The Pilot Point Bearcats football team will hit the road for the second time this season to take on the Lindsay Knights on Friday.
The Bearcats roll into the matchup to face a Knights team coming off a 69-0 blowout over Nocona in Week 1 and a 21-9 win over Alvord in Week 2.
“They’re a good football team,” said Chad Worrell, Pilot Point athletic director and head football coach. “… They’re the best team we’ve played this year by far, and they’re well coached. Coach [Casey] Jones is a former assistant; he was on my staff in Brock for a while, so we’re familiar with each other, and he’s done a really good job over there. We’re going to [need] to have a great week of practice and play our best yet.”
Lindsay’s offense is averaging 45 points per game, powered by their option attack led by quarterback Lane Foster, who tallied 1,725 yards and 26 rushing touchdowns last season.
“We’re going to play assignment football,” Worrell said. “They killed us on counters last year. We’re a lot further along than we were the last time we met, but we’re definitely going to have to read and trust our keys and execute on defense to slow them because we didn’t slow them down much last year.”
In last season’s contest the Knights marched on Massey Stadium and smothered the Bearcats in a decisive 35-0 victory, but with Pilot Point’s offense averaging over 40 points per game, Worrell believes the Bearcats have a chance to even the odds this year.
“We’re just going to have to execute,” he said. “We’d like to be able to throw the ball around more to keep defenses honest and keep people from stacking the line of scrimmage. … [Lindsay] had everybody, probably within six yards of the line of scrimmage and sitting in the box most of the night. When people do that to us, we need to be able to play action them and go vertical in the passing game and make them pay for that.”
Despite the Bearcats’ success to start the season, Worrell said his team has already put the wins behind them and that the Bearcats are locked in on the next challenge.
“We have this 48-hour rule where I tell them to enjoy those wins until Monday, and once we get to the weights on Monday, it’s over, and we’re moving on to the next one,” he said. “We have a next [opponent] up mentality, and we’re focused on the next game. When you win a game, you can’t dwell on it, just like you can’t dwell on it when you lose. You have to put them behind you and move on and focus on the next one, and they did a good job of that last week, and it’s our job as coaches to keep them focused.”
The Bearcats and the Knights will meet on the gridiron at 7 p.m. Friday in Lindsay.
