seven minutes remaining before kickoff. "We thought the game was going to start right then, but they added more time to the clock. So once again, we just decided it was not worth the trip to the locker room."

Ferris got on the board late in the fourth quarter in the 31-8 loss.

"Our defense played outstanding," Amos said. "We felt like we left a lot on the table by putting the ball on the ground 10 times. We need to clean that up ASAP. We have a chance to be a pretty good team when we get healthy and put it all together."

After watching the other night, it doesn't seem like they're too far from that.

Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d'Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter at JEPressSports.