Gans Grizzlies welcome Watts for tonight’s home opener
After two road losses by identical scores of 50-0 to Keota and Oaks, the Gans Grizzlies are anxious to be home, which will be the case when they play their home opener against the Watts Engineers at 7 tonight at Grizzly Field.
“I think everyone around here is excited about it,” Gans first-year coach Gary Hixon said. “A lot of people didn’t get to travel to Oaks because it was a midweek type of a game. Around the school everybody is excited. The community still seems to be fully involved with us. We’re looking forward to it.”
After last week’s loss, Hixon said that he was going to work more about getting the Grizzlies (0-2) better than he was necessarily worrying about the Engineers. However, while it may not be as bad, there is still some discipline issues he is dealing with this week.
“We watched a lot of film,” he said. “In my opinion, a lot of it is about want-to. The kids just don’t know how to win yet. We are trying to change that. Last week, we had a lot of discipline issues that we took care of. I’m still going to be without a kid over a discipline issue, but this group is setting the culture of what Grizzly football is all about. We’re going to have a freshman starting at quarterback due to the other issues we have. If it’s going to be a struggle this year, I might as well struggle with a freshman than with anybody older than him. We’re looking forward to the challenge. Hopefully, we can come out on top.”
The Engineers (0-1) lost their season opener 58-12 to Cave Springs last Friday night at home. Hixon said the Engineers like to play smashmouth football.
“They’re physical, just like Oaks was,” he said. “They line up in a power set. They like running it between the guards and center. They have a big back and he’s a load. He will come and load up on you. Their quarterback is not a small kid, either. He’s a left-hander, which gives us a little problem because is not normal for us to face a left-handed quarterback. They have another smaller back who can get outside. If he gets outside, he can go.
It’s what do we want to stop. We have to be better tacklers. We have to be more disciplined. We have to make sure we keep them contained, unlike we did against Oaks. Watts played Cave Springs last week. Cave Springs is really quick and fast. That’s something we’re not. We don’t have that kind of speed like Cave Springs does. That’s something we’re looking at to see, if we can muster something up similar to them.”
The good news is the Grizzlies are healthy, and Hixon said he’s trying to keep them that way.
“Everybody should be good to go,” the new Gans coach said. “We had practice (on Monday), and we had practice (Tuesday) and we went a little longer. I want to see what kind of want-to we have with our kids. We got after it (Tuesday). We’ve gone a little old school (this week in practices) as far as conditioning goes to like when I was playing. We have to be a lot better conditioned than what we were (last week against Oaks) — or that we currently are. We’re still trying to get that done.”
The Gans Youth Football League program will be recognized tonight.
“We’re going to celebrate our youth league,” Hixon said. “Hopefully, we can do that at halftime. That’s something I think is really important for our community. Hopefully, we’ll get a big turnout for that.”
