Red Level coach Tony Ingram said Tuesday that his Tigers will be better prepared for New Brockton this Friday night in his team’s first region contest of the season.

Last week, the Tigers fell to Brantley 38-6 in their season opener, and Ingram said it was due to “poor preparation.”

“It was poor preparation on my part,” he said. “You’ve got to be prepared for every scenario. We weren’t prepared on offense or defense or special teams. We were down two quarterbacks.”

Ingram said Preston Ryce’s status is “day-to-day” after injuring his hamstring during the preseason game against Pleasant Home.

Up until game time last week, Ingram said he was trying to decide whether to put Ryce in the game.

“He wanted to go Friday night,” Ingram said. “Literally, it came to a game time decision. We weren’t going to risk it. As bad as we wanted to win, the region starts this week.”

The Tigers will face a New Brockton team who held a 12-0 lead over Providence Christian, but eventually fell 20-12.

“I watched them on film, and they’re impressive and huge,” Ingram said about the Gamecocks. “They’re big all over, and their quarterback is very scary.”

Ingram said at practice this week, the focus has been on New Brockton. In addition, the team has also been focused on themselves working on “blocking and tackling”, something his team lacked last week, he said.

“We’re more focued on us this week,” he said. “Correcting mistakes, and going back to simplifying things in blocking and tackling.

“We didn’t do either one,” he said. “It looked like we were playing flag football, and Brantley had a lot to do with that. We weren’t very sharp.”

Ingram said practice Monday went well with the team watching film and figuring out what they’ll do against New Brockton.

“We’re simplifying and going back to the basic stuff, and making sure we know every assignent on every play defensively and offensively.”

Kickoff is at 7 p.m. at Bobby Dye Field in Red Level.

Before kickoff at 6:30, the 1957 Red Level Tigers Class A state championship team will be honored in a ceremony. The team went 9-0-1.