Big plays set the tone last week and Madill was playing from behind from the start against an explosive and veteran Dickson squad in a 68-0 home-opening loss.
The Wildcats will face an even more formidable foe this week when they travel to Top 10 ranked Ardmore for the non-district finale on Friday night.
“It’s hard to say there was a ton of improvement last week as one-sided as the score was,” head coach Wade Couch admitted. “We played well at times but obviously didn’t play well at times and that cost us quickly. Big plays were kind of the story of the night. Dickson has a really good offense and they execute their game plan well. Several times we had them for short or no gain and they broke free for a big run.
“We didn’t play very well in special teams and we were on the negative side of the field most of the night on offense where there wasn’t much to hang our hat on. We just weren’t able to get first downs consistently enough. We are having young and inexperienced mistakes that happen when you have a lot of first year guys playing. As long as these kids stick around and stay committed things will get better. It’s just going to take some time and more reps.”
On the offensive side last week, freshman quarterback Marquis Ibarra was the squad’s leading rusher with 15 carries for 55 yards while running back Steven Moreno added 42 yards on 13 totes.
Defensively, Brylon Gibson continued to lead the charge up front with a teamhigh nine tackles. Rodrigo Crucesaddedsevenstopsand Juan Narvaez chipped in six.
Success may be hard to come by this week against a veteran Ardmore squad that is 2-0 on the season with emphatic wins over Ada and Durant, including yielding only 35 total yards to the Lions last Friday in a 41-0 win.
“Ardmore is huge up front,” Couch said. “They are physical and run to the football defensively. They have exceptional athletes and have had massive, long plays in all three phases of the game (offense, defense, special teams) in the first two games. They are able to score at any time from anywhere.
“They are just a complete team and the best we have played yet. I really think they are better than they were last year. They haven’t had to do anything out of the norm the first two weeks and handled Ada and Durant easily. Our goal is just to improve where we can and be as detail oriented as possible. We need to stack good plays on top of each other and try to build off that.”