Tigers get to end regular season at home vs. Canadian

The Central Tigers were gift-wrapped a sixth home regular-season game by the Canadian Cougars, Central’s Week 10 and final District A-8 opponent of the 2023 season.

Instead of the Tigers visiting the Cougars on Friday night, Canadian will visit Central for a district game at 7 p.m. tonight (Thursday) at Tiger Stadium.

“Being able to finish out the regular season at home is a big deal for us going into Round 1 (of the Class A playoffs),” Central coach Jeremy Thompson said. “We want to come out and look sharp and play god football going into the playoffs.”

The Tigers (9-0 overall, 6-0 in district play) clinched the District A-8 title outright last Friday night with a 20-8 home win over the Panama Razorbacks. The win keeps their perfect season intact as well as sets up as many as two consecutive home playoff games — should they win their opener on Nov. 10.

However, that doesn’t mean tonight’s game won’t have a “business as usual” feel to it for the Tigers.

“Knowing that we have the district title, we’re looking this week to get better going into the playoffs — improving on things that we got to get better at,” Thompson said. “To move forward is key this time of year, and not be complacent in any way. We want to continue to get better.”

The Cougars (1-6-1, 0-6) have been outscored 368 to 48 this season. Their lone win was a 36-6 rout of Wewoka on Sept. 15 in the final non-district game. Their tie was a 6-all contest against Savanna on Sept. 8 when weather issues caused the game to get suspended, then subsequently called a tie.

However, Thompson said the Cougars will give it their all tonight to try to end the season with win No. 2 before they go back into 8-man football for at least the next two seasons.

“I know they’ve been looking for an offensive identity,” he said. “This is Week 10. They’re not in the playoffs. They’re definitely going to leave it all out on the field. They’ll do everything they can to win the football game. Being prepared for anything — even things you haven’t seen on film, which you always are — we have to come in focused. We want everything to be like it should on any game night. That’s always something that throughout this week we’ve been making sure we’re ready for.”

The Tigers still need to execute at a high level in all phases of the game tonight.

“The first thing is offensively we’ve got to come out and take care of the football,” Thompson said. “We can’t have turnovers. We have to establish the run game like we do each and every week. On the defensive side, we have to be sound. By Week 10, we’ve lined up to everything that we know how. We have to be mentally prepared to play as much as physically — actually more so. If we do those things, we’ll be fine.”

There could be a lot of Tigers see action tonight if the game gets into a romp in Central’s favor. If that happens, that can only benefit Central by allowing its reserves some valuable game time.

“We have a lot of very good young kids, guys I would love to be able to get on the field and get them some significant game time,” Thompson said. “That would be awesome, if that situation happens — but we have to come in and take care of business like we should.

• • •

District A-8 Standings

x — Clinched district title.

y — Clinched playoff berth.