By Whitman McGee
The Crimson Tide are finally back home after a disappointing road trip that resulted in back-to-back losses.
Slow starts have been the killer for Minden, as in each of their last three games the Tide have found themselves down 0-14 in the first quarter.
“We’ve been behind the 8-ball from the get-go in the last 3 games,” Coach Spencer Heard said. “We just have to start faster and have our minds right.”
Heard mentioned while there isn’t anything specific that can be done to fix this problem, taking care of the ball and refraining from giving up cheap scores could help the Tide avoid trailing early.
North Desoto comes into Friday night’s matchup with a 1-4 record, fresh off of a Covid 19-related forfeit win to Pickering.
Records can be deceiving, however, as the Griffins schedule has been far from kind. Their opponents (excluding Pickering) boast a combined record of 17 wins, 3 losses.
Coach Heard elaborated on this, saying, “Their record isn’t indicative of the type of team they are, they’re a better team than their record, which I believe we are too.”
Minden leads the overall series over the Griffins (9-5), with the last two matchups ending in the Tide’s favor.
When asked for his scouting report on North Desoto, Coach Heard told the Journal, “The last few games they’ve had a different QB playing (Junior Sam Odom) and he’s done well. They’ve got a couple of speed guys on offense that they’ll try to get the ball to, and one big running back that also plays on the D-Line.” Heard added, “I think the strength of the defense is their D-Line; they get off of the ball good and play the run very well.”
It’s sure to be an interesting matchup as Minden’s greatest strength is their run game, tallying up a total of 980 rushing yards. Almost half of those yards come from the legs of Daylen Robinson as the junior has 510 yards on the ground so far this season.
In other news for the Tide, QB Andrew Cooper and LB/RB Kentravion Lister were both selected as participants in the I-20 Bowl All-Star game this week. Coach Heard was proud of the seniors, saying, “They are both guy’s who’ve started two or three years for us. In Lister’s case maybe four, it seems like he’s started forever.” Heard chuckled. “I’m proud of them and I think it will be something they will enjoy and remember being apart of.”
If you can’t make it out to “The Pit” on Friday night, you can tune in to 104.5 KBEF for radio coverage of the game.
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