Sallisaw gets early test of new system on the road

Sallisaw hits the road today for the Week 0 non-district game against Class 3A Stigler at 7 p.m.

The Panthers beat the Black Diamonds, 26-19, last year at home. Stigler went 8-3 last season, finishing the season with four shutouts in 2022.

First-year Black Diamonds head coach Mark Hutson is looking for early successes this season, wanting to make a good showing against the Panthers to boost Sallisaw‚s confidence, after last year‚s 1-9 record.

“Parker Jackson is doing well in practice and is settling into his new role as the team quarterback and one of the team captains this year,” Hutson says.

“In the Grove scrimmage, everyone played in the ninth, 10th, 11th and 12th grades, and we got to see them be very physical out there.”

The other newly elected Sallisaw team captains – Ce‚Alm Kilpatrick and Caleb Cowan – have their work cut out for them. Heading to Stigler, they must lead this fresh team onto the gridiron for the first real game of the season.

During the 2022 season, the three permanent team captains are accompanied weekly by a rotating fourth captain that‚s chosen on merit. This week, the honor goes to wide receiver Charlie Martin.

Getting a road game isn‚t ideal, but playing a team that has made it to the playoffs seven years in a row means that the Black Diamonds need to step up and apply the new system that the coaches have been burning into their memory banks.

The seniors are wanting to show what they‚ve been learning, but it might take a few games for everything to click.

Hutson, speaking to the Sallisaw Chamber of Commerce this week, said, “Offensively, we‚ll have one back in the backfield, three wide receivers and a tight end. We may have four wide receivers, one back. We may have three tight ends and one back. Whatever it takes to win, and to be successful and to give our guys a chance to do that.”

“Defensively, we‚ll play a couple of fronts. Special teams are difficult, but we‚ll work hard to be as good as we can in that area.”

The Sallisaw offense has a lot of speed that it can use to air it out with a spread offense, or the Black Diamonds could keep the ball on the ground, chewing up the yards with each carry from the backfield. Hopefully it lands somewhere in the middle, with the Black Diamonds making the most of the offensive tools at their disposal.

Either way Sallisaw‚s offense is going to have to find a way through a Stigler defense that returns nine players from a team that allowed, on average, less than 15 points per game. Stigler‚s defense played seven games where the Panthers gave up just six points or less, with their top three defenders turning in 255 tackles and 13 sacks among them.

No matter how you slice it, this is going to be a tough early test for this team, and fans are eager to see what the team‚s been working on, hoping that it comes together quickly for the Black Diamonds.