Black Diamonds to face Checotah in preseason scrimmage tonight
Once the Sallisaw Black Diamonds football team chose to play a Zero Week game to get the 2025 season going, which will begin at 7 p.m. next Friday at Pryor, it meant the Black Diamonds would only have one preseason scrimmage this season, which will be against the host Checotah Wildcats at 6 tonight at Checotah’s Ogle Field.
“It is what it is,” Sallisaw coach Brandon Tyler said. “We decided to play on Zero Week, so we knew we would lose a scrimmage. It’s football time in Oklahoma again. Our kids are excited. Our community is excited about it. We’re just looking forward to go over there (to Checotah) and see where we’re at right now.”
Tonight’s preseason scrimmage will be the first gametype situation for the Black Diamonds this season, and Tyler said his team is ready to face players who are not in orange and black.
“We’re ready to hit somebody else and kind of see where we’re at with our varsity — and our JV, too,” he said. “They’re going to get a lot of reps as well. We want to see where we’re in the last two weeks (of practice, that started Aug. 11).”
One big goal of tonight’s scrimmage deals with evaluating players.
“We want to try to get everyone on film and evaluate them from that, then try to make our corrections going into Zero Week against Pryor,” Tyler said.
Another big goal of tonight’s scrimmage is to see how the Black Diamonds do in all the intangibles.
“We just want to come out healthy,” Tyler said. “That’s the main key. We want to see effort, and the kids playing hard. That’s what we’ve built this program on. I think our kids are up to the challenge for that.”
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TO GET THERE — Take Interstate 40 to U.S. Business 69 in Checotah. Take U.S. Business 69 north to frontage road. Turn left on frontage road to Checotah High School’s Ogle Field.
