For an already undermanned Madill football team, a rash of lingering injuries and illness forced school officials to cancel the Wildcats’ district football opener with Tecumseh.
Hoping for more availability this week, head coach Wade Couch is optimistic the Wildcats can suit out closer to the current 34-player roster for this week’s home contest against Class 4A top-ranked Tuttle.
Couch knows that the Wildcats will still be without six of those players due to injury, including a couple with concussions, but believes they could have 28 in uniform come Friday night. Last Wednesday they only had roughly one-third of that available for practice, which included very few skill position players.
“Things just didn’t materialize like we had wanted last week with all the injuries coupled with illness going around,” the Madill head coachstated.“Wedrewupthe depth chart on Wednesday andwehadamassivenumber of guys from the same position group out. It was kind of like a perfect storm and made for the really difficult decision to cancel the game.
“I felt terrible that we didn’t have some type of alternative plan in place, but nobody anticipated not having enough kids available to practice, much less having enough to play. I was disappointed because we felt like we would be able to match up with Tecumseh competitively. We are hoping for good things this week, it’s just kind of a week to week struggle with the numbers we have.”
Couch and administrators worked extensively through the end of last week and into the weekend for a plan they feel will allow the Wildcats to hopefully be able to play the remaining six games as scheduled.
That however begins with the top-ranked Tuttle on Friday night. All the Tigers have done is go 4-0 thus far while outscoring their opposition by a combined 180-20. That includes three Class 5A non-district foes as well as Ardmoreinlastweek’sleague opener by a 51-0 count.
“We have a good plan moving forward and are confident we aren’t going to have to cancel anything else personnel wise but will have to continue to play it by ear,” Couch said. “We still have a few out with concussions and other major injuries but hope to have the others back by the end of this week.
“Losing that Tecumseh game hurt because I thought we had a chance to match up fairly well. Tuttle this week is a state title contender for a reason. I’ve told the guys that you’ve got to believe you have a shot. We can only control what we do though and focus on us. The scoreboard is not going to dictate success against Tuttle on Friday. How we prepare is the main key from Monday through Thursday. That’s the difficult thing the kids learned last week. And I think all of us will be glad to be back out on the field on Friday night.”