Springdale Har-Ber held its annual Pigskin Preview on Thursday night and, as of Friday, coach Chris Wood -- beginning his 11th season at the school -- knows the season is now officially on.
Wood thought the Wildcats were a bit rough offensively Thursday, but it wasn't because of the approach to practice during the first week of school. Getting into the school routine, though, is always an adjustment, he said. Now, Har-Ber will begin preparing for its Thursday scrimmage with North Little Rock.
"Technically, we'll treat this like a game week and treat Thursday as a game and prep ourselves for North Little Rock," Wood said. "We've already been working on our week 1; we've been doing that about the last week or so, and we'll continue to do that."
The Wildcats will welcome in Fort Smith Southside in week one in a rematch of last season's 7A state semifinals. Before that though, Wood took some time to reflect on his time in the 7A-West. He is, after all, the longest tentured coach in the league now.
"I'm thankful to have the opportunity to be where I'm at, and it all goes back to being surrounded by really good people," he said. "That's what has allowed me to be here for 11 years."
Wood says a moment that stands out so far is his second year when the Wildcats won conference and played for a state title.
"It all goes back to the kids and the parents and their investment in the program," he said. "We're where we are now because of how we jumpstarted the program on the front end."
ROGERS HERITAGE
War Eagles ready for scrimmage
Rogers Heritage will get the chance to square off against a different opponent on Monday and coach Tony Travis said there's a little excitement after three weeks of practice.
Travis said players have showed a little fatigue with school starting this week, but that's not unusual.
"It's been a good week," Travis said."It's been busy. I think everybody's a little tired just from the new routine. I think it happens everywhere. We're at a point they're a little mentally tired, but I think everybody's a little excited we've got a scrimmage Monday.
"We need to see where we're at as far as execution. The adrenaline will be a little higher. The stakes will be raised a little."
Heritage will travel to Fort Smith Northside to take on the Grizzlies at 7 p.m. on Monday. They will play two varsity quarters, followed by two more quarters for the junior varsity.
The teams will start by running plays with varsity on one end of the field and JV on the other with a 20-minute running clock. The offenses will flip after 10 plays.
Travis said he likes scrimmaging on Monday, rather than waiting until later in the week for a variety of reasons. The players have something to look forward to, instead of another several days of practice and there's time to make corrections.
"We know we're going to have things we need to work on," Travis said. "We can come in and we've got all work to correct before week 1 is actually here."
-- Paul Boyd • @NWAPaulB
FARMINGTON
Cards' offense still searching for answers
Farmington replaces seven starters and deals with a plenty of inexperience on offense as it prepares to begin the season.
The Cardinals went through their third week of fall camp, which included a Red-White scrimmage on Tuesday and coach Mike Adams said while there some bright spots on offense, there's still much work to do.
"It's a continuation of what we've seen," Adams said. "Our defense has come around and we've got some real good leaders over there. But our offense is way too inconsistent.
"First play of scrimmage we got 80 yards and score and the next 10 plays we only get eight yards. So we're just not very consistent right now. We've got some playmakers. We've got some threats, but we've got to do a better job all across the board offensively."
Junior Trey Waggle (6-foot, 170 pounds) has emerged as the starting quarterback for the Cardinals. Waggle was in competition with senior Jake Oskey (5-10, 165) for the starting job, but Oskey is being counted on as a top contributor at linebacker.
"Trey's the guy working with the number one's and Jake will play some quarterback," Adams said. "But Jake's the guy we've really rallied around on defense."
Offensive line development will be a big key in Farmington's success this season. The Cardinals replace four starters up front, but can lean on senior Tanner Barnes (6-1, 220) to bring the other guys along.
"(Tanner) is the guy we're building around," Adams said. "Sam Stephens is one of our guards. Cody Parrish is working at center. Jared Braslavsley, a sophomore, is in there a lot. And Zach Newman is our significant injury with a stress fracture. So we've moved Derek Perona from full back to guard and hopefully that group will have a chance over the week to gel and get that consistency we're looking for."
Farmington visits Gravette for a preseason scrimmage at 6 p.m. Tuesday.
-- Vernon Tarver • @NWAVernon
BENTONVILLE HIGH
Tigers turn attention to Hawklets
It's never too early for a football team to start making plans for their season-opening opponent.
Bentonville did just last week. The Tigers will open the season Sept. 2 against a Kansas City (Mo.) Rockhurst team that opened its season this weekend and will play again next week before it journeys to Tiger Stadium.
"We took two days to focus on prepping on Rockhurst," coach Jody Grant said. "Rockhurst already played its first game, so we wanted to get a little jump start on them. We used those two days for Rockhurst prep and used two days to focus on ourselves and worked on getting better.
"We felt like we balanced the week out a little bit. We worked on us, worked on week 1 opponent and closed out with working on special teams."
Grant said he can see the team's depth starting to settle in as Bentonville gets on a more normal routine with school now in session. Depth could become a issue, especially if the Tigers must utilize a number of players on both sides of the football at times.
There still remains some player evaluation to be done heading into Thursday's jamboree at Springdale Har-Ber and the season opener. Grant said there are some sophomores that are catching coaches' attention and may earn some varsity playing time.
"I think of players like Harrison Campbell and Landon Beeler offensively," Grant said. "Both of them are doing some things. Brendan Wrona has been a great asset for us and we've used him in our '21' personnel as a fullback.
"Defensively, Donte Jones has elevated himself into the role as a backup safety, and that's hard to do as a sophomore. He's getting better each week, and there are some others that I'm leaving out. We're pleased with the growth and development of a lot of our guys right now."
-- Henry Apple • @NWAHenry
Sports on 08/21/2016