“That’s what I was talking to them about at the end of practice today,” TC Central head coach DeShon Burney said. “We are playing a team that’s tied for first in our region. They haven’t lost a region game; the only game they lost was against Horseshoe Bend the first game of the year.
“For us to get back in the region race and eventually host a playoff game and try to win the region, this game is very critical. Right now our back is against the wall for that. All our season goals are still in reach; we just have to take care of this one game and get back into the win column.”
The Fighting Tigers (2-1,1-1) spent much of their time on the practice field correcting the things that went wrong in their 22-0 loss to Winterboro last Friday. Burney is pleased with what he has seen from his guys this week.
“We have had a good week in practice,” Burney said. “We had to tighten the screws a little bit, shore up some things that we are weak at. It has been a pretty good week; the kids have been bumping around a little bit.
“They are still upset the way things went down last Friday night against Winterboro, but we have been able to get that behind us and get ready for a good Wadley football team.”
Wadley (2-1, 2-0) enters Friday’s game with momentum as they picked up a 40-0 win over Fayetteville last week. Burney believes his team will have their hands full on Friday night when the Tigers line up against Wadley.
“I know that they are very big and physical,” Burney said. “They are pretty multiple on offense with the number of sets they are running. They have a huge fullback that runs hard between the tackles. They try to do a lot of similar things that we try to do and get people out of the box.
“The quarterback they had last year transferred to Woodland, but the guy they replaced him with is handling the offense pretty well and he has gotten better each game that I have seen him in. We will have our hands full on the defensive end.”
Last Friday night was the first time the Fighting Tigers have been shut out since Oct. 20, 2006 against Donoho. Burney believes the turnovers that the Fighting Tigers committed last week played a huge role in their lack of offensive production.
“We were shooting ourselves in the foot,” Burney said. “I mean, take nothing away from Winterboro, but it had to do with a lot of what we did with our struggles. When you have six or seven turnovers in the ball game and our average starting position the first two times we got the ball was the three (yard line). You throw in the fact that we are sputtering on offensive side, penalties are involved, and turnovers and you are deep in your own territory. You don’t play on the other half of the 50 (yard line) almost all night and that is what led to the goose egg.”
The struggles that the Fighting Tigers had on offense last week is one of the things that the Fighting Tigers corrected this week in practice.
“We worked hard this week to get those problems corrected,” Burney said. “I think we found a answer to it and we will see Friday night.”
Burney believes for the Fighting Tigers to leave Wadley with a critical region win they cannot turn the ball over or give up the big play.
“No turnovers; we cannot turn the ball over the way we did last Friday night,” Burney said. “I thought last Friday that we played well on defense - they broke off a 61-yard run on us and they hit the long pass play but if you take those two things away we played well. So what we have to do is not give up the big play and we can’t have turnovers.”
Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. from Wadley.
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