Red Level will have a tough game this week as the Tigers travel to face region opponent Millry on Friday night.

Last week, the Tigers lost to Excel, 42-14 on their home turf. Millry defeated Bayside Academy in the first week, 14-8; lost to Leroy in the second week, 10-7; and defeated Mobile Christian last week, 63-13.

Red Level coach Tony Ingram said Millry should be undefeated at this point because of their athletes.

“They are, by far, the best team we’ll see this year,” he said. “They have athletes everywhere.

“They have a large returning class and we knew last year that they were going to be loaded again.”

Ingram said in the loss to Excel last week that his team gave up too many yards.

“They had 592 yards of rushing and that’s a lot of sustained drives where we couldn’t get the ball,” he said. “But, we had a little success when we got the ball — we just didn’t have it that much. It goes back to a lot of kids playing out of position and a lot of injuries. “That sounds like excuses,” he said. “At our level, when you lose a couple of players, you start scrambling just to fill the hole.”

In order to win this week, Red Level will have to cut down on its mistakes.

“I’ve told the seniors that this is it and here we are, four weeks into the season,” Ingram said. “We’ve regressed instead of progressed and for us to win, we can’t make any mistakes. We’ve got to lock up when we hit.

“We have kids that can hit, but technique-wise we’re not staying up on our blocks,” he said. “We had one turnover last week and that was good in that respect.”

Ingram said Millry will throw a lot of different offensive formations at his team this week and they’ll be ready.

“Defensively, we’ve got to move and adjust to their formations,” he said. “Offensively, we have to scale back some more. We’ve got to cut down on our formations (on offense) and focus on three or four plays in our set and running them right.”

The Tigers (1-2, 0-2 in Class 2A, Region 1) will be relying on senior Desmond Jones, who on defense last week had 18 tackles, with nine of those solos.

Ingram said no matter what, his team is “not giving up.”

“If we’re going down, we’re going to go down swinging,” Ingram said. “That’s all I want to see — four quarters of effort. If we do that and come out on the short side of things, I’ll have a good weekend.

“If we come out like the last two Friday nights and don’t give the effort I’m looking for, then I’ll have a miserable weekend and they will, too.”

Kickoff in Millry is at 7 p.m.