Preseason judgement
Published 12:04 am Thursday, August 23, 2012
Opp head football coach Jack Whigham said he wants to see a good “effort” from his players Friday night as the Bobcats pay a visit to Midland City to play Dale County in their preseason jamboree.
The Bobcats enter the contest after a long summer of work outs and hot afternoon practices, where teams focus on conditioning their players.
Whigham said as of right now, he is not pleased with how well his team has “conditioned” for the game.
“We’re looking forward to it,” he said about the game. “We’re nowhere near ready to play. It will give us a good gauge at where we are.
“With the weather being a problem as hit has been, we’ve been very inconsistent at practice and I don’t think our conditioning is where it needs to be,” he said. “Defensively, I think we’ll be fine. We have done a nice job with that in the fall. Offensively, there will be a lot of new guys playing.”
The last time OHS met DCHS on the field was Oct. 7, 2011, where the Bobcats demolished the Warriors 42-12.
Since the Warriors only have 35 players on their team, Whigham said, many of their older and younger players will play together at the same time Friday.
Game format is the younger kids play the entire first quarter and the first four minutes of the second. Then, the older players will pick up and play the rest of the way.
Whigham said he wants to see a lot of “effort” from his kids.
“Then, I want to see these new guys who haven’t been on the field on Friday nights and see how they react,” he said, “and what kind of technique they have, that’s the main thing. I want to see our desire and the game speed.”
Whigham said one advantage of having a preseason game is that it gives teams the opportunity to iron out the kinks such as those on the kicking game and getting substitution rotations down.
“They’re tired of practicing,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to do and we have a lot still to put in. I think we’ll be ready as far as we can be.”
Kick off Friday night is at 7.