Bulldogs host Checotah in District 3A-3 opener Friday

After holding its homecoming ceremony undefeated Muldrow takes on Checotah in its District 3A-3 opener Friday night as the Bulldogs look to register their fifth victory of the season.

Homecoming festivities begin at 6:15 p.m. and kickoff inside Aubrey J. Henshaw Stadium is scheduled for 7 p.m.

For the first time since 1993 Muldrow is off to a 4-0 start after the Bulldogs won 34-7 at Spiro (2-1) last week in its final nondistrict game. Checotah is 2-2 for the season. The Wildcats won 42-9 at Class 5A East Central in Tulsa before losing 63-18 at Sequoyah-Claremore, and after defeating Haskell 39-29 Checotah fell 45-7 to rival Eufaula at home.

“They‚re scary,” Muldrow head coach Brandon Ellis said. “They‚ve got some skilled guys and they‚re big. They‚ve got a tough little running back and they‚ve got a receiver that‚s committed to Arkansas. They‚ve got weapons.”

The Bulldogs and Checotah have not met since 2007 and in that contest Muldrow defeated the Wildcats 33-17.

Some of Checotah‚s key players on offense are wide receivers Elijah Thomas (6foot-1, 180-pound sophomore) and Jaydin Bray (6-0, 200, jr.), running back Kreed Hall (5-10, 195, sr.) and offensive lineman Jonah Marshall (6-0, 285, jr.).

“They‚re going to spread you out,” Ellis said. “They‚re going to go basically empty (backfield). They‚re going to go quads to one side, they‚ll go trips to one side and we haven‚t seen them have two backs in the backfield so they‚re a spread team. They‚re 50/50 (run/pass) on offense.

“On defense we‚re going to have to just stay sound on all of our assignments. It just kind of goes back to everything that we‚ve been doing. We can‚t do other people‚s jobs, they‚ve got to do their own jobs to lessen all of the confusion. If we just stick to our assignments I think we‚ve got a salty enough defense that will give them some problems.”

A few of the Wildcats‚ key players on defense are defensive linemen Levi Lawson (6-5, 330, sr.) and Levi Lowe (6-0, 215, sr.), linebacker Kreed Hall and cornerback Elijah Thomas.

“On defense they‚ll be in a fourfront,” said Ellis. “Sometimes they‚ll be in a 4-2, sometimes they‚ll be in a 4-3 and man you up on the outside.

“Again it comes down to turnovers. We want to control the line of scrimmage, not have any turnovers, slow the game down just a little bit and keep the ball out of their hands. It‚s Week 4 and we still have to clean things up in all three phases (offense, defense and special teams) of the game but I think we had one penalty last week on offense, no turnovers and we controlled the line of scrimmage so that‚s got to continue and continue this week. It has to.”

Ellis and his players know the importance of Friday‚s first district game.

“It‚s big,” Ellis said. “We‚ve been telling the kids all week ’there‚s two different seasons.‚ There‚s that preseason, which is the non-district stuff and now there‚s the district season right now. It‚s 0-0 going into this week, not that those other games didn‚t matter but they don‚t count nondistrict towards district. I think they (players) understand how important it is.”

Behind Muldrow offensive linemen Mason Osborne, Mark Gleason, Hayden Boyette, Levi Bishop, Ashton Williams and Devin Holland running back Trenden Collins rushed for 209 yards and three touchdowns last week in the Bulldogs‚ 34-7 win at Spiro.