Central hosts hungry Heavener in opener

Central hosts Class 2A Heavener in the Tigers‚ Week 1 non-district home opener versus the Wolves at 7 p.m. Friday.

Week 0 was Central‚s bye week this year, so Tigers head coach Jeremy Thompson and his staff were able to take advantage of the Friday off to add another practice scrimmage to the schedule.

The extra scrimmage gave Central its last opportunity to hone the offense‚s skill positions and work the passing routes a little more, while giving the defense more time to learn new defensive schemes so the linebackers and secondary understand their roles and know the assignments.

“In the past two weeks at both scrimmages, I‚m very pleased defensively with where we‚re at,” Thompson says in anticipation of the season opener. “Offensively, we‚ve gotten better each week, and I feel like we‚re doing a lot of good things on both sides of the football.”

“I think that Week 1 you want to be as sound as you can possibly be, and scrimaging last week I really think helped us get prepared to go into this week.”

As a team known to throw the football, the skill players are going to be a big part of the offense where timing and experience are paramount.

“In skill positions we‚ve made a lot of plays in the past few scrimmages and we‚ve done a good job up front,” Thompson says. “So it feels like going into Week 1, I can tell that we do have a lot of experienced guys on the field that‚ve been there before, and definitely ready to play.”

Special teams are always tough to train for due to the dynamic nature of the plays that call for them. There‚s a lot of variables that the special teams players need to understand to be effective, and a team‚s fate can be decided on their skill level and discipline.

“Game 1 is kind of the first time you get to see special teams live. It‚s something that you don‚t do in scrimmages,” Thompson says. “Special teams is a big focus for us, especially Week 1, because that‚s where you don‚t want to have any turnovers on special teams or give up any big plays. We put a lot of emphasis on special teams and having those guys ready.”

The 0-10 Wolves that Central beat 35-21 last year won‚t be the same team coming to play the Tigers this year.

“Heavener has definitely improved from last year to this year,” Thompson says. “They have a new coach, he‚s doing a good job, they‚re in the spread. Last week, they had the lead 27-24 at the half.

“They‚re throwing the ball and catching it extremely well. Their quarterback is a good player, and they‚re pretty solid in the skill positions, so we‚re going to definitely have to play assignment football and not have any busts in the secondary.”

Central faces off against a rejuvenated and hungry Heavener Wolves team looking for some retribution this week in non-district action, while Central fans are anxious for the new season to get underway.